"Drop off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... onct before we git in," said Brevoort. "It's gittin' dark—and we got one chanct. When she slows down, we go into the baggage-car there and tell the boss we're lookin' for our war-bag, which we didn't have. Jest about the time she stops, we drop off. The side door's open." ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... watch's spell on deck, the wind, which had freshened considerably since sunset, began to blow with greater force, veering, or "backing" as sailors say, more and more round to the north; so that, although our yards were braced up to the full and the vessel was sailing almost close-hauled, we had to drop off a point or two within the next half-hour from our ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the leaves become clogged and stopped up with earthy and other matter; they cease to do their work any longer; the hot sun dries them up more and more, and by the time the frost comes they are as good as dead. That finishes them, and they drop off from the branch that needs them no more. Do you understand ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... for the bridge. Afraid of the floods. D'ye see? If they creep up to it as they do in the United States when they're cautious, we'll politely drop off and—'Pon my soul, she's coming down to a snail's pace. We can swing off, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... s'pose, why I haven't written you; but the fact is, I've been run just off my feet, and worked till the flesh aches so it seems as if it would drop off my bones, with this wedding of Mary Scudder's. And, after all, you'll be astonished to hear that she ha'n't married the Doctor, but that Jim Marvyn that I told you about. You see, he came home a week before the wedding was to be, and Mary, she was so conscientious she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... know I won't drop off the car at some corner and abscond with this?" he asked, in a ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... and drop off; but societies are immortal: their resentments are sometimes delivered down from hand to hand; and when once they have begun with a man, there is no knowing when ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... down on the sward, "we must hand it to you Go-Aheads. You've got us 'way out on the limb, and if you shake the tree very hard we'll drop off." ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... and every part, Nature would craft in counterfeiting pass, And imitate her imitator art: Mild was the air, the skies were clear as glass, The trees no whirlwind felt, nor tempest smart, But ere the fruit drop off, the blossom comes, This springs, that falls, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... inanity for a whole lifetime. Only fancy living with an unadulterated Monty from the time you were twenty to the time you were seventy-five—at which latter date he, being doubtless some five years older than one-self to begin with, would probably drop off quietly with suppressed gout, and leave you a mourning widow to deplore his untimely and lamented extinction for the rest of your existence! Why, long before that time you would have got to know his very thoughts by heart (if he had any, poor fellow!) and would be able to finish ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... looked fearfully over his shoulder he could see them following with enraged faces and drawn swords, a position which they kept up for a distance of more than a mile. Then he had the satisfaction of seeing them drop off one by one, and soon he and his panting charger remained alone ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... like insects and fruits just as my relations do, but I like best to eat acorns. You know, if I left the acorns on the trees and just got enough to eat at one time, after a while I would have a hard time finding any. They would drop off and roll away and get lost among the leaves and grasses. What would you do if you ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... drop off to sleep for a little, he is so tired, and then wake by and by and be ready ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... better to the stomach, as it has most excellent virtues, insomuch that if a person were rotten with the lues, and drinks abundantly of this wine, he shall be made whole, as I have seen proved: For when I was in Cochin, the nose of a friend of mine began to drop off with that disease, on which he was advised by the physicians to go to Tanasserim at the season of the new wines, and to drink the Nyper wine day and night, as much as he was able. He was ordered to use it before being distilled, when it is most delicate; for after ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... at Perth's fire, remained firmly lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat's bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there like a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm — God, God is against thee, old man; forbear! t'is an ill voyage! ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Leaves: Like the iris; erect, folded blades, 8 to 10 in. long. Fruit: Resembling a blackberry; an erect mass of round, black, fleshy seeds, at first concealed in a fig-shaped capsule, whose 3 valves curve backward, and finally drop off. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... why can't I go to sleep?" he murmured to himself. Then, punching his pillow to freshen it up, he turned over and tried his best to drop off. ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... the crowd of characters jostled against each other in their course, some drop off at the first, the second, or the third stage, and leave a few only continuing to the last, while Fate chooses her agents and survivors among those whom the bystander, perchance, least noticed as the objects of her ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... crew is this Which just have fled! Foul suckers that drop off When they no more can on their victims gorge! This Tigellinus.... Within his sunshine basked and buzzed and stung; And, now the shadow comes, off, like a fly— A pestilent and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... is over Powderhorn Pass. Word has just reached us that MacQueen is moving in that direction. He is evidently figuring to slip out over the hills during the night. I've arranged for us to be met at Barker's Tank by a couple of the boys, with horses. We'll drop off the train quietly when it slows up to water, so that none of his spies can get word of our movements to him. By hard riding we'd ought to reach Powderhorn in time to head ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... to Halifax, where we landed our sick and inhaled some purer air; but it was of no avail. The fever was in the vessel and we could not shake it off. The poor fellows as soon as we were out at sea again began to drop off. I never can forget an incident of that voyage, which, as it could only have happened during blockade-running times, I will mention, melancholy though it was. Two men died in the middle watch one night, when ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this the birds ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... there be no such interfering circumstances, and one knows pretty well even the look the audience will have, before he goes in. Front seats: a few old folk,—shiny-headed,—slant up best ear towards the speaker,—drop off asleep after a while, when the air begins to get a little narcotic with carbonic acid. Bright women's faces, young and middle-aged, a little behind these, but toward the front—(pick out the best, and lecture mainly to that.) Here and there a countenance, sharp and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not the end. After these snowy blossoms have performed their mission of beauty, they will drop off upon the carpet of moss, and, in a short time, will be succeeded by the leaves of the plant, which are large and irregular, but very beautiful, and each leaf is supported by a stem which comes directly from the ground, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... gwo out in de heabens but fur dat! An' shill I tell you why? You hab heerd massa Robert talk 'bout de great law dat make de apple fall from de tree, de rock sink in de water; dat bines our feet to de round 'arth so we don't drop off as it gwo fru de air; dat holes de sun an' de stars in dar 'pointed places, so dat, day after day, an' yar after yar, dough dey'm trabblin' fasser dan de lightnin' eber went, dey'm right whar dey ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Bowen was sitting where she had left her, and seemed not to have moved. "I think Effie will drop off to sleep," she said; "she seems drowsy." She sat down, and after a pensive moment continued, "I wonder what makes Mr. Colville ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... when the remaining plants should be large enough to make about three bunches each. This last cutting may continue well into November without serious loss of lower leaves. If the plants are not thinned, but are allowed to crowd, the lower leaves will turn yellow and drop off, thus ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... bed, and she is for the greater part of the time in a sleep or stupor. Sometimes she revives a little, and seeing, perhaps, some neighbors or friends in the room, will say, "Now you must all stay to tea," or, "Is anybody sick in your neighborhood?" and then drop off again. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... shells were hatching; and I found that numbers of the extremely minute and just-hatched shells crawled on the feet, and clung to them so firmly that when taken out of the water they could not be jarred off, though at a somewhat more advanced age they would voluntarily drop off. These just hatched molluscs, though aquatic in their nature, survived on the duck's feet, in damp air, from twelve to twenty hours; and in this length of time a duck or heron might fly at least six or seven hundred ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... have often noticed that; you look so long at the ring on your hand. That is why I have let it stay there, though at times I have feared it would drop off and roll away over the adobe down the ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... little, and catch the sound of voices, or be aware that Clover or Elsie stood at the door, crying softly; or that Aunt Izzie, in creaking slippers, was going about the room on tiptoe. Then all these things would slip away again, and she would drop off into a dark place, where there was nothing but pain, and sleep, which made her forget pain, and so seemed the best ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... about to shrivel up and drop off," he said.... "Still if I keep on in this direction, I am safe to strike the Lumberland ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... bits loose in my pocket," announced Jerry, once they were out on the street. "If we don't let any grass grow on the side streets while we're moving we can make the two-five express on the Dellwood Interurban. We can drop off when they slow down at Downers Crossing; that must be almost opposite Lost Island. It's hard going through the swamps to get to Plum Run, but I guess we're good ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... reckon. What brought you fellows here? Where am I, anyhow? Did I just drop off that motorcycle? No. I remember, now. Flimsy took the last cent I had while I lay in the road. The meanest skunk I ever met up with. If ever he crosses my path again I'll get even with the cur," he growled, sitting up and holding ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... structural differences between the varieties and breeds of pigeons. In Virginia there is a plant called the paint-root (Lachnanthes tinctoria), which, when eaten by pigs, colours their bones pink, and causes the hoofs of all but the black varieties to drop off; so that black pigs only can be kept in the district.[58] Buckwheat in flower is also said to be injurious to white pigs but not to black. In the Tarentino, black sheep are not injured by eating the Hypericum ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... any repetition of the noise, he was about to drop off again, his eyes feeling very heavy, when he saw something move. Was that Frank, or one of the other boys, who had been ashore, climbing back to ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... friendships can never fill. If we who are older have carried into the later years one or two, or two or three, well-laid, well-tested and useful friendships, let us be very thankful, and cherish them. They are pearls of great price, for no friends are like old friends, and as they drop off we have to make the best we can of acquaintances. It is when we are young that we have the genius for friendships; they are, indeed, a necessary part of our life. And whether or not it is much use to warn young people about the formation of friendships, the ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... But among many other things what stands chiefly in the way of getting a friend is the desire for many friends, like a licentious woman who, through giving her favours indiscriminately, cannot retain her old lovers, who are neglected and drop off;[323] or rather like the foster-child of Hypsipyle, "sitting in the meadow and plucking flower after flower, snatching at each prize with gladsome heart, insatiable in its childish delight,"[324] so in the case of each of us, owing to our love of novelty and fickleness, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large; this term is possibly techspeak by now) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the machine to start going senile). ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... day I took Jessie for a little trip to Philadelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias in a pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used to raise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I'd drop off here for the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings or blossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you the address. Come out and see us when ...
— Options • O. Henry
... forget!" he said to himself with the serene confidence of a healthy man that if he is tired and sleepy, he will go to sleep at once. And the same instant his head did begin to feel drowsy and he began to drop off into forgetfulness. The waves of the sea of unconsciousness had begun to meet over his head, when all at once—it was as though a violent shock of electricity had passed over him. He started so that he leaped up on the springs of the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and with trust in the future soon learned in cave work that distance was at once passed, and sitting on the very narrow ledge to cogitate on the possibility of further progress, Mr. Sidey solved the problem by suggesting, rather doubtfully, that the easiest way would be to drop off and allow him to interrupt the fall. This method had twice proved the only means of advance in Wind Cave and can be termed rapid transit. The walls of Red Hall are of stratified limestone variegated with patches of red rock, and clay of the same gay hue. It is the highest chamber in the cave and ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... yellowish-white—looks like, and indeed is, matter. Four or five days are occupied with this process; the matter in the pocks then begins to dry, and scabs to form, which gradually by the end of another week drop off, and leave the skin spotted with red or even scarred if the pocks went deep enough to destroy the skin, and to leave the indelible marks, the ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... all which Phaenomena I imagine to be no other then this, That the Parts of the Glass being by the excessive heat of the fire kept off and separated one from another, and thereby put into a kind of sluggish fluid consistence, are suffered to drop off with that heat or agitation remaining in them, into cold Water; by which means the outsides of the drop are presently cool'd and crusted, and are thereby made of a loose texture, because the parts ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c 306; decrement, reflux, depreciation; deterioration &c 659; anticlimax; mitigation &c (moderation) 174. V. decrease, diminish, lessen; abridge &c (shorten) 201; shrink &c (contract) 195; drop off, fall off, tail off; fall away, waste, wear; wane, ebb, decline; descend &c 306; subside; melt away, die away; retire into the shade, hide its diminished head, fall to a low ebb, run low, languish, decay, crumble. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... said a gentleman, interrupting, "when I asked a presentment for coffins at the sessions, I was laughed at." Dr. Donovan continued: The case of a man named Sullivan was a most melancholy one. His children began to drop off without any apparent disease, after they had entered the Workhouse. From scarcity of beds, the father and son—the latter being sick and weakly—had to sleep together; and one morning the son was found dead alongside of his father, while ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Ben put up more trapezes in the barn—big ones for themselves. Ben could swing and turn somersaults and drop off into the hay from away up near the roof of the barn. Bunker could not do quite as well as this, but, for all ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... it gets down to work, and its harsh, high-pitched, metallic drone makes the street ring for a moment. Then it is temporarily drowned by a chorus of shrill, small voices. The person—I am afraid his decency begins to drop off him here—leans on his broad window-sill and looks out. The street is filled with children of every age, size, and nationality; dirty children, clean children, well-dressed children, and children in rags, and for every one of these last two ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... Nick, shaking his head dolefully. "I'm pining away, fellows, inch by inch. Why, my clothes are ready to drop off me, I'm getting so like a scarecrow. Mebbe you don't believe me, but it's a fact. And I'm that nervous I keep quivering ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... caught a motion—a something—two hundred yards up among the bowlders on the hill. He whirled round. The enemy was behind them also. There was no retreat. "Yourn's no good!" yelled Jones, fiercely, for Cumnor was getting out his little, foolish revolver. "Oh, what a trick to play on a man! Drop off yer horse, kid; drop, and do like me. Shootin's no good here, even if I was loaded. They shot, and look at them now. God bless them ice-cream freezers of yourn, kid! Did y'u ever see a crazy man? If you 'ain't, make it up as y'u ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... turned up his nose, and wadna hae aught to say to me! But it's little I care for him, for I have led a merry life ever since, and ne'er a braw gentleman looks at me but ye wad think he was gaun to drop off his horse for mere love of me. I have ken'd some o' them put their hand in their pocket, and gie me as muckle as sixpence at a time, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... were three hundred and eight steps, for he counted them. And the steps were only on one side of the ladder, so he had to be extremely careful. On he went, up and on, on and up, till his feet ached and his hands felt as though they would drop off for tiredness. He could not look up far, and he dared not look down at all. There was nothing for it but to climb and climb and climb, and at last he saw the ground on which the ladder rested—a terrace hewn in regular lines, and, as it seemed, hewn from the solid rock. ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... the purchase money. They paid at the rate of thirty years' rent as purchase money. They are paying now a rent and a half yearly, but hope is in the distance and cheers them on. So if they have a millstone about their necks, as my Moville friend insinuated, it will drop off some day and leave them free for ever. Some of them have already ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... ice excepting in small places in a river where the water runs too swiftly to freeze. We would just have to drop into one of these to rest a little, because we had flown so far that our wings ached as if they would drop off. Then just as we would think we were safe for a little while, there would come the bang of a terrible gun. Then we would have to fly again as long as we could, and finally come back to the same place because there was no other place where we could go. Then we would have to do ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... leaves and flowers, and this I sometimes did to take it to my mother, who had a great love of wild flowers. But no sooner would I start with a bunch of flowering stalks in my hand than the lovely delicate petals would begin to drop off, and before I was half way home there would not be a petal left. This extreme frailty or sensitiveness used to infect me with the notion that this flower was something more than a mere flower, something like a sentient being, and ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... out of bed I will have the windows closed," said the nurse, "and of course she must be well wrapped up in blankets. She may drop off to sleep again in my arms; anyhow, the change of position and the slight movement will be most refreshing to her. Will you make the bed and put on clean sheets while I am ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... sleep-burdened days. Night was too strange—in barns, beneath hay-ricks, in little oppressive rooms, in stable-lofts—for him to sleep easily at first; and between his tramps, or in the dinner-hour, when he managed to get work, he would drop off in the hot sunshine down into depths of that kind of rest that is like the sea itself—glimmering gulfs, lit by glimpses of consciousness of the grass beneath his cheek, the bubble of bird-song in the copses, stretching down into profound ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... sighed Little Jack Rabbit one lovely spring morning, "I'm so tired of polishing this doorknob every day and every day. I wish it would drop off." ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... looked bewildered. He advanced to Mr. Linden. "Now this girl's here," said he, "don't you think you hadn't better come into another room and try to drop off? I guess he can get along without ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... cloven foot, if possible, more undisguisedly than he had hitherto done. He spoke of the impossibility of allowing four hundred a year to be carried off from him, and suggested to Daly that his sister would soon drop off,—that there would then be a nice thing left, and that he, Daly, should have the agency, and if he pleased, the use of Dunmore House. As for himself, he had no idea of mewing himself up in such a hole as that; but, before he went, he'd take care to drive ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... like this don't have fires often enough—a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row that he gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business! People don't wait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop off right along—there ain't any dull spots in the undertaker line. I just started in with two or three little old coffins and a hired hearse, and now look at the thing! I've worked up a business here that would satisfy any man, don't care who he is. Five years ago, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... deny it to Nannie, say the woman is crazy, and one by one the family will drop off until she only remains, and then she'll ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... sagged the back of a mule was the riskiest an' full of the narrowest escapes. Twice my mule bucked off his pack an' left my outfit scattered. Worst of all, my precious bundle made the mule top heavy comin' down that place back here where the trail seems to drop off the earth. There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack. Sometimes it was on top an' other times the mule. But it got here at last.... An' now I'll ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... when they learnt that we were merely going to a house beyond, and intended to return peaceably, consented to accompany us. The crowd, which might rather be called a mob, thought proper not to offer us any violence in the presence of the soldiers, and after following us a little distance, began to drop off, until all had disappeared. One of the soldiers, however, soon after remarked, that he observed a man following us, whom he had seen in the crowd, and proposed that instead of both of them going before us, one ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... pleasantly lingers, and is easily revived. The great cedars throw their secular shadow on the ancient turf, the chapel forms a beautiful background; the whole place is exactly what it was two hundred and sixty years ago. The stones of Oxford walls, when they do not turn black and drop off in flakes, assume tender tints of the palest gold, red, and orange. Along a wall, which looks so old that it may well have formed a defence of the ancient Augustinian priory, the stars of the yellow jasmine flower ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... favour it, raw, rough and ready. In that he is precocious, and, like the rathe primrose, will "forsaken die." He will rend the Labour party in twain from the top to the bottom, and will see the agricultural vote drop off his industrials just as it had begun to adhere to them. I know the peasantry. They will never strike for political ends, for though they are not quick to see the consequences of hypothetical actions, they do see that ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... abhorred race Which could not keep in Eden their high place, But listened to the voice Of knowledge without power, Are nigh the hour, 80 Of Death! Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow, Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping motion, Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow! Earth shall be Ocean! And no breath, Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave! Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot: Not even a rock from out the liquid grave Shall ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... have twanged like a fiddle-string if it had been struck. Jennings did not give Smaltz the sign to stop even when the cross-arm cracked. Without a word of protest Bruce watched the stout four-by-five splinter and drop off. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... release their hold on all desire to attract or retain friends. For years Rosalie has given herself up to a chronic semi-invalidism. When the mistress of a house is always depressed and languid and does not return visits, neighbours become discouraged and drop off, as ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... command a good view of the neighborhod, and readily scent approaching danger. Nor does he drop off immediately in a sound sleep, like a turtle-fed alderman; but rather, like a suspicious, blood- thirsty land pirate, as he is, he first snatches hastily "forty winks," then starts up nervously, for several times, scanning all around with his cruel, cunning ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Ramsey drop off the limb of a tree astride of a horse that was tied beneath, then lean over, and with one stroke of ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... difficult to procure you such a situation as you wanted, and was anxious to get you off his hands. Meeting Mr. Church in town, he asked him to take you. Mr. Church objected, telling him it would be a pity to place you on the Pearl plantation, where you might drop off in less than six weeks. But Bohun urged the matter; requested it as a personal favor; and they being countrymen, you know and so and so you see your business was done, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the years drop off, a certain pair of eyes beam one day upon you that seem to have been cut out of a page of Greek poetry. They have all its sentiment, its fire, its intellectual reaches: it would be hard to say what they have not. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... coming of the Normans in 1066 made many changes in the land, many changes in the Church and in the State, and it also introduced many changes into the language. The inflexions of our speech began to drop off, because they were used less and less; and though we never adopted new inflexions from French or from any other language, new French words began to creep in. In some parts of the country English had ceased to be written in books; the language ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... fulfillment in the artist entirely without precedent or parallel? Had not Sir Joshua Reynolds a studio full of young artists who "finished off" his pictures? Were not the very faces themselves painted with such rapidity and want of proper method as to drop off, on occasion, entirely from the canvas, as in case of the boy's head, in being carried through the street? Hunt is of our own age, and would scorn the suggestion of having a hand or a foot painted for him, as if it were a matter of small importance what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... must watch against heart backsliding. When soldiers drop off from knee-drill; when they are not found in the ranks in bad weather; when they no longer remain to the prayer meetings; when they come only now and then to the week-night services; and when they cease to testify as frequently, heartily, and definitely as in former days, the F.O. should conclude ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... time to drop off my coat, as I came in through the kitchen, and get to the front door, when you turned the corner. I believe mammy has spent the last hour between the door and window. I wonder what they're doing in there; I wish they'd hurry up, for I want some lunch. Charlie ought to be hungry, too, for he ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... From one of the huts we passed, a crippled, distorted form crawled out on its hands and knees to beg of us. It was a boy of sixteen, struck with another and scarcely less frightful form of leprosy. In this case, instead of hideous swellings and fungous excrescences, the limbs gradually dry up and drop off piecemeal at the joints. Well may the victims of both these forms of hopeless disease curse the hour in which they were begotten. I know of no more awful example of that visitation of the sins of the parents upon the children, which almost ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... that by setting the pots on trawls more pots could be set and only one man would be required to work them. This invention, which was claimed by several different persons, proved quite successful for a while, but after a time, when the supply of lobsters began to drop off, better results were secured by scattering the pots over a greater area and shifting their position each time they were fished, which was very easily done. As a result of this the use of trawls ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... hands; her ladyship said it was clear to her mind that she could not have put on Sir Josseline's again, because here was the guard ring on her wrong finger—a finger on which she never in her life wore it when she wore Sir Josseline's, for Sir Josseline's was so loose, it would drop off, unless she had the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... tragedy without any change or alteration whatever. There is, however, this deviation from the tragic model, that there are frequently, in the same comedy, several choruses which sometimes are present together, singing in response, or at other times come on alternately and drop off, without the least general reference to each other. The most remarkable peculiarity, however, of the comic chorus is the Parabasis, an address to the spectators by the chorus, in the name, and as the representative ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... his best to relieve the negro, giving him the few simple remedies at hand, in the hope that he would drop off to sleep. Sure enough, in the course of half an hour Sam did fall asleep, and when he awoke, an hour later, was well; and, fully appreciating Jim's kind attentions, said to him, leaning on his ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... basin a pint of cold water, and beat it for a few minutes in order to aerate it as much as possible. Stir gently, but quickly, into this as much fine wholemeal as will make a batter the consistency of thick cream. It should just drop off the spoon. Drop this batter into very hot greased gem pans. Bake for half an hour in a hot oven. When done, stand on end to cool. They may appear to be a little hard on first taking out of the oven, but when cool they should be soft, ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... to all that trouble, and thank me. "I'll be all right d'reckly. Best take the horses up to the hut and have some breakfast; you'll find it by the fire. I'll foller you, d'reckly. The wife'll be waitin' an'——" He would drop off, and be going again presently on ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... filled up at St Omer from the three hospitals there. A great many cases of frost-bite were put on. They crawl on hands and knees, poor dears. Some left in hospital are very severe and have had to be amputated below the knee. Some of the toes drop off. I have one carriage of twenty-four Indians. A Sikh refused to sit in the same seat with a stout little major of the Gurkhas. I showed him a picture of Bobs, and he said at once, "Robert Sahib." They love the 'Daily Mirrors' with pictures of Indians. The ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... pocket, and dressed him in a jacket with gilt buttons. He had a bouquet of flowers to take home every day to that marvelous sister of whom he spoke so often; and there were times when the whole committee, seeing him drop off to sleep as he often did through frail and weary nature, sat silently watching lest he might be wakened before his rest was over. But no persuasion could take him off the floor of Congress. In that solemn old Hall of Representatives, under the semicircle of gray columns, he darted ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... priests would keep him until the Ave Maria (sunset); for it is their merciful custom never finally to turn the crucifix away from a man at that pass, as one refusing to be shriven, and consequently a sinner abandoned of the Saviour, until then. People began to drop off. The officers shrugged their shoulders and looked doubtful. The dragoons, who came riding up below our window, every now and then, to order an unlucky hackney- coach or cart away, as soon as it had comfortably established itself, and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... decided to go and tell Her Majesty about it, and take punishment if necessary. For a wonder Her Majesty did not make much bother about it. She said: "Well it was quite an old one in any case and the top was ready to drop off at any time; it so happens that you were the one to wipe it, and of course it came off. It can't be helped." I told Her Majesty that I was very much ashamed at being so careless, especially as I knew it was one of her favorites, and there the matter ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... been put away in the earth, when the dews and soft rains fall upon it, something begins to happen down there in the dark; the ugly bulb begins to change, to soften and melt away; one by one the brown husks drop off and disappear as the tiny germ within, awakening to a new sense of life, starts upward to find more light and freedom and a purer atmosphere. Then two small leaves of living green—harbingers of better things—begin ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and wander about there for a while; there are berries in flower and a scent of little green leaves. A crowd of thrushes go chasing a crow across the sky, making a great to-do, like a clattering confusion of faulty castanets. I lie down on my back, with my sack under my head, and drop off ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... peaceful night's rest was Jake Miller. A singular circumstance connected with the broken rest of three-fourths of the people of Tinkletown was the extraordinary unanimity with which Jake became visible to them the instant they did drop off to sleep. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... for a moment contemplated escape in that direction. It occurred to him, if he could get up to the house and on the azotea, he might drop off on either side, and, favoured by the darkness, return to the meadow at some distant point. This idea vanished the moment he saw that the entrance was occupied. He glanced to the walls. They were too high to be scaled. He ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... said, "it is very good of you to come and cheer him up. It is as good as a new dress to me, to see a new face coming in, for the old ones begin to drop off. Not the dresses, the friends," she ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... he said humbly, "how I dread the bust being finished! I'll be like a child stealing a ride by the strength of his arms, I'll have to drop off then—won't I?—back ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... casts become a larger proportion of the bin, conditions deteriorate for the worms. Eventually the worms suffer and their number and activity begins to drop off. Differences in bedding, temperature, moisture, and the composition of your kitchen's garbage will control how long it takes but eventually you must separate the worms from their castings and put them into fresh bedding. If you're ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... they were particularly astonished at our security on the approach of their mighty winter, which was their natural and most formidable ally, and which they expected every moment: they pitied us and urged us to fly. In a fortnight, your nails will drop off, and your arms will fall from your benumbed and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Vernacular School, the Latin School or Ludus Literarius, and the University. This last stage of the complete routine might extend to the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year of life; and, though few could proceed to that stage, and the majority must, from sheer social necessity, drop off in the earlier stages, yet all were to be carried through the stage of the Vernacular Public School, and progress beyond that, where possible, was not to be denied to girls any more than to boys. Compared with this, what Milton contemplates, or at ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... over, I'm going up to the capital for one last fling at making a United States Senator. I've only a dozen little white chips in the great game, five in the upper house and seven in the lower house. But we may deadlock it, and if we do,—you'll see thirty years drop off my head and witness the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... number, five broader ones alternating with five narrower ones. The five broad zones are composed of large plates on which are the most prominent spines, attached to tubercles that remain on the surface even when the spines drop off after death, and mark the places where the spines have been. The five small zones are perforated with regular rows of holes, and through these perforations pass the suckers or water-tubes which are their locomotive appendages. For this reason these narrower zones are called the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... overwhelmed, perhaps, by the solemn presence of the darkness. Augusta laid her head against the biscuit-bag, and at last sank into blissful oblivion; for to the young, sleep is a constant friend. Once or twice she woke, but only to drop off again; and when she finally opened her eyes it was quite light ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... tall stone portals of Hyde Manor House. The ride, however, had given him back his best self. For when we leave society and come into the presence of Nature, we become children again; and the fictions of thought and action assumed among men drop off like a garment. The beauty of the pale green hills, and the flowing river, and the budding trees, and the melody of birds singing as if they never would grow old, were all but charming accessories and horizons to his constant pictures ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... manner, dove-tailed into each other, which accounted for this. He told us how forlorn and miserable he felt, without another human being in sight, believing that his master was lost, uncertain as to our fate, and that he himself was hurrying to destruction. More than once he felt inclined to drop off the roof, but love of life, or rather a sense of the wickedness of so doing, prevailed, and he clung on till the hut ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... you have sent us a word since then, and you with nothing to do at all, at all; while we have been marching and countermarching, now here and now there, now backwards and now forwards, ever since Fuentes d'Onoro, till one's legs were ready to drop off one." ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... of the Tonquin, and the departure of Mr. David Stuart and his detachment, had produced a striking effect on affairs at Astoria. The natives who had swarmed about the place began immediately to drop off, until at length not an Indian was to be seen. This, at first, was attributed to the want of peltries with which to trade; but in a little while the mystery was explained in a more alarming manner. A conspiracy was said to be on foot among the neighboring tribes to make ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the second the petals fall, and the fruit sets; it is hard and acrid then until the third period, when, if things go well, it will ripen on the bough, and be sweet and wholesome—if ill, it will drop off immediately, and rot upon ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... patch to catch javalines? The way we done, why, we just dug a big pit right on the inside of the field, right against the fence, and whenever they would go through that hole to go in the corn patch, they would drop off in that hole. I think we caught nine, little and big, at one trappin' once. It was already an old trompin' place where they come in and out, and we had put the pit there. But after you use it, they won't come in ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the second cause of failure. Any cookery book will give you directions how to crumb, follow them; but what some do not tell you is, that your bread-crumbs should be finely sifted; every coarse crumb is liable to drop off and bring with it a good deal of the ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... make him out, my lady!" said Simmons. "It is nothing very bad, I think, this time; but he gets worse and worse—always taking more and more o' them horrid drugs. It's no use trying to hide it: he'll drop off sudden one o' these days! I've heard say laudanum don't shorten life; but it's not one nor two, nor half a dozen sorts o' laudanums he keeps mixing in that poor inside o' his! The end must come, and what will it be? It's better you should be prepared ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... very mischievous; he even played a cruel trick on Nox while he was asleep. As he sat near to him he kept lightly pricking the dog's lips with a fine needle. The dog would half wake up, shake his head, rub his lips with his paws, and then drop off to sleep again. ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with the wet corner of a file in the direction you wish to make the cut. When the rod is hot lay the end of it lengthwise on the notch. Very soon a little crack will be seen to start from the notch. Lead this crack around the bottle with the hot rod and the bottom of the bottle will drop off.) (Fig. 23.) Make a rack to hold them. Tie a piece of cheese cloth or other thin cloth over the small ends of the chimneys. Then fill them nearly full respectively, of dry, sifted, coarse sand, clay, humus soil, and garden soil. Place them in the rack; place under them ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... no feet left," said poor Frau von Walden. "I am only conscious of two red-hot balls attached somehow to my ankles. I daresay they will drop off soon." ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... for him to get married? Marriage is not that sort of thing, it's not like ripe raspberries that drop off ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... sitting near the bed, and from time to time drew the curtain to see what the count was doing; he made no movement; he was sleeping as quietly as a child. It was all right until eleven o'clock, then I began to feel tired. An old woman, sir, cannot help herself—she must drop off to sleep in spite of everything. I did not think anything was going to happen, and I said to myself, 'He is sure to sleep till daylight.' About twelve the wind went down; the big windows had been rattling, but now they were quiet. I got up to see if anything was ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... bit of gorse-bush. The whole year round the thorn has been hardening and sharpening. Spring comes: the thorn does not drop off, and it does not soften; there it is, as uncompromising as ever; but half-way up appear two brown furry balls, mere specks at first, that break at last—straight out of last year's thorn—into a blaze of fragrant ...
— Parables of the Cross • I. Lilias Trotter
... "Well, I'll drop off the train to-morrow afternoon about four o'clock at a lonely little flag-station called Sespe. After the train leaves Sespe, it runs south-west for almost twenty miles to the coast, and turns south to El Toro. Nearly everybody enters the San Gregorio ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... see the most glorious and noble lady that ever lived since their prince tempted Eve, with a halo of hair and great heavenly eyes that seem to make the good at the heart of things almost too terribly simple and naked for the sons of flesh: and as they gaze, their tails will drop off, and their wings will sprout: and they will become Angels in ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... began to drop off one by one and range themselves like the rungs of a ladder; but when the toes of one foot had gone to their places the ladder was tall enough. So Nix Naught Nothing climbed up it, reached the nest, and got the seven eggs. Now, as he was coming down with the last, ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... entire population rush, in with, 'Bravo, Johnny, bravo!' At last, after they have screamed themselves black in the face, and swung their arms and legs until they are ready to drop off, both combatants coolly walk off; and a couple of fresh hands rush in, assisted by the splendid Roman ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Perhaps I did drop off just for a few seconds. In fact I must have done—for I begin to recollect having quite a curious dream. I dreamed that you and I, Sidney, were King and Queen of some absurd fairy Kingdom or other, and that—well, it was not at ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... my neck. My upper man resembles that of a dog-stealer, my lower man that of a bishop. My buttons are turning my hair grey. When I had more than one change of raiment these appendages remained in their places, now they drop off as though I were a moulting fowl. I have to pin myself together elaborately, and whenever I want to get anything out of my pocket I have cautiously to unpin myself, with the dread of falling to pieces ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... gums, care should be taken to use a leech glass, as they are apt to creep down the patient's throat: a large swan's quill will answer the purpose of a leech glass. When leeches are gorged they will drop off themselves; never tear them off from a person, but just dip the point of a moistened finger into some salt ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... quite exhausted by this conversational effort, drop off to sleep once more. And the two simple-minded youngsters at the sculls feel quite proud of being allowed to row such wonderful oarsmen as Jack and Tom, and strain away harder ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... living, and in the midst of one such crisis this brilliant young dandy of four-and-twenty wrote:—"I feel more broken-hearted, despondent, and sated than any old valetudinarian who has seen all his old hopes and friends drop off one by one, and finds himself left for the rest of his existence to the solitary possession of gloom and gout." Mrs. Bulwer-Lytton fought fiercely to the last, and Edward determined to close the matter; on August 29th, 1827, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... yer for, we'll soon 'ave the pot a-boiling. Many's the weary night I've spent in bed thinkin' about you w'en I might 'ave bin snorin'. That reminds me. Did y'ever notice yer can niver tell exactly w'en yer drop off? I've tried all I know, but ye're awake one minit, an' chasin' a butterfly wi' a cow's 'ead the next. But that ain't wot I'm a-talkin' about. Paasch 'e's blue mouldy, an' couldn't catch a snail unless yer give 'im a ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... horror that they have lost their way. They search for it in vain, and at last, completely tired out, they sink down upon the moss beneath a spreading tree. The Dustman—the German sleep-fairy—appears and throws dust in their weary eyes. Together they sing their little evening hymn, and drop off to sleep locked in each other's arms. Then the heavens open, and down a shining staircase come the bright forms of angels, who group themselves round the sleeping children, and watch over their innocent slumbers until the break of day. Haensel and Gretel are aroused ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... detection followed at this time. Their villainous practices were brought to light in the following manner:—St. Croix, when preparing poison, was accustomed to wear a glass mask; but, as this happened once to drop off by accident, he was suffocated and found dead in his laboratory. Government caused the effects of this man, who had no family, to be examined, and a list of them to be made out. On searching them, there was found a small box, to which ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... enough-for a Dutchman," Claude said of her, "but I hate to see a woman go around looking as if her clothes would drop off if it rained on her. And on Sundays, when she dresses up, she looks like a boy rigged out in ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... O, I am all right now about the parting, because it will not be death, as we are to write. Of course the correspondence will drop off: but that's no odds, it breaks the back of the trouble.—Ever your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... went along, one after another of our little party would drop off in his own village, till at last no one was left but Toul, ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... kingdom, it may be doubted if there exists another such class of rudimentary creatures as the parasitic males, who possess neither mouth, stomach, thorax, nor abdomen. After exerting a peculiar sexual influence, they soon die and drop off; so that in this class of animals may be found the sexual distinctions of male, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... sir; I'm too thirsty. Did drop off once for two or three minutes, and dreamed of rivers, waterfalls, springs, and wells that I ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... I should drop off suddenly, you will find my will in the hands of Signor Antonio Nicolini, via Roma, Ventimiglia. He's a nice little Italian lawyer whom I've made my man of business lately. He has all my affairs in charge. It will be the greatest favour and kindness ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... good while for them to settle down," Norah said, "and then lots of 'em get sick—pleuro and things; and we inoculate them, and their tails drop off, and sometimes the sick ones get bad-tempered, and it's quite exciting ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce |
