"Skimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are they from North to South-land, Known of every tribe and race;— Swift in flight, yet swinging, swaying, Skimming low from ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... upholsterer, so that insular ideas of comfort might be fulfilled within. Without, the combination of mountain and sea, the vine-clad terraces, the chestnut slopes, the magical colours of the barer rocks, the coast-line trending far away, the azure Mediterranean, with the white-sailed feluccas skimming across it, filled Kalliope with the more transport because it satisfied the eyes that had unconsciously missed such colouring scenes ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I had finished my copying, I took the thing back, meaning to slip it under Miss Denistoun's cushion. But she had returned to her chair, and so I was caught red-handed. 'So it was you?' said she. 'What have you been doing with my magazine?' 'Skimming it,' said I—which was true enough, literally, but I didn't manage it very well. 'Did you find anything to interest you specially?' she asked. 'Well, yes,' I admitted;' I picked it up and lit on something that promised ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Tarkington's studies of boy life (especially Penrod), and of adolescence (especially Seventeen and Clarence). Judged by your own experience and observation, are they presented with true knowledge and humor, or are they a farcical skimming of surface eccentricities? Compare them with Mark Twain's books about boys and with ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... philosophizing with the lesson that it taught, John turned to dreaming of Consuello as the one he loved. His imagination, from which he slipped the leash of worry and care, pictured for him gloriously delightful, utterly impossible scenes—Consuello and he on a yacht skimming the rolling waves of the ocean off Catalina, leisurely inspecting some "gabled foreign town"; she another Princess Patricia with "silken gowns" and "jewels for her hair," loving and wedding him, a "commoner" like ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... and my father and mother, with high approval. It's quite silly and horrid fun, and what I want is the best book about the Buccaneers that can be had—the latter B's above all, Blackbeard and sich, and get Nutt or Bain to send it skimming by the fastest post. And now I know you'll write to me, for The Sea ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of sunbright mist, and found ourselves in the country—a friendly country of wide spaces such as we passed through in motoring between Amersfoort and Spaakenberg; of mossy farmhouses and hayfields, grazing cows, and swallows skimming low over little side-canals carpeted with vegetation like a netting of green beads. But here the hay was not protected by the elevated roofs of thatch we had seen yesterday. It lay in loose heaps of yellowing grass, shining in the sun like giant birds' nests of woven gold; and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... altitude reached by the balloon was three thousand feet, and this was registered about a couple of miles before we struck Highwood. For some distance before completing this descent we had been skimming along at about a thousand feet above the level of the fields, and the intention to drop being evident, a great crowd of rustics gallantly kept pace with the balloon for the last half-mile. By the time we were fairly settled down, half a hundred men, women, and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... would not be appreciated in the far-off land whither all Australian books must go for the sanction of their existence. Here again the British reader appears to be misjudged, for has he not accepted from another direction, and enjoyed, Democracy and Through One Administration? Mrs. Praed, lightly skimming the surface of Antipodean political life in two of her stories, has shown it to be not without humour, nor lacking in the elements of more serious interest. But she cannot be said to have exhibited any ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... sun shone on it so brightly, and it rolled so curiously when she pawed, that she picked it up in a mechanical way and trotted back over the rise, where are found herself at the Dog-town. Just then two great Prairie-hawks came skimming like pirates over the plain. As soon as they were in sight the Prairie- dogs all barked, jerking their tails at each bark, and hid below. When all were gone Tito walked on toward the hole of the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... saw it all plain before her; saw it, understood it, adored it, mourned it. Such women are shallow, not for want of a head upon their shoulders, but of ATTENTION. They do not really study anything: they have been taught at their schools the bad art of skimming; but let their hearts compel their brains to think and think, the result is considerable. The deepest philosopher never fathomed a character more thoroughly than this poor child fathomed her philosopher, when she had read his journal ten or eleven ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... his public duties, and to read those letters which to-day's post had brought him from all parts of the world, and which his secretary was accustomed to place in his study at this hour. He took a letter, broke the seal hastily, and skimming over it quickly, threw it aside and opened another, to read anew the complaints, the prayers, the flatteries, the assurances of love, of his correspondents. But none of them were calculated to compel the minister's attention. He had long ago hardened his heart against prayers and complaints; as ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... holding tight by its tail, no longer soaring but skimming the ground. Once or twice the poor kite was entangled in the branches, Walter freed it, and off it set again at a fine pace up ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... for boating. Even at low tide people could get on the water, and in the summer time this gay sheet of dark blue sparkling waves had many small yachts, fishing smacks, and row-boats of all sizes and descriptions skimming about on its surface. In the spring a large fishing trade was done here, and then the steamers whistle? and shrieked, and disturbed the primitive harmony of the place. But by midsummer the great shoals of mackerel went away, and with them the dark picturesque hookers, and the ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... rest of the time, till dark, was taken up with sharp-shooting, and artillery fire. A farmhouse and outbuildings and barn stood right behind our position, and, I remember, the barn swallows in large numbers were skimming and twittering all around, through the sweet, bright air, while shells and balls were singing a very different sort of song. I never saw that sight during the war but this once,—birds flying about in the midst of a battle. But here, those dear little swallows circled ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... following its graceful windings—sometimes touching bottom, and sometimes skimming smoothly over deep water, where Kitty could no longer clutch for the tall, bright grass that here and there had reared itself above the surface. Often Big Tom would sing out, "Lie low!" as some great bough, hanging over the stream, seemed stretching out ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... great ships seemed touching the shore; and so narrow is the mouth, that we almost wondered how they had made their entrance in safety. But we saw it some weeks later, with nine men-of-war towering above all its merchant shipping and its steamers, and among them crowds of ferryboats skimming about in the breeze with their wing-like sails. Then we found out that, like the rest of Greece, the Peiraeus was ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... than wind! I haunt the pine-dark solitudes, With soft, brown silence carpeted, And think to snare thee in the woods: Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled! I find the rock where thou didst rest, The moss thy skimming foot hath prest; All Nature with thy parting thrills, Like branches after birds new-flown; Thy passage hill and hollow fills With hints of virtue not their own; In dimples still the water slips Where thou hast dipped thy finger-tips; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you, astride the rudder of this thing, with a punt-pole as long as a ship's mast and as light as a broom-straw, bumping and skipping along in the utter darkness on the other side of the Moon; scaling mountains, bridging yawning chasms, and skimming over sombre sea-beds!" I laughed, for it aroused my active sense of ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... He, skimming the terrace with a fleet foot, was that domain's recognised heir, Lionel Verner. Tynn and others were standing in the hall, talking in groups, as is the custom with dependents when something unusual and exciting is going on. Lionel ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and threw myself clown in an arm-chair near the window, and watched the white-sailed boats skimming like flecks of silver across the blue-green water. The tinkling of a tambourine by and by attracted my wandering attention, and looking into the street just below my balcony I saw a young girl dancing. She was lovely to look at, and she danced with exquisite grace as well as modesty, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... no great chance of Gertrude again encountering her hero, for the morning after their day at Stoneborough Lance was beginning to experiment on his powers by skimming newspapers, especially the Pursuivant, because he knew it before, all but the last local items, that could only be added at the moment of going to press. Suddenly he broke out, 'Holloa! you never told me this! Mowbray Smith has put his foot in it ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... demanding the sudden leap which shot the blood tingling through the eager body. For the light skis with their three coats of shellac carried her down the steeper slopes with the wild speed of a bird skimming ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... and glanced over the book; not the minute examination with the reading glass which I had given it; that mere flirt of a glance which, when I had first noticed it the night before at Tait's, skimming across that description of Clayte, had seemed so inadequate. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... them by her side. She smiled her thanks to him; she knew it was the same who had hovered over her to shade her with his wings. They were now so high, that a large ship beneath them looked like a white sea-gull skimming the waves. A great cloud floating behind them appeared like a vast mountain, and upon it Eliza saw her own shadow and those of the eleven swans, looking gigantic in size. Altogether it formed a more beautiful picture than she had ever seen; but as the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... tit and perky wren Popped through the tiny doors of cosy balls And the blackbird lined with moss his high-built walls; A round mud cottage held the thrush's young, And straws from the untidy sparrow's hung. And, skimming forktailed in the evening air, When man first was were not the martens there? Did not those birds some human shelter crave, And stow beneath the cornice of his cave Their dry tight cups of clay? And from each door Peeped on a morning wiseheads ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... I'm entirely reconciled to staying here," returned Kit. "Poppycheek, you are a wonderful dancer! You're like a butterfly skimming over a cobweb!" ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... shopping worms, and was too prevalent in Park Lane for my peace of mind. There were also enormous drays, which looked, as our frail bark passed under their bows, like huge Atlantic liners. The hansoms were fierce black sharks skimming viciously round us, and there were other monsters whose forms I had no time to analyse: but into the midst of this seething ocean Molly pitilessly hurled us. How we slipped into spaces half our own ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in dressing, driving, dining and dancing; in skimming novels, and embroidering muslin; going to church with a velvet prayer-book and a new bonnet; and writing to her husband when she wanted money, for she had a husband somewhere abroad, who so happily combined business with pleasure that ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... when he was gone, instead of indulging herself with watching him down the mountain. She was busy skimming bowl after bowl of rich milk, when Frolich ran in to say that Stiorna had dressed herself, and put up her bundle, and was setting forth homewards, to see, as she said, the truth of things there;—which meant, of course, to learn Hund's condition and prospects. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... daunted, Boyton paddles onward for another hour. He then sends the laconic message, 'All right!' by the first pigeon post of the Folkestone Pigeon Club. Wind w.s.-w. Captain Boyton hoists sail again at twenty-five minutes to ten and now scuds along beautifully, like some large sea-bird skimming over the blue waves. A critical time for him approaches. Captain Dane relieves the mate as pilot. When he is pulled out to Boyton, the daring voyager is paddling mechanically. He is very drowsy. Captain Dane's quiet, calm encouragement revives ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... with some wood, consisting of an old venerable plantation of mountain pine, that hung on the convex sweep of a large knoll away to my right,—with a broad sheet of lake that curled to the fresh arrowy breeze of morning, on which a variety of water-fowl were flapping their wings or skimming along, leaving a troubled track on the peaceful waters behind them; there were also deep intersections of precipitous or sloping glens, graced with hazel, holly, and every description of copse-wood. On other occasions I have drunk ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... dense frozen fog hung continually over the surface of the lake. Covered by this curtain, large supplies of men, provisions, and ammunition were daily introduced into the city, notwithstanding all the efforts of the besieging force. Sledges skimming over the ice, men, women, and even children, moving on their skates as swiftly as the wind, all brought their contributions in the course of the short dark days and long nights of December, in which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... glanced away. Neither of these two suspected that she was a spell-bound maiden skimming over the blue waves in an enchanted shallop to some blest island, where waited a magical berry that would set her free. How should they understand that this holiday picnic was ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... this first trouble and sorrow of her life upon her, and with the full understanding in her heart that all which had passed before this day was nothing but the skimming of light shadows across her way, Joan rode homeward. A mile, and the drooping shoulders stiffened; the bent head lifted; Joan looked about her at the sun making the sheeplands glad. A mile, and the short breath of anger died out of her panting lungs, the long, deep ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... rise of the next range. Now, Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,—for with the little chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back, she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long, cruel ascent ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... caique, cigarette in hand, lounged the nephew of the Khedive, Mahmoud Bey; scarce twenty, slight, oval face with full lips, hair black as sealskin and as soft, and eyes that smouldered under heavy lids. Four rowers in blue and silver attended his Highness, the amber-colored boat skimming the waters as a ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the busy-looking town and the verdant hills beyond, with white villas nestling amid the green, like Madeira, and big, gru-gru palms and agaves, with other odd, broad-foliaged plants to tell that we were in more outlandish latitudes; while, skimming over the glassy blue water, that turned to an emerald green in its depths and was so transparent that the sandy bottom could be seen, with various molluscs crawling about amongst the algas, were hundreds ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sea wall as if she would throw herself into the ocean, which advanced and retreated, seething around his body. But a different fate was to be hers. As she leaped forward two strong wings sprouted from her shoulders, and before she knew it she found herself skimming lightly as a bird over the water. From her throat came sounds of sobbing, which changed as she flew into the shrill piping of a bird. Soft feathers now covered her body, and a crest rose above the forehead which had once been so fair. Halcyone was ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... grotto, followed by Porthos. Dawn just tinted with purple and white the waves and plain; through the dim light, melancholy fir-trees waved their tender branches over the pebbles, and long flights of crows were skimming with their black wings the shimmering fields of buckwheat. In a quarter of an hour it would be clear daylight; the wakened birds announced it to all nature. The barkings which had been heard, which had stopped the three fishermen engaged in moving the boat, and had brought Aramis ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ridiculous. It is the same old useless effort, with the same impossible agents. But to-day, within twenty miles of Trinity steeple, lives the man who can give to the world the secret of navigating the air, in calm or in storm, with the wind or against it; skimming the earth, or in the highest currents, just as he wills, with all the ease, and all the swiftness, and all the exactitude ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley
... now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the breeze and a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong sunlight. His face was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope. Leaning over the side, the Prodigal was dragging ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... this pretty little miss skimming from booth to booth, in a very pretty manner. One pretty little fellow called Wyerley, perhaps; another jiggeting rascal called Biron, a third simpering varlet of the name of Symmes, and a more hideous villain than any of the reset, with a long ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... blossoms; and the cows going to pasture; and yellow butterflies skimming about; and the nice warm days; and ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospects; but, thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. (32) Dowagers, as plenty as flounders, inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... water, like a spaniel dog, ye'll no find it cauld," said Hughie, taking her hand and leading her in. But Bertha still thought it cold; she caught her breath, and shrieked at every step, frightened not only at the rising water, but at the tiny fishes within it, and even at the insects skimming along its surface. As Hughie was leading her out, she trod on a stone and cut one of her delicate feet quite severely. Then, when she reached the shore, she found that she could not get on her stockings and shoes, and with her eyes full of tears she said, "Ah me! what ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... direction and depth; she mastered the desired depth with ease and exactness; at full power she attained the anticipated speed of from nine to ten knots; the lighting was excellent, there was no difficulty about heating. It was a strange sight to see the vessel skimming along the top of the water, suddenly give a downward plunge with its snout, and disappear with a shark-like wriggle of its stern, only to come up again at a distance out and in an unlooked-for direction. A few small matters connected with the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the little Fairy. Sun, moon, and stars cheered her, and winds were propitious, so that our voyagers soon found themselves skimming over the billows of the ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... put two pounds of beef cut from the lower part of the round, into two quarts of cold water and let come slowly to the boil, skimming carefully until perfectly clear. When this point is reached, add a small onion, two stalks of celery, two cloves, and keep at the boiling point for seven hours; then strain into an earthen bowl and let cool until next day. A half hour before ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... wondering how long the tragedy had taken, and whether his screams had been audible at the pavilion. And then, making a strong resolution, I was about to tear myself away, when a gust fiercer than usual fell upon this quarter of the beach, and I saw, now whirling high in air, now skimming lightly across the surface of the sands, a soft, black, felt hat, somewhat conical in shape, such as I had remarked already on the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... There are, however, some grounds to believe that a lake or run of fresh water exists not far from Denial Bay: the flock of teal seen upon the western Isle of St. Peter, and the number of winged, fresh-water insects skimming the surface of that bay, are the grounds ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... Tom talked until the air of the small hours drove them below, and they saw the yacht skimming among the quiet fleet. There was enough wind to move the trawls, but the lonely procession did not travel as on that tremendous night when Lewis first learnt what a regular ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the MAID OF ORLEANS!" The first time that that immortal name was ever uttered—and I, praise God, was there to hear it! The mass divided itself like the waters of the Red Sea, and down this lane Joan went skimming like a bird, crying, "Forward, French hearts—follow me!" and we came winging in her wake on the rest of the borrowed horses, the holy standard streaming above us, and the lane closing together in ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... sufficiently considered how far the moral and physical health of the modern city depends upon the constant influx of fresh blood from the country, which has ever been the source from which the town draws its best citizenship? You cannot keep on indefinitely skimming the pan and have equally good milk left. In America the drain may continue a while longer without the inevitable consequences becoming plainly visible. But sooner or later, if the balance of trade in this human traffic be not adjusted, the raw material out of which urban society is made will be ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... a beautiful flat one skimming along with nearly a dozen hops in the brilliant track of the moon on the water. She did not pay any attention to me at first, and I kept skipping away, just as if I did not see her mopping her eyes. By-and-by a stroke worthy of myself sent a pebble spinning through the ripples, and Mary's ready ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... embarked and pulled up under lovely verdant banks, which are occupied by villas, till we reached the arm of the lake that stretches towards the south-west. Here a fair breeze struck us, and making sail, away we went, skimming before it, at the rate of eight miles an hour. Once or twice the wind came with a power that showed how necessary it is to be cautious on a water that is bounded by so many precipitous rocks. We passed the solitary tower of Stanztad on the wing, and reached Alpnach ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of common Sugar and one pint of water over a slow fire for half an hour without skimming. When boiled enough take it off, rub your hands over with butter; take that which is a little cooled and pull it as you would molasses candy, until it is white; then twist or braid it and ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... tea meets us half an hour after we had finished. In some places the banks of the canals are so high that only our heads appear level with the fields, and it is, as Minora noted in her book, a curious sight to see three female heads skimming along apparently by themselves, and enjoying it tremendously. When the banks are low, we appear to be gliding deliciously over the roughest ploughed fields, with or without legs according to circumstances. Before we start, I fix on the place where tea and a sleigh are to meet us, and ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... in Edred's eyes despite his joy and relief. But Julian had room only for the latter feeling, and waved his cap with an air of exultant triumph as the sails expanded more and more and the little vessel went skimming its way ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... illustrated it by sending a stone skimming over the water in the most scientific manner. Mr. Joe was painfully aware that this was not at all "the thing," that his sisters never did so, and that Seguin would laugh confoundedly, if he caught him at it; but Debby looked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... finished the repairs to the wall, they went on, and a little later he heard a sharp "Cruck—cruck-curruck," to one side of him. Swinging around, he saw a grouse skimming the heather. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... waterfall alone lifted a louder voice to the eternal whisper of the pines. The forest looked calmly down upon this flower of a civilization which no man in its first experience of man would have ventured to forecast, skimming the water to keep tryst with one whose ancestors had hewn a rougher wilderness than this down to a market-place that their inheritor might win the higher honours of ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... there now, with the prompt-book on her knee, on which her eye roves listlessly from time to time, you may behold her, the vine-leaves clustering from their arching trellis over the door behind, and the lazy white-sailed boats skimming along ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sea, and rocky isles, with patches of the most beautiful greensward, but with scarcely a single tree. The waves are leaping in whiteness against the cliffs, and thousands of sea-birds are floating in long lines on the billows, or skimming past you singly, and diving into the clear hissing waters as they near your vessel. One of the very first objects which arrests your senses is the Coryvreckan, or great whirlpool of the Hebrides, an awful feature in all the poetry and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... went slowly over; the iceboat swooped around like a great bird skimming the ice. Then, in a minute, it was headed back up the lake toward ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... and it lightened up a little. There lay the felucca, waiting for the boat; and the men were reluctantly going into the latter again, when the commander of the felucca waved his hand to us, his craft fell off and filled, wing-and-wing, skimming away towards the coast, like a duck. We stood gaping and staring at her, not knowing what to make of this manoeuvre, when "bang!" went a heavy gun, a little on our weather quarter. The shot passed our wake, for we had filled our topsail, and it went skipping from sea to sea, after ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... that of her aunt. She was a better souffre-douleur, was less of a restraint, and was besides his regular reader and amanuensis, so that as the force of the attack abated, he kept her a good deal in his room during the latter part of the day, imparting scraps of intelligence, skimming the papers for him, and reading ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... next morning the judge proposed a sleigh ride, and soon the entire party were skimming over the ground in two big old-fashioned sleighs. Though the day was fairly cold, the guests were too warmly wrapped to pay any attention to the weather, and keenly enjoyed every moment ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... cakes and fragrant new bread reached them. The cuckoo's note was distinctly audible in the distance; a brown bee had buried himself in the calyx of one of the lilies; and some white butterflies were skimming over the flower-beds. The sweet stillness of the summer afternoon seemed to lull her into a reverie; how impossible it was to realise sin and sorrow and broken hearts and the great hungry needs of humanity, when the sky was so blue and ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the Kolowdnia, which had been badly repaired, General Gudin, whose well-regulated valour loved to confront none but useful dangers, and who besides was not a bold rider, had alighted from his horse to cross the stream, when, at that moment, a cannon-ball skimming the surface of the ground, broke both his legs. When the tidings of this misfortune reached the emperor, they put a stop to every thing—to discussion and action. Every one was thunderstruck; the victory of Valoutina seemed no longer to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... and climbed into a nearby jet boat. The enlisted spaceman at the controls sent the tiny vessel skimming across the broad expanse of the spaceport toward the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... overworked editor, hastily skimming the heap of MSS. before him, comes upon one which promises well in the opening paragraphs, he will turn to its conclusion, to learn how well the author has kept his promise; and if he finds there equal evidence of a ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... love it all! Think of the joy of skimming over half the earth—seeing it born again out of darkness every morning! Sometimes, when I've been up all night with a patient, and have seen the world come back to me like that, I've been almost mad with its beauty; and then the thought that I've never seen more than a little corner of it ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... calm Fort Canibas. A raucous voice bellowed oratory of some sort, and yells and laughter and cheers punctuated the speech. Thornton knew the voice, even at that distance, for the voice of "War Eagle" Niles. He grinned, reading his paper. The sound of that voice salted the article that he was skimming: ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... with the skipper about the weather. They were, he concluded, some three hundred and fifty miles out to sea. If this storm meant grave dangers to them, what must it mean to two boys in a seaplane skimming through the air over the sea? He shivered ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... are the most numerous in Alaska and are even more graceful in flight than are the Gulls and Terns, floating, skimming, sailing, plunging, and darting about with incredible swiftness and ease. Like the others of this family, they pilfer their food from the Gulls, and are also very destructive to young birds and eggs. Their ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... dotted the waters, while innumerable spars and packages were littered over the sands. These were being drawn up and collected in a place of safety by gangs of peasants. I noticed that a couple of broad-winged gulls were hovering and skimming over the scene of the shipwreck, as though many strange things were visible to them beneath the waves. At times we could hear their raucous voices as they cried to one another of ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... white shad, now so highly prized in our markets, were then a drug. It was the prettiest sight in the early dawn of a spring morning to see the fishermen skimming down the broad river with their dip-nets poised for a catch. My opportunities for seeing them at that early hour were from my bedroom window, when I happened to be visiting the family at Conacanara. Our home at Runiroi stood some distance from the river, but the dwelling at ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... hot for a moment with fear for her, then it grew hotter with admiration as he watched her skimming across the moor in the direction of the Hall. Once, just before she vanished from his sight, she turned and waved her hand to him as if to assure him that she was safe. The gesture reminded him of the white figure standing in the doorway last night, and something stirred in ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... this she tore off her jewels and the ribbons from her hair, and threw them from her into the bushes, and then she hurried home, weeping. At the door of the dairy sat her mother, skimming milk. When she saw Aino weeping she asked her what it was that troubled her. Aino, in reply, told her all that had happened in the forest, and how she had thrown away from her ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... Czarism? They were either holding their peace, or breaking forth into adulation of the anointed of the Lord—a musician and comedian like Nero, of a sharp and superficial intelligence, who believed that by merely skimming through anything he knew it all. Eager to strike a spectacular pose in history, he had finally afflicted the world with ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... before she had finished giving her directions, and as she watched the nimble feet skimming through the clover, she smiled tenderly, then sighed and looked sadly down at her own useless limbs which would never bear her weight again. How many years of existence must she endure in her crippled helplessness? Oh, the bitterness of it! And yet as ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... His every effort was bent on speed. Speed indeed it was. The wind roared in my ears. Yet above its surge I heard the neighing and squealing, the ever-approaching shudder of hoofs. My eyes distorted all they looked on. I seemed now floating twenty feet in air; now skimming within touch of ground. Now that sorrel squadron behind me swelled and nodded; now dwindled to ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... suffering. He could not work before breakfast—his delicate digestion forbade that—or he would have risen still earlier, and he employed the twenty minutes he had between his bath and his breakfast in skimming the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... industrious ants covering the small turf-hills, all which were to us "signs of life," and living in the world. We had already seen, before entering the fair plain, a small flight of larks, and now we feasted our eyes on a few swallows skimming this "flowery mead," for here and there were pretty blue and red and yellow wild flowers. A moment I forgot being in The Desert. The abundance of the herbage arises from there having recently fallen copious showers of rain—quite unusual in this thirsty country. But our route is the worst ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... under an anesthetic this time but skimming along in electric motors enough like ours to be quite recognizable, each of us in a separate vehicle with one able-bodied lady on either ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... CLAMS—Place a knuckle of veal, weighing about a pound and one-half, into a soup kettle, with a quart of water, one small onion, a sprig of parsley, a bay leaf, and the liquor drained from the clams, and simmer gradually for an hour and a half, skimming from time to time; strain the soup and again place it in the kettle; rub a couple of tablespoonfuls of butter with an equal amount of flour together and add it to the soup when it is boiling, stirring until again boiling; chop up twenty-five clams very fine, then place them in the soup, ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... to avoid touching the sides or top of the enclosure when she was at her gambols. At such times, when she was at her wildest, she was all over the place, skipping high like a lamb, twisting like a leveret, wheeling round and round in circles like a young dog, or skimming, like a swallow on the wing, above ground. But she never made a mistake; she turned in a moment or flung herself backward if there was the least risk of contact. When Florrie used to converse with her from outside, in that curious silent way the two had, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... faces, Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions, Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not, Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow, Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall return to, Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination! Let us not talk of growth; we are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... was skimming over the surface of the water, and Mr. Van de Werve was explaining to Signor Deodati the various edifices which were worthy of remark, there stood upon the shore, at a corner of the dock-yard, a man who coolly followed the boat with his eyes, and who endeavored to comprehend what was passing in the ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... this union would gain thereby. But one European country would be the loser, Great Britain, the land of promise for the middleman; that, according to German comprehension, at present gains a living by skimming the cream from the trade industry of other nations by facilitating the exchange of goods, and making profits by being the banking ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... prescription as a substitute, inwardly digest it, and recover? No,—I think you have tested the actual materia medica recommended. I hear of you from all directions, walking up hills in the mornings and down hills in the afternoons, skimming round in wherries like a rather unsteady water-spider, blistering your hands upon gymnastic bars, receiving severe contusions on your nose from cricket-balls, shaking up and down on hard-trotting horses, and making the most startling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... did. He whipped out a knife, but found it suddenly knocked out of his hand, and sent skimming like a silver flying fish far over the gleaming river. He followed up the attack with an assault from both hands and feet, but soon discovered that he had to deal with an artist. He gathered himself up at the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... spectators, watching Larry whirl, turn turtle, and perform all the aviation agonies so fascinating to the untutored. When he shut off the engine and swung down, skimming the ground for a way and stopping gently, she was in ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... she was happier than she had ever been even in those first weeks, when she had barred the gates of her fool's paradise behind her; she felt as free and happy as the birds skimming over the beds of periwinkle below her window, and (miraculously finding her second youth quite as productive as her first) took no pains to conceive of anything better. She looked neither forward nor back, and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... a floating drapery, forming magnificent canopies of verdure upon the sides of the rocks. The sea birds, allured by the stillness of those retreats, resorted thither to pass the night. At the hour of sunset we perceived the curlew and the stint skimming along the sea shore; the cardinal poised high in air; and the white bird of the tropic, which abandons, with the star of day, the solitudes of the Indian ocean. Virginia loved to repose upon the border of this fountain, decorated with wild and sublime magnificence. ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... on she flew, light as a skimming leaf in the wind, the cat bounding in easy, flexible curves beside her. Now a little brown cottage in its plot of land sent them into the road for a moment; now some tiny pond, a mirror for the sprinkled ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... gazed at him admiringly, and shot a glance at Brother Bonaday. But Brother Bonaday's eyes had wandered off again to the skimming swallows. ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it. The next he worked at hardest, and finished, but with less deliberation. He grew more and more careless toward the books he counted of little consequence, while he imagined himself growing more and more capable of getting at the heart of a book by skimming its pages. If to skim be ever a true faculty, it must come of long experience in the art of reading, and is not possible to a beginner. To skim and judge, is to wake from a doze and give the charge to ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... something as singular about the walk of my companion, as about his appearance. He went at a great pace, but his progress was entirely noiseless. You would have said that he was skimming ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... beneath him, and the one wing that bore him skimming over its million deaths, away to the House of Lossie, where it stood steady in its woods, he distinguished the very window whence, hardly an hour ago, from the centre of the calm companionship of books, he had gazed out upon the wind swept waste as ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... where Miss Kalski's lightning eye was skimming over the printing-house bills that he was supposed ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... and we leaked badly in the bow-planks; but, notwithstanding the roughness of the sea, we went with incredible swiftness. "Hoorah!" burst from every lip. We exultingly took off our hats, and gave three hearty cheers; but while we were skimming along so gallantly, the whale suddenly turned, and pitched the boat on her beam-ends. Every one who could grasp a thwart hung on to it, and we were all fortunate enough to keep our seats. For as much as a ship's length the boat flew through the water on her gunwale, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... in a broad shining expanse opposite to him, sparkled dancingly in the warm sunshine, and the snowy sails of many yachts and pleasure-boats dipped now and again into the glittering waves like white birds skimming over the tiny flashing foam-crests. Dazzling and well-nigh blinding to his eyes were the burning glow and exquisite radiance of colour which seemed melted like gold and sapphire into that bright half-circle of water and sky,—beautiful, and full ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... these birds came down close, skimming over the water and the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moon shone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made—no sound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now than ever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of the ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... garage at the back of the house and giving the matter little more thought. It had been arranged that he was to bring the aeroplane back that morning, driving over with Peggy, Jimsy and Jess in the car, and skimming home in the Butterfly while a part of the party brought the car back. They were to call for Jess and Jimsy at their home, a fine residence overlooking the Sound from ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... attention to the upper regions, hoping to glimpse the aerostat, and holding matches in readiness to raise a flare by way of alighting signal. But it was not until the early dawn that Bruno caught sight of the air-ship, just skimming the tree-tops, the better to escape observation ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... hashish case; he stored the stuff in a china warehouse within the city precincts, and at that time he did not come within my sphere. But I looked into it privately, and I could see that the prosecution was merely skimming the surface; we are only beginning to get down to ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... His face shone, his voice was a deep and happy music. He was so bound, so at the feet of Elspeth, that he could not but believe in joy and fortune. The sun had dipped; the land lay dusk, but the sky was a rose. There was a skimming of swallows overhead, a singing of the wind in the ling. He walked with White Farm to the foot of the moor, then said good night and turned toward ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck, and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the neighbors could hear this woman's tongue, and understand her doings; bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the floor, and poor Gambouge's oil and varnish pots went clattering through the windows, or down the stairs. The baby roared all day; and Simon sat pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sup at the brandy-bottle, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she turned the mare and went skimming up the drive toward the stable, she wondered why ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... as he was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighbouring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the churn, in vain the dairymaid would labour to change her cream into butter: nor had the village swains any better success; whenever Puck chose to play ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... collecting it. This tree which abounds to the southward is not I believe found to the northward of the Saskatchewan. The Indians obtain the sap by making incisions into the tree. They boil it down and evaporate the water, skimming off the impurities. They are so fond of sweets that after this simple process they set an extravagant price ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... squall, fleeing from the high sea under the threat of approaching tempests. At the mouth of the southern rivers, of the Adour, of the Nivelle, of the Bidassoa which runs by Spain, they wandered above the waters already cold, flying low, skimming, with their wings over the mirror-like surfaces. And their cries, at the fall of the October night, seemed to ring the annual half-death of the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... in Solon's battered chair with the missing castor, surveyed his exchange-laden desk with a humorous eye, and seized the last Argus, skimming its local columns with a lively interest and professing to be enthralled by its word-magic. She read stray items that commended themselves to her critical judgment, such as, "A wind blew last week that you could lean up against like the side of the ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... hill-crests and the clouds that spread green and heavy across the sky. I could see the lower fringes of the clouds working and writhing in the wind, but not a sound or a breath was in the air about me. Around me over my roof flew the night-hawks. They were crying peevishly and skimming close to the chimneys, not rising, as usual, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... tree at once—hadn't the energy to move. Everything looked so hot and not a breath of air anywhere. The moat looked glazed—so absolutely still under the bright summer sun—big flies were buzzing and skimming over the surface, and the flowers and plants were ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... more and more interesting. Presently some Nain Eskimoes caught sight of the "Harmony," and posted off to the station in their sailing boat, which kept ahead the whole way. Two men came to meet us in their kayaks, and paddled alongside for some time, their light skin boats skimming over the water as easily as the flock of ducks which had just crossed our bows. Passing the island Taktuk, a salute fired by the one Eskimo visible was followed by such a concert of howls from his dogs seated in a row on a rock as made us all laugh. Next the Kauk came in view, ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... the tow-line was cast off, he hoisted sail, and, skimming out by lighthouse and breakwater, tripped away toward Pointe-aux-Herbes and the eastern skyline beyond, he and Sweetheart alone, his hand clasping hers—the tiller, that is—hour by hour, and the small waves tiptoeing to kiss her southern cheek as she ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... was determined, Jack was told to let go his hold, the sheet was drawn aft, and away sped the boat. No sooner did Mulford cause the little craft to keep away than it almost flew, as if conscious it were bound to its proper home, skimming swiftly over the waves, like a bird returning eagerly to its nest. An hour later the party breakfasted. While at this meal, Jack Tier pointed out to the mate a white speck, in the south-eastern board, which he took to be the brig ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... stubble, as if all the world were watching him. And he kept a sharp eye cocked upwards at the sky, lest Henry Hawk should surprise him. Besides, he had heard the boom of a bittern that morning. And the day before he had seen a butcher-bird skimming low over the meadow. ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... equal than I at first imagined; for the inhabitants describe with warmth the pleasures of a winter at the thoughts of which I shudder. Not only their parties of pleasure but of business are reserved for this season, when they travel with astonishing rapidity the most direct way, skimming over hedge and ditch. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... let me enjoy it. Let me be childish; be thou childish with me. Freedom invites me! Oh, let me employ it Skimming with winged step light o'er the lea; Have I escaped from this mansion of mourning? Holds me no more the sad dungeon of care? Let me, with joy and with eagerness burning, Drink in the free, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... crabs scrambled crookedly along, or dug graves for themselves in the dry waved sand. The girl watched them idly, as she flapped long ribbons of brown seaweed, or dribbled the water through her hollowed hands, while a tired sea-gull that had lowered wing was skimming slowly along the ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the water clear, yet apparently motionless, the opposite shore heavily timbered. Owing to a sharp curve I could see scarcely a hundred yards in either direction, yet close in beside the shore a light boat was skimming over the gray water. Even as I gazed, the fellow plying the paddle saw me, and waved his hand. In another moment the bow grounded on the bank and its occupant came stumbling ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... swept along; his own little skiff safe at her moorings, undulating with the swell; the sea-gulls, who but a few hours ago were screaming with dismay as they buffeted against the fury of the gale, now skimming on the waves, or balanced on the wing near to their inaccessible retreats; the carolling of the smaller birds on every side of him, produced a lightness of heart and quickened pulse, to which Edward Forster ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... say that no fear was experienced upon the part of any of the company would not be strictly true. The ladies were pale and silent, and stood with their arms about each other. Very little was said by any one, for the sensation of skimming through the air at the rate of more than twenty miles an hour at this elevation was too novel and thrilling to admit of conversation. All experienced more or less of vertigo and nausea, but the Doctor promptly controlled these ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... close, and dark, And flanked with antique masonry, The shelving eaves left for an ark But one long strip of summer sky. But one long line to bless the eye— The thin white cloud lay not so high, Only some brown bird, skimming nigh, From wings whence all the dew was dry Shook down a dream of forest scents, Of odorous blooms and sweet contents, Upon the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... yet, sir,' said the first lieutenant, as the schooner appeared skimming along about a cable's ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... have not been accessible to me; and there must be many of which I have never heard. On the other hand, the list of books from which my gems have been selected by no means indicates the extent of my reading—or skimming. I have gone through many books and pamphlets which furnished no quotable extracts, but none that diverged in tone from the rest, or marred the majestic unison of German self-laudation and contempt for the rest of the world. I have read of (but not seen) a book by one F.W. Foerster which is ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... bunch of palmetto a pair of horns were visible; and a herd of wild cattle, incredibly thin and fleet, leaped with a snort into the open, stared an instant at the intruders and sprang out of sight with the speed of deer. A covey of small, brown quail broke close at hand and sailed away, skimming the top of the grass. Fox squirrels were to be seen through the hanging moss on the cypress trees. A great whooping crane waded into view and flapped away in clumsy fashion. A flock of teal duck, flying swift and true as an arrow, came winging their way ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... While Beatrice was skimming through school and taking walking trips through Norway punctuated by fleeting visits home, remaining as childish and unconcerned as to vital things as her mother had been at fourteen, Steve left the Constantine factory and took ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Moreover, she could not possibly get up. Yes, on the whole she was pleased to see Chirac. He was almost her only acquaintance, assuredly the only being whom she could by any stretch of meaning call a friend, in the whole of Europe. Gerald and she had wandered to and fro, skimming always over the real life of nations, and never penetrating into it. There was no place for them, because they had made none. With the exception of Chirac, whom an accident of business had thrown, into Gerald's company years before, they had ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... down the parchment pages of an immense register (one of a long series of similar volumes) gorged with burials. Over the fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults underneath the church; and Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of it aloud, by way of enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs Dombey's tomb in full, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Divina Commedia is the difficulty and obscurity of the Paradiso. It is not easy reading, because it requires study, repetition, concentration, meditation, qualities absent from the art of reading as it prevails today. If we ever have time to look at a book, the habit of skimming with inattentive rapidity so urges us onward that we find ourselves flitting from page to page, from chapter to chapter, panting and uninstructed. And if we belong to the bookless majority who have no time to read, we rush to the moving picture theatre to get ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... report as it ran out at the hawser hole, and the ship swung gradually with the set of the current, leaving her stern towards the shore. But a few moments elapsed before Capt. Ratlin and his two passengers, with such articles as they had brought on board, were skimming over the short space between the ship and the shore, propelled by a half-dozen stout rowers. It had already been explained to them that at first it would be necessary to land them and offer them shelter at Don Leonardo's slave factory, until a mode of ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... skimming were, and how far more philosophical his appreciation of Hindu literature had then become, may be seen from the end of the same letter, written ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Every morning scores of little fishing vessels came down the river, shot past like arrows, and disappeared beyond the bar. At night they came home again slowly; sometimes with their sails cross-set, which made them look like great white butterflies skimming the water. Hetty never wearied of watching them: still pictures never wholly pleased her. The things in nature which had motion, evident aim, purpose, arrested her eye, and gave ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... the Flying Corps, in dark blue with wings on their sleeves, strolled past me; and once, roused by exclamations and pointing fingers, I looked up to see a monoplane, light and graceful as a darting bird, skimming above our heads. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... to be following him. Several miles from his cabin, he stumbled upon something buried in the snow; there was a sharp click, and with a sudden grunt of pain he sank to the ground, his axe flying from his hand and skimming for some distance over ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... when, on the day we came home, I happened to take up the Times in the railway carriage. I hate newspapers in a common way, but one reads such things when one is travelling, and out of mere idleness I amused myself skimming the advertisements, which I found ever so much more interesting than the leading articles. What should my eye light upon but an advertisement from a young lady wanting to go out as a governess—address I.P., Le Rosier, Les Fontaines, near Dieppe—and the whole murder was out. You must have left old ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... quart of black turtle beans in water to cover them. In the morning strain and boil them in four quarts of water for one hour, skimming frequently. Then put into the liquor two white onions sliced, two stalks of celery cut into bits, salt, pepper, cayenne, and one teaspoonful each of cloves and allspice. Boil for three hours. Remove from the stove and add enough stock to thin the mixture to the consistency ...
— Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures • Joe Tilden
... said, clearly, and like a bird was skimming away while the men behind the hedge, paralyzed by his daring, fired not a shot. Only Dan Dean started ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... danced better than they. And when they had the chance, which was seldom, they could ride splendidly. Their skating was a joy to see, and made one wish that the ice would last forever, that one could watch such light, skimming practice; and as for tennis, no other girl had a chance of being chosen for a partner unless the Challoners good-naturedly held aloof, which ten times out of twelve they were ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... settlement that showed any signs of vigor before the Klondike day; and she lived a not over-lively village life on the strength of the mines on Douglas Island, across the narrow straits. There were sea-birds skimming the water as we threaded the labyrinthine channels that surround Juneau. We were evidently not very far from the coast-line; for the gulls were only occasional visitors on the Alaskan cruise, though the eagles we had always with us. They soared aloft among the pines that crowned ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... of meat and bone allow one quart of cold water, one even teaspoon of salt, and half a saltspoon of pepper. Let the meat stand till the water is slightly colored with its juice; then put upon the fire, and let it come slowly to a boil, skimming off every particle of scum as it rises. The least neglect of this point will give a broth in which bits of dark slime float about, unpleasant to sight and taste. A cup of cold water, thrown in as the kettle boils, will make the scum rise more ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... planet glistened like a snowball in the reflection of the sun, with only occasional rents in the cloud blanket revealing the ragged surface below. The doctors watched as the ship went into descending orbit, skimming the outer atmosphere and settling into ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... forgo the lands of your desire? 'Shall not the grief of the old time follow?' Do winter with us, this once! We will strew all England, every morning, with bread-crumbs for you, will you but stay and help us to play at summer! But the delicate cruel rogues pay no heed to us, skimming sharplier than ever in pursuit of gnats, as the hour draws near for their ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... one shot, but did no execution. The other gunners on board had been firing away, for some time, at two little birds that kept ahead of us, skimming along over the water, just out of reach of the shot that was sent scattering ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... the kitchen-door just at the moment when the birds were giving the first little drowsy stir and chirp,—and that she went on setting the breakfast-table for the two hired men, who were bound to the fields with the oxen,—and that then she went on skimming cream for the butter, and getting ready to churn, and making up biscuit for the Doctor's breakfast, when he and they should sit down together at a somewhat later hour; and as she moved about, doing all these things, she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... our heads. Don't reward him with more than one peseta, Senor, whatever he does. If you were to give him two he would go mad at the sight of so much wealth and throw up his job at the Fonda, where he is so useful to run errands, in that way he has of skimming along the paths ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... flew along the words of the service, skimming hastily over the tender beauty of the vows the man and woman give each other. For they are only beautiful if love informs them. To Nan they were rather terrifying with their suggestion ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... butter. When this melts and blends add a little chopped red pepper along with three tablespoonfuls of vinegar and a teaspoonful of mustard. Stir together well, then mix in half an ounce of flour and half a pint of fish stock. Simmer for half an hour, skimming occasionally and, finally add ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... replied the editor, looking up from the paper over which he was hurriedly skimming. On the huge table at his side, as well as beneath it, and under his feet and his capacious arm-chair, nothing was to ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... funny," said Ralph. "We haven't had such a circus for years. Never had. Of course I shouldn't like to see you go behind the bars,—not that. But you fellows can't expect to go on forever skimming off the cream without having somebody squeal sometime. You ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... talk about Jack and the Beanstalk— He did not climb half so high! And Alice in all her travels Was never so near the sky! Only the swallow, a-skimming The storm-cloud over the lea, Knows how it feels to be flying— When the gusts come strong and free— In the tip o' the top o' the top o' the tip of the ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... farm-house, and fell to singing one of her most enticing songs just under the dairy window. Sally was so struck with the pretty tune, which was unhappily used, as is too often the case, to set off some very loose words, that she jumped up, dropped the skimming dish into the cream, and ran ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... Petersburg—a house to which he was debtor for one night's shelter; it was early morning and deadly cold. The whole picture was sharp as a cut crystal—the triple court-yard, the stone pavement, the gray well, and frozen pile of firewood. He saw, recognized, lost it, and knew himself to be skimming down the Nevskiy Prospekt and across the Winter Palace Square, where the great angel towers upon its rose-granite monument. Forward, forward he was carried, along the bank of the frozen Neva and over the Troitskiy ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Landscapes artistically arranged formed backgrounds for the narratives, like the scenery of a theatre. You follow with your eyes a horseman galloping along the strand; you breathe amid the heather the freshness of the wind; the moon shines on the lake, over which a boat is skimming; the sun glitters on the breast-plates; the rain falls over leafy huts. Without having any knowledge of the models, they thought these pictures lifelike and ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert |
