"Tumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... begin to mend somewhat, when to bring the whole fabric tumbling down on our heads, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... strange outbreaks of riotous mirth, such as whooping and screaming; causing confusion, at the same time, by various demonstrations of his enjoyments, such as throwing nails against the windows, beating on the floor with the poker, and occasionally interrupting our operations by tumbling down stairs, and causing us for a moment to believe him killed outright, or at least maimed for life. But there is a special providence over happy children; and save that he fell on one occasion into the bucket of soap and water, wherewith a domestic was scowering the chintz room floor, and suffered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... when we did reach one, the cool, fresh breeze, and the increasing extent and variety of scene—our view embracing, as it did, all the varieties of river, mountain, wood, and sea—amply repaid us for the exertion of the lower walk; and, on either hand, we were sure to have a pure cool rivulet tumbling over the rocks. While going up, however, our whole care and attention were requisite to secure our own safety; for it is not only one continued climb up ladders, but such ladders! They are made of the single trunk of a tree in its rough and rounded state, with notches, not cut at ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... mite she was, with a wealth of brown hair tumbling down her shoulders and overhanging her heavy eyebrows. She was prettily dressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little buttoned boots, stuck straight out before her most of the time, as she sat well back on the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... racing and shouting frantically to divert the bull's attention. From fleeing groups black-coated men leapt forth, armed only with their walking-sticks, and rushed desperately to defend the flock of children, who now, in the extremity of their terror, were tumbling as they ran. Some of the nurses were fleeing far in front, while others, the faithful ones, with eyes starting from their heads, grabbed up their little charges and ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... confusion followed, lords and gentlemen, tradesmen and grooms, hostlers and apprentices, all tumbling after, many crying with laughter. My Lord Sandwich's jockey pulled his Grace from the water in a most pitiable state of rage and humiliation. His side curls gone, the powder and pomatum washed from his hair, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cone was cut off to permit the lantern to be set in position. The result was that externally the tower resembled the trunk of an oak tree, and appeared to be just about as strong. It offered the minimum of resistance to the waves, which, tumbling upon the ledge, rose and curled around the tapering form without starting ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and wearisome captivity was doubly great: a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... castle—an occasional dollar from Tom's pocket—was tumbling to ruin before her eyes. She could not abide such a disaster as that; she couldn't endure the thought of it. Her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... outrage committed on his aged relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always succeeded, and this may be depended ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... explanation of the details to the young Delmars, who crowded round him and Mr. Godfrey, half awed, half delighted, and indeed the youngest—a considerable tomboy—had nearly given the latter the opportunity of becoming a double hero by tumbling through the broken rail, but he caught her in time, and she only incurred from Sir John such a scolding as a great fright will produce from the easiest ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the tide fails cast anchor, and wait with the best grace we can till it is time to weigh anchor again. I amuse myself with examining the villages and settlements through the captain's glass, or watching for the appearance of the white porpoises tumbling among the waves. These creatures are of a milky whiteness, and have nothing of the disgusting look of the black ones. Sometimes a seal pops its droll head up close beside our vessel, looking very much like Sinbad's little old man of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Card said was practicable, I determined to attempt it: Some of the enemy's cavalry were guarding this ford, but after a sharp little skirmish my battalion of cavalry crossed and took up a strong position on the other bank. The stream was very high and the current very swift, the water, tumbling along over its rocky bed in an immense volume, but still it was fordable for infantry if means could be devised by which the men could keep their feet. A cable was stretched across just below the ford as a lifeline for the weaker ones, and then the men ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... made themselves heard, and in the few seconds of deep silence that followed the shriek of terror and pain I was aware that the movements had commenced again. The men were leaving the room and approaching the top of the stairs. A short pause, and they began to descend. Behind them, tumbling from step to step, I could hear that trailing "thing" being dragged along. It had ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... said after they had told each other the old, old story, "I'm so glad I kept my castles in Spain. When you went away and didn't write I almost wrecked them purposely. I thought they'd go tumbling into ashes but somehow I braced them up again. Now they're more beautiful than ever. I pity the people who own no castles in Spain, who have no dreams that won't come true exactly as they dreamed. I'll hold on to my dreams even if I know ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... were taking their places—or rather tumbling into them. A battered, shapeless metal vessel seemed to represent the salt-cellar, and next to it Hugh Sorel seated himself, and kept a place for her beside him. Otherwise she would hardly have had seat or food.' She was now able to survey the inmates of the castle. ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no lie he's telling, I was destroyed surely. They were that wilful they were running off into one man's bit of oats, and another man's bit of hay, and tumbling into the red bogs till it's more like a pack of old goats than sheep they were. Mountain ewes is a queer breed, Nora Burke, and I'm not used to them ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge
... big, handsome Tom Reddon—Tom, who had rowed in his college crew; but it is safe to say that both of them thought of him more than once those long, soft, autumn nights—nights when Tinkletown's beaux were fairly tumbling over themselves in the effort to make New York life seem like a flimsy ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the edge of the great kettle, and lifted it with all his might. The floor of Hymer's hall broke under him, and the walls and roof came tumbling down; but he turned the kettle over his head, and walked away with it, the great rings of the vessel clattering at his heels. Tyr went before him, and cleared the way; and Hymer gazed after him in utter amazement. The two Asa-folk ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... shout sounded outside, and Bugsey came tumbling in and said he thought he had seen Pearlie coming away down the road across the track, whereupon Danny cried so uproariously that Bugsey, like the gentleman he was, withdrew his statement, or at least modified it by saying it might be ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... in the prettiest of all feminine guises, that is to say, in demi-toilette, with plenty of loose curly hair tumbling down about her shoulders. An expression of uneasiness pervaded her countenance; and altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough for the situation. The visitor removed his hat, and the first words were spoken; Elfride prelusively looking with a deal of interest, not unmixed with surprise, at the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Moorghab and Tejend, Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream, The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:— "Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!" But, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:— "Desire not that, my father! thou must live. For some are born to do great deeds, and live, As some are born to be obscured, and die. Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, And ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... close, for Flannigan, no longer able to recognise virtue in forbearance, opened the door and planting his own huge fist between the ogle-factories of Paddy, knocked him as stiff as a bull beef! Falling, Paddy carried away his red-faced burly coz-zin, and the twain tumbling upon the two negro women who were still at the bottom of the steps, dilating, to any number of lookers-on, upon the rascality of poor Flannigan in gouging them out of their washing bill, down went the white spirits and ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... and every step that avoided the stones was ankle-deep in mud. How the mule could have got on, as I could not see, I cannot imagine, but the box which it carried was not seriously damaged. The two guides in their opunkas walked firmly, but the others were tumbling frequently. The female who had come with us now fairly "compounded," according to the sporting phrase, and gave vent to her sufferings in tears and reproaches. This had, however, a reviving effect upon others of our party, who were near ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... "Pioneer" with gunpowder, which, for the first time, was now applied, shook the fragments apart in which we were beset, and again we laid hold of our mentors. A thick fog immediately enveloped us, and in it we got perfectly puzzled, took a wrong lead, and, tumbling into a perfect cul de sac, made fast, to await a break in the weather. The 18th of July, from the same cause, a dense fog, was a lost day, and next day Penny again caught us up. He reported the whalers to have given up all idea of a Northern fishery this season. Alas! ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... arrived, the boys were instructed how to get into their hammocks, and laughed at for tumbling out on the opposite side. But, after a few attempts, they succeeded in gaining the center of their suspended beds, and were ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... worst of all was when night came while we were still on the march," said Plaza. "We always walked then, and more than one fellow went tumbling down some frightful precipice. We lost our way two or three times, though there were plenty of trumpeters stationed at intervals. But Cordova will tell you about that," and there ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... girls in pink pajamas came tumbling down the bronze and marble staircase, smothering poet and son-in-law in happy embraces; and "Oh, George!" they cried, "how sunburned you are! So is Iole, but she is too sweet! Did you have a perfectly lovely honeymoon? When is Vanessa coming? And how is Mr. Briggs? And—oh, do you know the ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... beyond it a country yielding more food. A bridge was constructed by felling great trees across the chasm, the water here running through vertical walls several hundred feet in depth. Over this rude bridge men and horses made their way, only one Spaniard being lost by tumbling down the giddy depth. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... tramped the little path at the foot of the bluff, or waded, with legs well-braced, the tumbling torrent, and sent their flies hither and yon across the boiling flood to be snatched by the strong-hearted denizens of the stream, Dan felt the life and freshness and strength of God's good world entering into his being. At dinner time they ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... true call: what ear could fail to catch it? Out they came running from the city again, the old scribes with new faces; pouring and tumbling into the wilderness to ask a lashing from the grim voice there.... Only, to-day, it must have been that he did not hear their clamors. Surely there was no abhorrence in these ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief; and he would feel it a singular gratification if this romance might effectually convince mankind—or, indeed, any one man—of the folly of tumbling down an avalanche of ill-gotten gold, or real estate, on the heads of an unfortunate posterity, thereby to maim and crush them, until the accumulated mass shall be scattered abroad in its original ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "We saw Indians and tumbling men, and the Bounding Brothers of Borneo, and a clown and monkeys, and a little mite of a pony with blue eyes. Was he any of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... the Pope to a porter, knew that the King was a mere bigoted fool, who would undo himself and the cause he sought to advance; but he was deaf to all reason, and, happily for England ever afterwards, went tumbling off his throne in his ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... wind from the northwest sent a rough tumbling sea upon the coast, which broke upon the bar in furious surges, and extended a sheet of foam almost across the mouth of the river. Under these circumstances the captain did not think it prudent to approach within three leagues, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... bodily, threw him into the blanket, and then seizing one end, gave it a violent toss. Up went the boy into the air, and tumbling back again into the blanket was ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... having right to be present, or to the better and more qualified ranks, are at length laid open to all whose curiosity induces them to be present on the occasion. With inflamed countenances and dishevelled dresses, struggling with, and sometimes tumbling over each other, in rushed the rude multitude, while a few soldiers, forming, as it were, the centre of the tide, could scarce, with all their efforts, clear a passage for the prisoner to the place which she was to occupy. By the authority ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in his big bed for awhile, looking at the picture which was a full-paged glossy picture of a man school teacher away up on the roof of a country schoolhouse, and he was holding a wide board across the top of the chimney. The schoolhouse's only door was open and a gang of tough-looking boys was tumbling out, along with a ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... silent, and I thought she had gone to sleep, for there was no sound until Andrew came tumbling up the stairs leading from ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... about God when things were going well with you, but now that they are tumbling down, and death seems certain, you whine and want to go where you never dreamt of going in your ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... looks like a strapped bit of steel after the night's tumbling,' said the captain, seeing her trip aloft. 'I'm young as that too, or not far off it. Stay, I'll order breakfast for four in a quiet corner where we can converse—which, by the way, won't be possible in the presence of that gaping oyster of a fellow, who looks as if he were waiting the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ravine back of the Academy in the woods," said Percival. "The banks there are quite high and rough. There is a descent from here to the river and there the creek does not make much trouble. Here, however it is all the time roaring and tumbling. They tell a number of stories about it. During the American Revolution it ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... us were lodged in a cabin on the upper deck, where we did very well, except that for one half of the time we were too sick to eat any thing, and for the other half we were rolling and tumbling about in such a manner that we could think of nothing but keeping off of the cabin's roof. The others were stowed away "amidships," or in some other place, down stairs, and as all the ports and air-holes were shut up, when the steamer began to wallow ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the figures upon the curtains. They were scenes of the olden time—mailed knights, helmed and mounted, dashing at each other with couched lances, or tumbling from their horses, pierced by the spear. Other scenes there were: noble dames, sitting on Flemish palfreys, and watching the flight of the merlin hawk. There were pages in waiting, and dogs of curious and extinct breeds held in the leash. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... between them and the river was once terraced and cultivated. We found ourselves unexpectedly in a veritable wonderland. Emotions came thick and fast. We marveled at the exquisite pains with which the ancient folk had rescued incredibly narrow strips of arable land from the tumbling rapids. How could they ever have managed to build a retaining wall of heavy stones along the very edge of the dangerous river, which it is death to attempt to cross! On one sightly bend near a foaming waterfall some ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... craft," the explorers made their way first to Ujiji and then to Uvira, the northernmost point of the lake, which they reached on April 26th. On their return voyage they were caught in a terrible storm, from which they did not expect to be saved, and while the wild tumbling waves threatened momentarily to engulf them a couplet from his fragmentary Kasidah kept ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... at the quaint way in which Abner had hinted about Nancy tumbling overboard on purpose, in order to discover which of her lovers was ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... poking out the side window of the pilot house. "Hello," he muttered, "Scraggsy's seein' things," and following the direction in which the telescope was pointing he made out a large bark standing in dangerously close to the beach. In fact, the breakers were tumbling in a long white streak over the reefs less than a quarter of a mile from her. She was lying stern on to the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... heights north of Strasburg. On the morning of the 13th my cavalry went out to reconnoitre toward Strasburg, on the middle road, about two and a half miles west of the Valley pike, and discovered that Early's infantry was at Fisher's Hill, where he had thrown up behind Tumbling Run earthworks extending clear across the narrow valley between the Massanutten and North mountains. On the left of these works he had Vaughan's, McCausland's, and Johnson's brigades of cavalry under General Lomax, who at this time relieved ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... and old rock-town tumbling down the far-off hillside still smouldered in after-sunset fire, windows glittering like the rubies in some lost crown, dropped by a forgotten king in battle. But the red of the sky was paling to hyacinth, a strange and lovely tint that was neither rose nor blue. As Mary went to buy herself ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... point in the shore towards which Gaspard's eyes had been cast. The sun was shining hard just then, and the stern, sharp rocks, tumbling awkwardly back into the waste behind, had an insolent harshness. Day perched garishly there. Yet now and then the staring light was broken by sudden and deep shadows—great fissures in the rocks and lanes between. These gave Pierre a suggestion, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dangers, for more than once Peter, who led the file, sprang just in time to save himself, as the treacherous crust above some yawning chasm between two heavy "Pans" crumbled under his feet; and once he fell headlong, clutching at a friendly spur, just in time to escape tumbling among a lot of jagged and flinty shards of young ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... And so all my castles came tumbling down from the clouds, and left them black and lowering and leaden as before. Once or twice, later on, I made a few spasmodic efforts to galvanize the place into life; they, too, failed, and I accepted ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... but they were already awake, and tumbling pell-mell over each other. They were being rapidly dragged down a steep declivity. Day dawned and revealed a terrible scene. The form of the mountains changed in an instant. Cones were cut off. Tottering peaks disappeared as if some trap had opened at their base. Owing ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... head-gear or clothing,—a cheap cotton cloth being always kept in abundant supply at the agencies solely for their use. Some of them, it is true, wore no turban at all, their luxuriant growth of coarse black hair tumbling about their shoulders and trimmed off in a "bang" just level with their fierce, beady eyes, being all the head covering they needed. But the breech-clout was universal and some few even wore loose ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... repenting and marrying; I would have thee consider which thou wilt set about first. If thou wilt follow my advice, thou shalt make short work of it: let matrimony take place of the other; for then thou wilt, very possibly, have repentance come tumbling in fast upon thee, as a consequence, and so have both ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... know is what are we to do next? I see no way out of this hall, and though it's rather nice, it's not very amusing. Dudu, I wish you would sit still—you keep giving little juggles on my head that are very uncomfortable, and make me feel as if I had a hat on that was always tumbling off." ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... attacked the Tong Kwan Palace in which the Japanese Minister and his staff, protected by two companies of Japanese infantry, had taken refuge owing to the threatening state of affairs in the capital. Apparently there was no particular plan—it was the action of a mob of soldiery tumbling into a political brawl and assisted by their officers for reasons which appear to-day nonsensical. The sequel was, however, extraordinary. The Japanese held the Palace gates as long as possible, and then being desperate exploded a mine which killed numbers of Koreans and ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... Sixty feet away, rose a second building containing kitchens, stables, and servants' rooms. The whole stood in its own grounds, fenced in with walls, half of which, being situated on the steepest portion of the declivity, persisted in tumbling. One curious feature of the house was its outside staircase. Wags pretended that the owner had forgotten it in his plans, and been obliged to add it as an after-thought. The truth was that an inside staircase would have compelled him to build with ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... believed . . . it has been so ever since I was at college. I do not mean to say I was not loved there as warmly by noble friends as ever man could be, but the world tumbled on me, and has ever since then been tumbling on me rubbish, huge wagon-loads of rubbish, thinking to smother me, and was surprised it did not smother me—turned round with amazement and said, 'What, you alive yet?' . . . While I was writing my Frederick my best friends, out of delicacy, did not call. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... awhile the novelty of the scene fascinated me. I was at last on the ocean, of which I had heard, read and imagined so much. The creaking cordage, the straining engine, the plunging ship, the wild waste of tumbling billows, everyone apparently racing to where our tossing bark was struggling to maintain herself, all had an entrancing interest for me, and I tried to recall Byron's sublime apostrophe ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... of them; others taking too much for granted; and a third set to suit their whims and fancies. Others simply play at hunting; or from pure jealousy, keep questing about beside the line, continually rushing along and tumbling over ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... beneath us the smoke began suddenly to pile itself up in an enormous aerial mountain, whose peaks shot higher and higher, with apparently increasing velocity, until they seemed about to engulf us with their tumbling ebon masses. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... seemed to fade from before his eyes, and he looked up, and, behold, a mist, of the color of blood, had come over the sun; and the bank of black cloud had risen very high, and its edges were tossing and tumbling like the waves of the angry sea. And they cast long shadows, which ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and Jill Went up the hill To fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down And broke his crown And Jill came tumbling after. ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... known that the French were taken, in a great measure, by surprise. A large portion of their crews were on shore, and did not get off to their ships at all, and there was scarce a vessel that did not clear the decks, by tumbling the mess-chests, bags, &c, into the inside batteries, rendering them, in a measure, useless, when the English ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in the drab shorts who answered to the name of Brother Tadger, bustled down the ladder with great speed, and was immediately afterwards heard tumbling up with the Reverend ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... but it still forms a sort of bridge, over which the child comes down, caught in the other's arms. She utters a little shriek, but she is quite safe. Her hat has fallen off, and goes tumbling over the rocks. He catches a glint of fair hair, of a sweet face he knows so well, and his heart for a moment stops ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... ground and tied at the top, with the pot swinging therefrom—had been lighted outside the caravans, and gipsy women were making the evening soup. Bright-eyed, shock-headed, uncombed, unwashed, but exceedingly happy gipsy children were tumbling over one another on the wet turf, showing so much of their brown skin between their rags that they would have been more comfortable and quite as decent had they been naked. A hideous old man, merely skin and bones, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... Liu, "am I so delicate? What day ever goes by without my tumbling down a couple of times? And if I had to be patted every time wouldn't it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... were all awing once more, hawking for supper. Along with the hawking they got in a great deal of play, doing their tumbling and cloud-coasting over the roofs just as they ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... now falling in generous Christmasy flakes, and the high speed the car had again attained was evidently deeply gratifying to the young person, whose reckless tumbling about made it necessary for The Hopper to keep ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... central circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... two miles an hour, whilst with a northerly wind it is scarcely perceptible. The anchorage in Holdfast Bay is hardly safe in the winter months, as it is quite open to north-west, west, and south-west winds, which, when blowing hard, raise a short tumbling sea. The ground is a fine sand, almost covered with weeds, so that when the anchor once starts, the weeds being raked up under the crown, will in a great measure prevent its again holding. In the summer months it may be ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... your letter. I had not time to read it in London; so I put it in my pocket, and read it in the coach coming home. But, my dear child, you do look so old-fashioned with your gown made all tight, and your hair all tumbling about in curls. Curls are quite gone out.' We must do your hair differently,' she continued, trying to smooth ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... card, and stopped his harangue with rather a scared look, the laughter of the boys, half constrained until then, burst out in a general shout. "Silence!" roared out the Doctor, stamping with his foot. Pen looked up and saw who was his deliverer; the Major beckoned to him gravely, and, tumbling down his books, Pen ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... clouds of vapour, yet threw them in confused and changeful masses, now hovering round the heads of the mountains, now filling, as with a dense and voluminous stream of smoke, the various deep gullies where masses of the composite rock, or breccia, tumbling in fragments from the cliffs, have rushed to the valley, leaving each behind its course a rent and torn ravine resembling a deserted water-course. The moon, which was now high, and twinkled with all ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... down for generations in the family of my ancestor, the High Priest of Isis—" The bray of a neighbouring show-man's trumpet cut him short, and yielding to circumstances he drew back the curtain, and a tumbling-girl sprang out and began her antics on the front of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... thence we look'd toward England, And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster, That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard Into the tumbling billows of the main. O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of waters in my ears! What sights of ugly death within my eyes! Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; A thousand men ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... broad and irregular, and in one of its cavities a cascade of pure fresh water came sparkling, leaping and tumbling down to the foot of the rock. There it had formed a great basin of water, cool, deep, transparent, which trickled over on to a tongue of pink sand and went in two crystal gutters to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... be doubted whether any spot of earth can, in desolateness, furnish a parallel to this group. Abandoned cemeteries of long ago, old cities by piecemeal tumbling to their ruin, these are melancholy enough; but, like all else which has but once been associated with humanity, they still awaken in us some thoughts of sympathy, however sad. Hence, even the Dead Sea, along with whatever other emotions it may at ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... and Stephen was thrown off his feet. For half a second he was dazed, but came to himself in the act of tumbling down stairs, still ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hundred yards beyond Browndean, however, a sudden jarring of brakes set everybody's teeth on edge, and there was a brutal stoppage. Morris Finsbury was aware of a confused uproar of voices, and sprang to the window. Women were screaming, men were tumbling from the windows on the track, the guard was crying to them to stay where they were; at the same time the train began to gather way and move very slowly backward toward Browndean; and the next moment, all these various sounds were blotted out in the apocalyptic ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tumbling," with the exception of the spangled tunics of the performers, hardly came up to his expectations; and he was entirely satisfied that he could beat the best man among them at such games. As the performance proceeded, he warmed up enough ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... houses gathering and gleaming in the sun, which was falling now through wide refulgent skies and tumbling caravans of light down into the streets. New York, he supposed, was home—the city of luxury and mystery, of preposterous hopes and exotic dreams. Here on the outskirts absurd stucco palaces reared themselves in the cool sunset, poised for an instant ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the water. Every once in a while a great hollow-bellied wave would come rolling out of the hullabaloo and break thundering over us. On all the boats the lookout on the bridge had to be lashed in place, and every once in a while a couple of tons of water would come tumbling past him. Nobody at the job stayed dry for more than three minutes; a bathing-suit would have been more to the point ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... give one of those brutes appendicitis, and so forth. My word! it was sickening, especially that kind of school-treat swing and bump at the end. I never could bear swinging. Still, it was all for the best, as I shouldn't have gone a yard along that sphinx's tail without tumbling off, tight-rope walking not being in my line; and I'll tell you what, you are just the best three fellows in the whole world. Don't you think I forget that because I haven't said much. And now let's have your yarn, for I want to hear how things stand, which I never expected ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... leaping and gyrating about the floor with incredible agility; and lastly, Mademoiselle in a sort of elderly walking-dress and with blue spectacles. And all this incongruous impossible world went tumbling and dancing and going hand in hand, in flying circles to the music; until it was enough to make one forget one was in this wicked world, with Conservative majorities and Presidents MacMahon and all other ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flat on the floor, on seeing Leonard raise his arm at him. Three shots were fired in the dusk of the pantry; and then the valet came tumbling to the ground, seized by the legs by Lupin, who snatched his weapon from him and gripped him by ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... diapason of sound. One—the most annoying—to which the ear never becomes callous by use, is the incessant crash, not only alongside, but overhead. At intervals—more frequent, of course, after our bulwarks were swept away—the green water came tumbling on board by tons; and, being unable to escape quickly enough by the after-scuppers, surged backwards and forwards with every roll of the vessel, as if it meant to keep you down and bury you forever. Lying in my berth, I could feel the heavy ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... her mother outside one of the caves in the rocky enclosure, which were to serve as bedrooms. Close at hand was a stream, which ran through a hole in the rocks, and went tumbling down the precipitous side of the plateau. I saw that the stretch of green sward between the rocks had been a lake. This suggested to me a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... the night he would wander along the ramparts of the castle, at the imminent risk of tumbling off, gazing seaward and muttering strangely to himself, and evolving frightful spectres out of the shadows cast by the turrets. Sometimes he lapsed into a gentle melancholy; but not seldom his mood was ferocious, and at such times the conversational ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... trusty servant, two demi-Culverings and a millstone to carry Powhatan: they found them somewhat too heavie; but when they did see him discharge them, being loaded with stones, among the boughs of a great tree loaded with Isiekles the yce and branches came so tumbling downe, that the poore Salvages ran away halfa dead with feare. But at last we regained some conference with them, and gaue them such toyes; and sent to Powhatan, his women, and children such presents, as gaue them in generall ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... have happened, must have happened, in all these hours of sleep! My letter to Alixe should have been delivered long ere this; my trial, no doubt, had been decided on. What had Voban done? Had he any word for me? Dear Lord! here was a mass of questions tumbling one upon the other in my head, while my heart thumped behind my waistcoat like a rubber ball to a prize-fighter's fist. Misfortunes may be so great and many that one may find grim humour and grotesqueness in their impossible conjunction and multiplicity. I remembered at that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a good deal of Isabella since their last meeting, and in some curious fashion her thoughts had brought her more intimately near. There seemed to be no particular reason why this should be so, for Philippa was not in the habit of tumbling into friendship; but in the long hours which she had spent beside Francis' bedside, Isabella had been constantly in her mind. Was it, perhaps, because she had been so closely connected with the past of the man, that past which was so inextricably fused with the ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... tumbling heavily, like a log. Hurley, cursing as he half rose, jerked his gun out. Nas Ta Bega, swift as light, kicked the gun out of his hand. And Joe ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... Crags. After a sharp walk of a mile he came to a little white-washed house that stood near the head of Newlands, almost under the bridge that crosses the fall. It was a sweet place in a great solitude, where the silence was broken only by the tumbling waters, the cooing of pigeons on the roof, and the twittering of ringouzels by the side of the torrent. The air was fresh with the smell of new peat. There was a wedge-shaped garden in front, and it was encompassed by chestnut-trees. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Behind him, lay the long broken line of the Wicklow mountains, with the Sugar Loaf thrusting its pointed head into the heavens. There in front of him, heaving and tumbling, was the sea: a miracle of healing and cleansing. It would be good, he thought, to spend one's life in the sound of the sea, taking no care for the lives of other men, content that oneself was fed and comfortable. "But ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... of a precipice, moist rocks sprayed with the dashing waters of a lake or some tumbling mountain stream, wind-swept upland meadows, and shady places by the roadside may hold bright bunches of these hardy bells, swaying with exquisite grace on tremulous, hair-like stems that are fitted to withstand the fiercest mountain blasts, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... delights, and lasting woes; The summer's biting frost, and winter's rose; And penitence and grief, that dragg'd along The royal lawless pair, that poets sung. One, by his Spartan plunder, seal'd the doom Of hapless Troy—the other rescued Rome. Beneath, as if in mockery of their woe, The tumbling flood, with murmurs deep and low, Return'd their wailings; while the birds above With sweet aerial descant fill'd the grove. And all beside the river's winding bed Fresh flowers in gay confusion deck'd the mead, Painting the sod with ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the effect of the defeat of the Treaty. While at Mayfield (Ky.) I saw an old farmer who told me he was offered twenty and ten dollars for his tobacco before Christmas, but was forced to sell at six and three dollars. The tumbling of the foreign exchange and the inability of Italy and other Continental European countries to purchase their tobacco is the cause of Western Kentucky farmers losing millions of dollars. This resulted from the Republican Senate's ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... occasionally twirled their partners round; and then after some further ceremonies they separated and all the people began to dance both in the streets and through the houses, going in at one door and out at another, if there was one, tumbling about and knocking things over, and then out in the street again, and if not satisfied with their partners, changing them, and off again, this kind of enjoyment lasting for hours. Sometimes, if a man-of-war happened to be in the neighbourhood, the sailors came, who were the best dancers of the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... down a cloud to play with. Then the wind stirred a feather near them, the white feather of a ptarmigan which they had eaten yesterday, and forgetting the big world and the sail and the cloud, the cubs took to playing with the feather, chasing and worrying and tumbling over each other, while the gaunt old mother wolf looked down from her rock and watched and ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... waited for us at the railway station and flocked round our carriage as we passed to the mission compound. On the way, a company of Telugu athletes entertained us at intervals by their feats of ground and lofty tumbling. It was their native way of welcoming distinguished guests. Dr. James M. Baker has ably succeeded Dr. J. E. Clough in the work of administering and organizing this important field. The Ongole church of twelve thousand members, with its connected schools, is ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... in our journey, and that to dine. Just above this point we pass the swiftest rapids on the route, where the river widens, and each side of the bank is beautiful in its wooded picturesqueness, while the waters rush, in foaming, surging, tumbling confusion, over the rugged rocks, or dart between them like a merry band of water-sprites chasing each ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... mine to hide As if he were an unclean beast. O Grace! I cannot paint the horrors of that night. My heart, till then serene, and safely kept In Trust's strong citadel, quaked all night long, As tower and bastion fell before the rush Of fierce convictions; and the tumbling walls Boomed with dull throbs of ruin through my brain. And there were palaces that leaned on this— Castles of air, in long and glittering lines, Which melted into air, and pierced the blue That marks the star-strewn vault of heaven;—all fell, With a faint crash like that which scares the soul ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... now considerable excitement on deck. Nearly all the passengers, many of the crew and several of the officers were watching the strange sight. The porpoises were frantically tumbling, turning and leaping to get away from ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... movement among Cap'n Abe's hearers. Even the fishfly stopped droning. Cap'n Beecher looked longingly through the doorway from which the sea could be observed as well as a strip of that natural breakwater called "The Neck," a barrier between the tumbling Atlantic and the quiet bay around which the main village of Cardhaven ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... revolutionary tradition of striking terror into the hearts of the divine-right monarchs of Europe, had with a mighty noise shaken the whole Continent and brought down the political and social institutions of the "old regime" tumbling in ruins throughout central and southern Europe. He had made revolutionary reform too solid and too widespread to admit of its total extinction by the allied despots of Europe. The dream which a Leopold and a Frederick William had cherished in 1791 ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... having happily fastened upon his head, where the bosses of the bridle had stuck in his teeth. But the man was most hurt; for the raging creature had bit him twice, once in the arm, and the other time a little above his knee; and though he had made some defence, he was just tumbling down by the disorder of his horse, when Friday came up and shot ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... have a dance here now," cried Cecilia. "Come, stand up, Sophy;" and the children began to practise a waltz step, tumbling over each other, and laughing ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... their massive hinges, it was as if the flood-gates of a mighty sea had been suddenly let loose. In they poured, thousands upon thousands of them, scrambling, pushing and jumping, scurrying and hurrying, falling and tumbling, as they pressed onwards through the wide doors and then dispersed in the vastness of the gigantic arena, like ants that scamper away ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and they're delicious, Nell: half like a little girl and half like a queen: but it will never do to make the Jew feel small in her own set. Hallo! there's some one tumbling alone over the stones on that precious road of yours. I believe it's that cart from the ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... big black kittens," said Colin, as he watched them tumbling about on the pebbly beach, "and just as full of fun. Can they swim as soon as they are born, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... patched clothes you can make out a sturdy little figure; and, besides, what matters the clothes? Country babies are not coquettish; and when the coach comes down the hill with jingling bells and they rush after it, stumbling over their neighbors, tumbling with them in the dust, and rolling into the ditches, what would all these dear little gamins do ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... away, far down in the bowels of the earth. Secondly, in spite of this suggestion of distance, it was very loud. Lastly, it was not a boom, nor a crash, such as one would associate with falling water or tumbling rock, but it was a high whine, tremulous and vibrating, almost like the whinnying of a horse. It was certainly a most remarkable experience, and one which for a moment, I must admit, gave a new significance to Armitage's words. I waited ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... silence, during which it seemed to Ellen that her thoughts were tumbling head over heels, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he was quite a big lad, he one day took his bow and arrow, and went out to seek for game. Coming by chance past the palace where the white hind lived in wicked splendour and magnificence, he saw some pigeons fluttering round the white marble turrets, and, taking good aim, shot one dead. It came tumbling past the very window where the white Queen was sitting; she rose to see what was the matter, and looked out. At the first glance of the handsome young lad standing there bow in hand, she knew by witchcraft that it was ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... minute," said Astro. He picked up a huge boulder and hefted it in his arms. "We can stand them off all day by tumbling rocks down ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... drove away that day and I looked back to the receding town, it seemed to me like a grand hulk of some richly laden galleon, aground on the rock that holds it, alone, abandoned to its fate among the barren billows of the tumbling ridges, its crew tired out with struggling and apathetic in despair, mocked by the finest air and the clearest sunshine that ever shone, and gazing always forward to the new world and the new times hidden in the rosy sunset, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... shifted a little and released some of the bodies, because a child—a little fair-haired child in a red frock—came ashore abreast of the Martello tower. By the afternoon you could see along three miles of beach dark figures with bare legs dashing in and out of the tumbling foam, and rough-looking men, women with hard faces, children, mostly fair-haired, were being carried, stiff and dripping, on stretchers, on wattles, on ladders, in a long procession past the door of the 'Ship Inn,' to be laid out in a ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... blue-robed sky; These giant rocks, their forms grotesque and awful Reflected on the calm stream's lucid mirror; These reverend oaks, through which (their rustling leaves Dancing and twinkling in the sunbeams) light Now gleams, now disappears, while yon fierce torrent, Tumbling from crag to crag with measured dash, Makes to the ear strange music: World, oh! World! Who sees thee such must needs confess thee fair! Who knows thee not must needs suppose ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various |
