"Ball" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... loud enough to hear over the chanting of the dealers and the excited chatter of the dice players. Billy Joe! What a corn-ball routine! ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his Vidui (death-bed confession), offered him and his violin-case a place in the cellar, but he preferred to climb to the roof, from which with the aid of a small glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball crashed through the chimney-pots at his side, but he did not budge. His eyes were glued upon a figure he had ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... is not HALF-broken; he is not broke at all! Look at his hoof—never have a shoe been there. For myself—attend me! When I ride alone, I think mooch; when I think mooch I think fast; my idea he go like a cannon-ball! Consequent, if I ride not thees horse like the cannon-ball, my thought HE arrive first, and where are you? You get left! Believe me that I fly thees horse, thees old Mexican plug, and your de' uncle 'Ennery and ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... begin this present controversy, so I do not desire to hold up the ball of contention, yet having appeared in it (neither alone, nor without a calling and opportunity offered), I hold it my duty to vindicate the truth of Christ, the solemn league and covenant, the ordinances of Parliament, the church of Scotland, and myself. For this end was I born, and for ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... rilly matched me. They all knew what I said well enough, but when I spoke to 'em about what was rill interestin' to me, seemed like their minds didn't click, with that good little feelin' o' rilly takin' it in. My i-dees didn't seem to fit, quite ball an' socket, into nobody's mind, but just to slide along over. And as to their i-dees—I rec'lect thinkin' that the three R's meant to 'em Relations, Recipes, an' the Remains. Yes, all I did have, you might say, was my walks out in the Depot Woods. An' times like when Elder ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... of our Species, so they are very assiduous in bestowing upon themselves the finest Garnitures of Art. The Peacock in all his Pride, does not display half the Colours that appear in the Garments of a British Lady, when she is dressed either for a Ball or a Birth-day. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... taste of the manufacturer. Aerated waters are sent out from the factories either in siphons (q.v.) or in bottles; the latter may be closed by corks, or by screw-stoppers or by internal stoppers consisting of a valve, such as a glass ball, held up against an indiarubber ring in the neck by the pressure of the gas. For use in "soda-fountains'' the waters are sent out in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... outside the enclosure, and the thing was to throw balls, which were hired for the purpose, into the holes. Nothing could exceed the alert and eager interest taken by the little pigs in the efforts of the ball-throwers. They quivered on their little legs; they pressed their little noses against the bars of the cages; their little eyes sparkled; their tails (the only corkscrews left in America) curled and uncurled and curled again: and with reason, for whereas, if you missed—as was only too easy—nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... vast and disquieting, I refuse to leave all, including the blankets and the pillow, to follow him into the gelid tranquillity of the upper air, where even the colours are prismatic spicules of ice, to brood upon the erratic orbit of the poor mud-ball below called earth. I know it is my world also; but I cannot help that. It is too late, after a busy day, and at that hour, to begin overtime on fashioning a new and better planet out of cosmic dust. By breakfast-time, nothing useful would ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the great ball of the season at Fort Ellsworth. For a special reason it had begun unusually late; but, though the eighth dance was on, the great event of the evening had not happened yet. Until that should happen, the rest, charming though it might ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... morning showed this blue strait sparkling from the palisades to the other shore, and trees and gardens moist with that dewy breath which seems to exhale from fresh-water seas. Indians swarmed early around the fort, pretending that the young men were that day going to play a game of ball in the fields, while Pontiac and sixty old chiefs came to hold a council with the English. More than a thousand of them lounged about, ready for action. The braves were blanketed, each carrying a gun with its barrel filed off short enough ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... at all, He's frightened of a cricket ball. He reads indoors for hours and hours. He knows the names of ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... lantern-illumined booth, with Pearlie in the background, and dispensed an unbelievable amount of strawberries. Sid Strang and the hotel bench brigade assisted. They made engagements to take Pearlie and her friend down river next day, and to the ball game, and planned innumerable picnics, gazing meanwhile into the leading lady's eyes. There grew in the cheeks of the leading lady a flush that was not brought about by the pink slip, or the Japanese lanterns, or the skillful application ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... open. They stepped into the yard and across it. The prisoners paused in a game of ball. Others, who were playing cards, merely glanced up and went on. The jailer pointed with his bunch of keys to a cell before him. Mary glided away from the Doctor and darted in. There was a ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... a great ball and it was a great ballroom—in spaciousness, color, and appointments. No one had ever dreamed of its possibilities before, although everybody knew it was the largest in the county. The gentle hostess, with old Alec as head of the pulling-out-and-moving-off ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Miss Angelina? She 's de da'lin' of de place. W'y, dey ain't no high-toned lady wif sich mannahs an' sich grace. She kin move across de cabin, wif its planks all rough an' wo'; Jes' de same 's ef she was dancin' on ol' mistus' ball-room flo'. Fact is, you do' see no cabin—evaht'ing you see look grand, An' dat one ol' squeaky fiddle soun' to you jes' lak a ban'; Cotton britches look lak broadclof an' a linsey dress look fine, When Angelina Johnson comes a-swingin' down ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... It might have been a dale worse. I don't mind meself, for I've strong arms, and I'll soon be on my fate again. But my Pat'll be ravin'. He had just bought a new coat to go to a ball wid tomorrow night, and it's all burnt up in the fire. Do you see that poor craythur wid the lookin' glass? I'm glad I didn't save mine, for I wouldn't know what to ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... ring of gold set on her finger; and a bracelet of precious stones and gold set upon her arm by the Master of the Jewel House; and the sceptre given her of my Lord of Arundel (the old time-server!) and the ball, of the Lord Treasurer; and the regal of gold, of the Bishop of Winchester; and the staff of Saint Edward, of my Lord of Bath; and the spurs, of my Lord of Pembroke. Come, pray you now, let me take breath!—Well, after all this, the Bishops and nobles did homage to her Highness; but ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... did all that I might for his hurt save to probe for the pistol ball that was gone too deep. And presently, as I knelt beside him in a very agony of helplessness, cometh Pluto, fouled with blood other than his own, and limping hither, cast himself down, his great paw across Sir Richard's legs, licking at those weary feet that should ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... light in Ted's room. It was a brown boyish room; disordered dresser, worn books, a high-school pennant, photographs of basket-ball teams and baseball teams. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... takes endless time in Japan to unwind the huge ball of red tape that is wrapped about the smallest official act. That morning, when Page and I presented ourselves at the Government office, the end of the tape seemed to have a pin stuck in it, so easily and swiftly was it found. Promptly announced, we were ushered without delay ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... warning of one who, not being in your service, nor solicitous of your favours, flatters not your crimes, and yet desires to avert the danger threatening you. There is a plot to assassinate you which would by now have been executed but for the countermanding of the ball at the opera last week. What was not done then will certainly be done to-night if you afford the opportunity. Remain at home and avoid balls and public gatherings for the rest of the year; thus the fanaticism which aims at ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Archangel Gabriel) the lady who afterwards attained fame as a musical composer [43] and became, as we have recently discovered, one of the friends of Walter Pater. Says Burton "she showed her savoir faire at the earliest age. At a ball given to the Prince, all appeared in their finest dresses, and richest jewellery. Miss Virginia was in white, with a single necklace of pink coral." They danced till daybreak, when Miss Virginia "was like a rose among faded ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Desi, to the governess and ask her whether she intends to come to the ball to-night, or if the lady of the house is ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... House in the middle of July. Helen accompanied her to see her safely installed and to set the very torpid social ball rolling. There were not many neighbours, but Helen assembled them all. She herself could stay only a few days. She was bound, until the middle of August, in a rush of engagements, and meanwhile Althea, rather ruefully, was forced to fall back ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... 1814. During these campaigns he was never wounded, although exposed to great danger. One morning, among others, his old servant had scarcely reached the skirts of a forest in which the enemy had an ambuscade than his master's horse was killed by a ball, and the rider overthrown. The servant thought it was all over with his master, but the sad thought had hardly entered his mind when Beckwith sprang up and cried out, "All right, John," and by a quick movement escaped beyond ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... litter, Le Vaissoult observed the white cloth that covered the Begam's breast stained with blood. She had stabbed herself, but the dagger had struck against one of the bones of her chest, and she had not courage to repeat the blow. Her husband put the pistol to his temple and fired. The ball passed through his head, and he fell dead to the ground." This tragedy is somewhat differently detailed in the account furnished by Thomas to his biographer, which is made to favour the suspicion that the ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... my departure from Haddon, Sir George sent Dawson out through the adjoining country to invite the nobility and gentry to a grand ball to be given at the Hall in honor of Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary had been ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... myself by galloping and whirling the balls round my head, by accident the free one struck a bush, and its revolving motion being thus destroyed, it immediately fell to the ground, and, like magic caught one hind leg of my horse; the other ball was then jerked out of my hand, and the horse fairly secured. Luckily he was an old practised animal, and knew what it meant; otherwise he would probably have kicked till he had thrown himself down. The Gauchos roared with laughter; ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... into a table like a circular wash-basin, with an outer rim turned slightly inward. The "croupier" revolves the wheel to the right. With a quick motion of his middle finger he flicks a marble, usually of ivory, to the left. At the Vesper Club, always up-to-date, the ball was of platinum, not of ivory. The disc with its sloping sides is provided with a number of brass rods, some perpendicular, some horizontal. As the ball and the wheel lose momentum the ball strikes against the rods and finally is deflected into one of the many little pockets or stalls ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... servants were thrust aside, and a man bearing the inanimate form of a young girl, entered the ball-room. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... the chamber, speaking with secretary Cecil.' Then she took out the queen's picture, and kissed it, and I adventured to kiss her hand, for the great love evidenced therein to my mistress. She showed me also a fair ruby, as great as a tennis-ball; I desired that she would send either it, or my lord of Leicester's picture, as a token to my queen. She said, that if the queen would follow her counsel, she would in process of time get all that she had; that in the meantime she was resolved in a token ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was one that, it seems, Fortune had picked out of purpose, of whom to make an example and to use as her tennis-ball, thereby to show what she could do, for she tossed him up of nothing, and to and fro to greatness, and from thence down to little more than to that wherein she found him, a bare gentleman; and not that he was less, for he was well descended, and of good alliance, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... night had been bad, he knew the day would be a hundred times worse. Already a gray light was sifting into the hollow of the sky. The vague misty outlines of the mountains were growing sharper. Soon from a crotch of them would rise a red hot cannon ball to pour its heat into ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... could he ever forget her sweetness, her pity on that first tragic evening. Geoffrey's alarms were absurd. Yet when he thought of merely reproducing the situation as it had existed before the night of the ball, something made him hesitate. And besides, how could he reproduce it? All his real mind was now absorbed in this overwhelming problem of his son; of the helpless, appealing creature to whose aid the whole energies of his nature ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... better for you: Spanish fetters, general." He showed a white scar on his shoulder. "Can you read that? This is what I cut out of it," and he handed the governor a little round stone as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... then commenced running. The old lady pursued with vindictive animosity, cracking the whip in a suggestive manner. Pomp doubled and turned in a most provoking way. Finally he had recourse to a piece of strategy. He had flung himself, doubled up in a ball, at the old lady's feet, and she, unable to check her speed, fell over him, clutching at the ground with her outstretched hands, from which ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... dumfounded with the skill with which the lads used their rifles. The target—scarcely so large as an ordinary dinner-plate—was seldom missed at a distance of 550 yards, and not a few of the young marksmen sent ball after ball into the bull's-eye. Altogether the upper classes of these middle schools gave me the impression that they were companies of picked young athletes; at the same time these athletes showed themselves well acquainted with all those branches of learning which are taught in the ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... and indeed with the school itself, was the sudden escape of Sir Sidney Smith from the prison of the Temple in Paris. The mode of his escape was as striking as its time was critical. Having accidently thrown a ball beyond the prison bounds in playing at tennis, or some such game, Sir Sidney was surprised to observe that the ball thrown back was not the same. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to dissemble his sudden surprise. He retired, examined the ball, found it stuffed with ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... in lancer's maze, She moved with pretty air of grace, And all the ball-room's brilliant blaze Seemed borrowed brightness from her face! O, winsome maid, demure and sweet! I'll ne'er forget when first I met her, And saw the dainty slippered feet Glide ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... I am only a speck of dust, An individual mite of masses, Clinging upon the outer crust Of a little ball of cooling gases. And yet, and yet, say what you will, And laugh, if you please, at my lack of reason, For me wholly, and for me still, Blooms and blossoms the ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to play with it if he hasn't a ball!' he said to himself. 'Perhaps he'll come and ask ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... months had dragged along. Notwithstanding the cheering message conveyed by Picard, her knight the Chevalier—so far as she knew—was still a prisoner of Caen. And the weary months had dragged their ball and chain of silence and despair still more wearingly in the failure of her many renewed attempts to find Louise. The blind sister was again swallowed up in the devouring city—the Frochards ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... you, Mr. Lovelace me. But I am inclinable to believe that, with a view to happiness, however two mild tempers might agree, two high ones would make sad work of it, both at one time violent and unyielding. You two might, indeed, have raqueted the ball betwixt you, as you say.** But Mr. Hickman, by his gentle manners, seems formed for you, if you go not too far with him. If you do, it would be a tameness in him to bear it, which would make a man more contemptible than Mr. Hickman can ever deserve to be made. Nor is it a disgrace ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... many things," said Peter, looking vaguely round for them. "I got him a rattle and a ball, but he doesn't seem to care about them much; Lucy says he's not young enough yet. Here's his bottle. And his night clothes are upstairs, and his other day clothes, and his bath. Thomas leads the simple life, though; he really possesses very little; I think he's probably going to ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... gruesome enough. Simply horrid for us, for so many other people lost their—but I'll tell you from the beginning. It was the night of the Hunt Ball at Rakeham, and the house was crammed with visitors. We were allowed to sit up to see them all start. They looked so lovely—the men in their pink coats, and the ladies in their very best dresses and jewels. Well, it was about half-past seven; the ladies had gone upstairs to dress ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I ain't a-hurrin'. Which is a good thing for you, 'cause so I can think this thing over. That ball in your back will have to come out. I've taken some from folks myself, once or twice, but this one is in a ticklish place. A doctor is what we want, and the nearest one is ten miles away on Kimball's ranch. He'd ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... the Eye.—Particles which accidentally lodge in the eye are usually located on the under surface of the upper lid. They are sometimes, however, found on the ball of the eye or on the inner aspect of the lower lid. Foreign bodies which are propelled into the eye with great force, as iron specks which railroad men frequently get sometimes imbed themselves into the eye-ball and have to be cut ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... over a page on weed-killers, "Margery and I thought we had better find the remainder of the tennis-court while you were having a rest. Margery's gone for a ball of string, and if Bob fetches the marker you can mark ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... ball through the forehead of the animal, which fell dead: but they were then obliged to go home for the pony and cart, and ropes to get the animal out of the pit, and a hard job they had of it too; but the pony helped them, and they did get it ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... in with a pitcher of lemonade. "I know better, Ned," she said. "How about chopping wood when you wanted to play ball? That made all three B's this morning—Busy, Bright, ...
— The Goody-Naughty Book • Sarah Cory Rippey
... Of the number of respectable persons that they contain, some estimate may be formed if we refer to the parties which are given on particular days at the Government House. It appears from the Sydney Gazette of the 24th January, 1818, that one hundred and sixty ladies and gentlemen were present at a ball and supper which was given there on the 18th of that month, in celebration of her late ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... now he always wanted her, he was not always thinking of a wilderness. It was in his own world that he wanted her, to fit beautifully into his house, to move, exquisitely dressed, through ball-rooms beside him. He wanted her, at those times, as the most perfect of all his treasures. He was still ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... while we remained there for four months. I was at the party given at the Quai d'Orsay by Walewski, the son of Napoleon; at that given at the "Legion of Honour" by Flahaut, the father of Morny; at the Ball at the Hotel de Ville to the Emperor and Empress and Queen Victoria; at the review; and at the Queen's entry and departure. The entry was the finest display of troops which I ever witnessed, as the National Guard of the City and its outskirts turned ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... Hermann Ball, wealthy, cultured, with every promising prospect for this world to attract him, made a great self-sacrifice. He chose Poland as a field, and work among the Jews as his mission, refusing to stay at home to rest in the soft nest of self-indulgent ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... the room are divided into four equal teams. Each team is assigned to a different corner. A leader stands in front of each team with a bean bag, cap, or ball. At the signal to start the leader tosses to and receives from each member of his team in turn the bean bag. Having received the bag from the last one in his line, he takes his place at the foot of the line, and the one ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... red and the gold and the orange tinting the leaves. We can hear the last notes of the birds as they wing their way through the soft blue sky to gayer places in the warm southland. The cold comes fast, and in the morning, as we try to play ball or gather the ripe nuts from the hazel bushes, our thumbs ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... feet, and his men were compelled to recoil from the dense array of German pikes, which bristled over the summit of the breastwork. Chandieu, their leader, made every effort to rally and bring them back to the charge; but, in the act of doing this, was hit by a ball, which stretched him lifeless in the ditch; his burnished arms, and the snow-white plumes above his helmet, making him a conspicuous mark ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... together and dry it in the sun, or in an oven when the bread is taken out; and then stick it round hempen or other tow, moulding it into a round form, and studding it all over with very sharp nails. You must leave in this ball an opening to serve as a fusee, and cover it ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... that winter a ball was given at Castle Richmond, to celebrate the coming of age of the young heir. It was not a very gay affair, for the Castle Richmond folk, even in those days, were not very gay people. Sir Thomas, though only fifty, was an old man for his age; and Lady Fitzgerald, though known intimately by the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... the Lat. agglomerare, to form into a ball, glomus, glomeris), a term used in botany, meaning crowded in a close cluster or head, and, in geology, applied to the accumulations of coarse volcanic ejectamenta such as frequently occur near extinct or active volcanoes. Agglomerates in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... between its fore-legs into parallel divisions. Its lateral hoofs were annually shed, and grew to the length of five or six inches. The eye was very peculiar, being remarkably prominent, and "resembled a cup and ball, thus enabling the animal to see on all sides with equal ease; the pupil was small and oval, or rather a parallelogram with the ends cut off, and lying transversely across the ball." A new and strange breed ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... England while Elmur is at work in this country. She is at this moment our very good friend,' Adiron observed apologetically. 'There will be many public occasions—at the Palace ball, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... —- was a young man of promise—bright mentally and physically, lively and witty, and of a figure and manners pleasing to all. In a moment of passion he dirked a man at a French ball. The victim of this scene of revelry lingered a few months and recovered. This recovery is announced in a letter of Mrs. Schoolcraft's (Feb. 16th), ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... wished by Cecilia as by her dissipated host and hostess. No expence and no pains had been spared to render this long projected entertainment splendid and elegant; it was to begin with a concert, which was to be followed by a ball, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... dwelling-place when thine arm was first able to bend a healthy sprout of a single season, and thy heart first began to count upon its strength to look upon the glaring eye-ball of a ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... know how it happened, but as the beast towered up in its huge proportions, he fired rapidly both barrels of his piece, one loaded with heavy shot for the turkeys, the other with ball, ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... first racquets be of wood, then of parchment, and lastly of gut, according to his progress. You prefer the kite because it is less tiring and there is no danger. You are doubly wrong. Kite-flying is a sport for women, but every woman will run away from a swift ball. Their white skins were not meant to be hardened by blows and their faces were not made for bruises. But we men are made for strength; do you think we can attain it without hardship, and what defence shall we be able to make if we are attacked? People always play carelessly ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... of August and September, when the weather is usually hot and dry, pot-grown plants may be planted to the best advantage. With the ball of earth attached to the roots, they can be transplanted without any failures, and the trouble and annoyance of watering, shading, etc., which are indispensable to the success of layer plants, are thus ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... laying hold of two of your immediate escort. Our destructive weapons are far superior to any you possess or have described. That levelled at you by my neighbour would have sent to ten times your distance a small ball, which, bursting, would have asphyxiated every living thing for several yards around. But our laws regarding the use of such weapons are very stringent, and your enemy dared not imperil the lives of those you ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... opposite of all this, a lively, brilliant, contemptuous specialist, who talks briskly and lucidly about his own subject, and makes one feel humble and clumsy and drowsy. One sees that he is pleased to talk, and when the ball rolls to one's feet, one makes a feeble effort to toss it back, whereupon he makes a fine stroke, with an ill-concealed contempt for a person who is so ill-informed. Perhaps it is good to be humiliated thus; but it is not pleasant, and the worst of it is that one confuses the ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... he, "but I niver heard more than that; and if I raaly did sing, I may as well tell yee's how it happint. I dramed, ye see, that I was at a ball in Ireland, an' I thought that about twelve o'clock we got tired wid dancin and sated ourselves on the binches which were ranged round the walls uv the room, and ache one was to sing a song in their turn, an' its I that thought my turn had come for sure." "Well Terry," said I, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... hath drawn my foes more nigh. Then forth my father's scimitar, Thou ne'er hast seen less equal war! Farewell, Zuleika!—Sweet! retire: 1010 Yet stay within—here linger safe, At thee his rage will only chafe. Stir not—lest even to thee perchance Some erring blade or ball should glance. Fear'st them for him?—may I expire If in this strife I seek thy sire! No—though by him that poison poured; No—though again he call me coward! But tamely shall I meet their steel? No—as each crest save his may ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... and while doing so I found jammed into a corner of the after-locker a large fishing-hook, such as is used for catching sharks, bonitos, and other finny monsters of the deep. Besides this, we discovered a ball of twine and some spare ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... gradually the team learned to play fair, to take hard knocks, and to cheer the winners. They grew into such "good sports" that when one day an invading cow, aggrieved at being hit in the flank by a flying ball, turned and knocked the goal thrower flat on the ground, the interruption lasted only a few minutes. The prostrate goal-thrower recovered her breath, got over her fright, and, while admiring friends ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... of bygone ages, although it has been much modernized and added to in later days. Among these are the brewhouse and laundry—formerly, it is said, dining-hall and ball-room. The latter of these is chiefly remarkable for an immense arched window, such as you see ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and sea in boats or carriages together, in undisturbed and unrestricted familiar intercourse. The lady of the house has not yet met her husband's friends at the dinner-table, at the social soiree, or in the ball-room. He is quite willing to go to these, at the house of his Frank friend, but he has not been convinced of the propriety of the change, and his sovereign has not carried his reforms into harem life. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my word of honour—' Here arrives Richardson, so anxious to come that she is propelled into the room like a ball. 'What ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... which she had frequently beheld on very high and important festal occasions, nodding on the heads of Aunt Martha and Aunt Jane. But the prettiest of all the birds she saw there was a small creature with a breast so red and bright, that it seemed, as it flew about, like a little ball of fire. There were many of them flying about near a steep bank, in holes of which they built their nests. She observed that they fed upon flies which they caught while skimming through the air, and afterwards learned that ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... grown as unfashionable for a book now to appear in publick without a preface, as for a lady to appear at a ball without a hoop-petticoat, I shall conform to custom for fashion-sake, and not through any necessity. The subject being both common and universal, needs no arguments to introduce it, and being so necessary for the gratification of the appetite, stands in need ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... shirt-bosoms—cheered and cheered and struggled with one another to shake hands with a man whom two of their number old Yale grads, with memories of athletic triumphs yet in their minds—carried into that ball-room, borne high ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... 'Lowlands,' 'Shenandoah,' 'Rolling river,' 'Hilo,' 'Mobile Bay,' 'Rio Grande,' had a great fascination, as their constant recurrence in many shanties shows. (4) The sailor also sang much of famous ships, such as 'The Flying Cloud,' 'The Henry Clay,' or 'The Victory,' and famous lines, such as 'The Black Ball.' Even famous shipowners were celebrated in song, as witness 'Mr. John Tapscott,' in 'We're all bound to go.' (5) Love affairs, in which 'Lizer Lee' and other damsels constantly figured, were an endless topic. (6) But chiefly ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... in which his son had evanesced. The boy was apprenticed to Jean Pelletier, tailor to Mme. de Retz and to the household of the castle. He seemed to be getting on in his profession, when last year, about S. Barnabas' day, he went to play at ball on the castle green. He ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... into the land, on the Vermont side of the lake. At the northerly entrance to this bay were three islands. Potter's Island, the largest of them, was over a mile in length. South-west of it, and about half a mile distant, was Ball Island. This island was three miles from Ladd's Point, off which the Goldwing was running with ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... each bystander of them all Could criticise, and quote tradition How depths of blue sublimed some pall —To get which, pricked a king's ambition; Worth sceptre, crown and ball. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... if she made 'em! Our girls acted as though they were just dummies, but didn't they wake up? You should have seen their passing then. Why, honest, Midge Fielding was everywhere! Caught a high ball and passed it under—before you could wink! And, oh, Ginny—she was possessed. She could make that basket anywhere. And, listen, Jerry, with only two minutes more to play if they didn't ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... nonsense now," Mrs. Blake exclaimed. "Why, you baby! only last November you would go into that wet meadow by the rectory to play trap-and-ball with Robin and Jack. And such a fuss as there was if one wanted to make you the least tidy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... been for some days past persuading my son to go masked to a ball. She says that his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, and I, make him pass for a coward by preventing him from going to balls and running about the town by night as he used to do before; and that he ought not to manifest the least symptom of fear. He replied that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he took from his coat pocket a little crumpled-up ball of something black and gold, evidently thrust in with haste. "This is one of the chevrons I wore on my sleeve when I was made corporal of cadets at West Point, eleven years ago this very month. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Little Misery" who regarded law as a potential ball-and-chain were doing a thriving business by one crooked means or another and looked with uneasiness upon the coming of the cattlemen. There were wails and threats that autumn in Bill Williams's saloon over "stuck-up tenderfeet, shassayin' ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... could but have seen his father when he was young, Lila," sighed her mother, falling into one of the easy reveries of old age. "I met him at a fancy ball, you know, where he went as Achilles in full Grecian dress. Oh! the sight he was, my dear, one of the few fair men among us, and taller even than old Colonel Fitzhugh, who was considered one of the finest figures of his time. That was a wild ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... moment after, in darted the Peri in her pink cashmere costume, with a glow transforming her usually colourless face. "Dear, dear Frank, I'm so glad!" she cried, bestowing her kiss; while he cried in amazement, "Is it Rose? Is there a fancy ball?" ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... top of the shaft, or whether it did not rather terminate in a ring or socket into which the upper end of the shaft was itself inserted. The shaft tapered gradually from bottom to top, and terminated below in a knob or ball, which was perhaps sometimes carved into the shape of some natural object. [PLATE ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... pits around Petersburg you heard his steady voice and firm command. Some one who saw him then fancied that he seemed that day like one who forefelt the end. But there was no flinching as he charged. He had just turned to give a cheer when the fatal ball struck him. There was a convulsion of the upward hand. His eyes, pleading and loyal, turned their last glance to the flag. His lips parted. He fell dead, and at nightfall lay with his face to the stars. Home they brought ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... a servant does, and evidently lived at home; she did not go to service. Tossing her head, she looked the other way, for you see the fellow on the shutter was dirty, not "dressed" at all, though it was Sunday, poor folks' ball-day; a dirty, rough fellow, with a short clay pipe in his mouth, a chalky-white face—apparently from low dissipation—a disreputable rascal, a monstrously impudent "chap," a true London mongrel. He "cheeked" her; she tossed her head, and looked the other way. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... of men together at one place, and especially such a remote place, was surprising. A score or more of booted-and-spurred loungers were at the bar and at the gambling tables. A roulette wheel was spinning at full clip, its little ivory ball dancing merrily, and at other tables were layouts of faro and various games of chance. Cards were being riffled briskly at a poker game near the door, and a little knot of men were in a corner ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... mocked at tears before With bitter drops were running o'er. The death-pangs of long-cherished hope Scarce in that ample breast had scope But, struggling with his spirit proud, Convulsive heaved its checkered shroud, While every sob—so mute were all Was heard distinctly through the ball. The son's despair, the mother's look, III might the gentle Ellen brook; She rose, and to her side there came, To aid ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... a spiral spring, and has a ball valve, as shown. Intermediate between this small reservoir and the main oil tank is another set of valves, shown in fig. 49. It will be seen that the suction of the pump will draw the oil up, the small and lower ball valve, of course, allowing it to pass freely. On the down stroke ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... all for boating, and she took the others out whenever the sea was smooth enough to soothe her mother's fears. The cottage, too, was such fun that they never grew tired of it. And then there was a field near at hand where they had a tennis-court marked out, and where Diana and Margaret kept the ball ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... be told how to go light than you can be told how to hit a ball with a bat. It is something that must be lived through, and all advice on the subject has just about the value of an answer to a bashful young man who begged from one of our woman's periodicals help in overcoming the diffidence ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... working with cheerfulness and alacrity soon dispatched their labor. Then having spread the garments on the shore to dry, and having themselves bathed, they sat down to enjoy their meal; after which they rose and amused themselves with a game of ball, the princess singing to them while they played. But when they had refolded the apparel and were about to resume their way to the town, Minerva caused the ball thrown by the princess to fall into the water, whereat they all screamed, and ...
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