"Face to face" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where he finds his theory of Self upset by one adventure after another and at last reduced to absurdity in the madhouse at Cairo. But though his own theory is discredited, he has not yet found the true one. To find this he must be brought face to face in the last scene with his deserted wife. There, for the first time, he asks the question and receives the answer. "Where," he asks, "has Peer Gynt's true self ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to one's self that because the Russian prima donna can show herself a whirlwind of dynamic passion on the stage, therefore she must show some of these qualities in private life, one would quickly become disabused of such an impression when face to face with the artist. One would then meet a slender, graceful young woman, of gentle presence and with the simplest manners in the world. The dark, liquid eyes look at one with frankness and sincerity; ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... fifty paces further on, after swiftly running round one of the spurs of the bank, saw two men standing face to face ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... it. She began to talk, in her new exhilaration; and she did not leave off, though nobody replied. But her exclamations about the sunrise, the clearness of the water, and the leaping of the fish, died away when she looked from face to face of those about her, and found them all strange and very stern. At last, the dip of the oars was the only sound; but it was a pleasant and soothing one. All went well this day. After landing, the ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... thought and thought over what I had seen, but could come to no explanation. I was standing under a tree, in the shadow which its branches made, when I became suddenly conscious that the tall woman was close to me. I turned round, and stood face to face with Sinfi Lovell. The sight of a spectre could not have startled me more, but the effect of my appearance upon her was greater still. Her face took an expression that seemed to curdle my blood, and she shrieked, "Father! the curse! Let his children be vagabonds and beg their ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... severe orders, for the foremost sentinels of the Place, far from presenting arms to the "Friends of Order," as they had done the day before, formally refused to let them continue their way. And then what happened? Two crowds were face to face; one unarmed, the other armed, both under strong excitement, one trying to press forward, the other determined to oppose its passage. A pistol-shot was heard. This was a signal. Down went the muskets, the armed crowd fired, and the unarmed dispersed in mad flight, leaving dead and ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... think of the century, but ran round the corner of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of her shape (beginning to bud ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... came into Madame de Pompadour's room, one day, as she was finishing dressing. "I have just had a strange adventure," said he: "would you believe that, in going out of my wardroom into my bedroom, I met a gentleman face to face?"—"My God! Sire," cried Madame, terrified. "It was nothing," replied he; "but I confess I was greatly surprised: the man appeared speechless with consternation. 'What do you do here?' said I, civilly. He threw himself on his knees, saying, 'Pardon me, Sire; and, above all, have ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... up to his lips; he looked across it and saw himself face to face with Jim Laramie. Laramie who, unseen, had heard enough of the quarrel, stood with his coat slung over his right shoulder; one arm he carried in a sling, but as far as this concerned Stone, it was the wrong arm. Daring neither to raise the whisky ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... construction. A God who gives you an intellect which grasps after eternity, and is always saying on the summit of any endeavor achieved, "What next?" and yet is limited to a few inconsequent years. A God who sets you face to face with the imminency of death, and never allows you to know at what moment you must go, and gives you no hint of the beyond—or ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... 'tween decks, row on row, At Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay; Charged with the fiercest in Busaco's strife, Brave dreams are his — the flick'ring lamp burns low — Yet couraged for the battles of the day He goes to stand full face to face with life. ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... Nance awoke to the fact that it was high time for Cinderella to be speeding on her way. Seizing a moment when the choir's back was turned to the congregation, she slipped noiselessly out of the cathedral and was fleeing down the steps when she came face to face with Monte Pearce. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... States was actually involved in war, we were face to face with the question, which we had considered at the convention the previous month, when war was rumored, as to what position we, as an organization, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... away. That the incoming steps were unheard was not so strange, nor new, but the first thing of which Faith was conscious was the soft touch of a hand on either side of her face—she was a prisoner. Faith's instant spring to one side brought her face to face with everybody. Mr. Simlins looked from one to the other, and his first remark was ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... possible that if Prussia had been faithful to her engagements, the disaster of Austerlitz might at least have been partially retrieved. It was otherwise when, after the collapse of Prussia, France and Russia stood face to face with each other. The drawn battle of Eylau in East Prussia, marked by fearful carnage, was fought on February 8, 1807. This check, breaking the spell of Napoleon's victorious career, had a remarkable ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Ridgley stand against Jefferson, which had apparently toyed with the Goodrich eleven and scored at will? It was a problem that would seem to be answered correctly only by three dismal words: None at all! A buzz of talk filled the dining hall and every one knew that Ridgley was face to face with a forlorn hope. ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... in Europe for thousands of years, and of which the average civilized man is the calm, self-satisfied, unconscious inheritor, finds that he must shift his point of view! The nineteenth-century Briton face to face with the conditions of primitive man is a spectacle fine in the general, but often ludicrous or piteous in the particular. The loneliness, the coarseness, the everlasting insistence of the pettiest and most troublesome wants and ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... to associate once more with boys of his own age. Thrown unexpectedly upon his own resources, he had almost forgotten that he was a boy. Face to face with a cold and unsympathizing world, he seemed to ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... moving as nearly as she could in the direction in which her party had gone. Then suddenly she came face to face ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the room, dragging with him a man attired in brown cloth, and wearing the peasant's high conical hat, adorned with a red feather. The officer, forcing his way through the crowd, placed this man face to face with Leckinski. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Minister pretends that he has come to be guided by the oracle; but we are not deceived: we know quite well that he has come here so that when he goes back he may have the authority and dignity of one who has visited the holy islands and spoken face to face with the ineffable ones. He will pretend that all the measures he wishes to take for his own purposes have been enjoined on him ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Mrs. Buford's weariness, and after the easy ways of that time and place the young people found themselves alone. Thus it was that Mary Ellen, with a temporary feeling of helplessness, found herself face to face with the very man whom she at that time cared least ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... enter the kitchen, and he stood leaning against the closed door, turning his old hat round and round, his eyes going swiftly from face to face. They were watching him, and Swan blushed a deep red while he told them about his mother in Boise, and how he could talk to her with his thoughts. He explained laboriously how the thoughts from her came like his mother speaking ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... And dares, And flings you back your scorn,— Come, face to face, and slay me if you will, But not until you've felt the weight Of all betricked humanity's contempt In one bold blow!— Speak forth a Reason, and I will answer it, Yes, to your faces I will answer it; Come garmented in flesh and I will fight with you, Yes, in your faces will I smite ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... two later Hamlin met Mrs. Browning face to face on the street. He rushed up to her with a joyful cry of "O Rose!" whereupon she drew her skirts around her so that they would not touch ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... than any other amateur writer; interpreting rural moods and sentiments, be they bright or dark, with unvarnished simplicity and absolute verisimilitude, notwithstanding the fact that most of her verse is of a much more polished and classical character. In "Chores" we are brought vividly face to face with the bleakest aspect of rusticity; the dull, commonplace couple, dwelling so far from the rest of mankind that they have become almost primitive in thought and feelings, losing all the complex refinements and humanities of social existence. The poem intensifies that feeling ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... afternoon, Carlyle lectured at Almack's, and in the evening Macready produced young Mr. Browning's Strafford, for the first time, at Covent Garden. Hallam, of the Middle Ages,—'a broad, old, positive man, with laughing eyes,'—was chairman and brought the lecturer face to face with his first audience, the two hundred holders of guinea tickets. It was made up of the elements referred to in Spedding's letter. Learning, taste, nobility, family, wit, and beauty were all represented in that assembly; 'composed of mere quality and notabilities,' ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... again. And there is no denying that a passion for the chase is no good for a peasant, and any one who 'plays with a gun' is sure to be a poor manager of his land. Either from constantly being in the forest, face to face with the stern and melancholy scenery of that inhuman country, or from the peculiar cast and formation of his character, there was noticeable in every action of Yegor's a sort of modest dignity and stateliness—stateliness it was, and not melancholy—the stateliness ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... looked again, both figures were gone. He made up his mind that he would think of the only other person who could absorb his attention, at least for a time; very soon he would stand face to face with the six feet of brawn and intelligence and manhood that ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... start; they first recognised an ethereal essence, which they called Light, as the principle of all good, and man as related to it in such a way that, by the worship of it, he became assimilated to it himself. Among them first the individual subject stood face to face with a universal object, and claimed a kinship with it as the light of life. The epoch thus created was the emancipation of the human being from dependent childhood to self-dependent manhood, and it constituted the first epoch in the self-conscious history, which is the history proper, of the human ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... distinguish a shadow a little darker than the surrounding shade, moving quickly along the wall. He rose to his feet and crossed the street, not believing, indeed, that the newcomer could be the man he wanted, but anxious to be fully satisfied that he was not mistaken. He found himself face to face with a young girl, who stopped at the street door of the tobacconist's house, just as he reached it. Her head was muffled in something dark and he could not distinguish her features. She started on seeing him, hesitated and then laid her hand upon the same knob ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... the question still arises whether we must regard them as expressing Absolute Truth. Surely not; if another world exists beyond this one, its inhabitants have mounted one step—but one step only—above us on the infinite ladder of existence. They do not see the Eternal face to face. It is quite possible that they may be able to see clearly truths of which we have no glimpse, but we are not bound to believe more than we like of what ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... suddenly froze the thrilling delight of the moment. A tall, gaunt man with cavernous black eyes and huge, drooping black mustache fronted him and seemed waiting. Cordts! Bostil had forgotten. Instinctively Bostil stood on guard. For years he had prepared himself for the moment when he would come face to face ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... in her employ; and his strong, heavy tread made the slight staircase creak and tremble. Then Alice rose as by an instinct, caught her child in her arms, and stood erect and motionless facing the door. It opened—and the FATHER and DAUGHTER were once more face to face within ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Dan found himself face to face with a young man of about his own age, a slender young fellow, clad in blue overalls and flannel shirt. He lounged forward with an air of languor that puzzled the reporter. His dress was not wholly conclusive as to his position in the silent house; the overalls still showed their pristine ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... the little hall for Dicky to find when he finally came up! If this could be done—and he could get back safe to the sheltering darkness before he found out! He would not mind the subsequent caning, if only he need not meet Dicky face to face again beforehand. Dicky's eyes when they looked at him sternly were anguish to his soul. And they certainly would not hold any kindness for him until the punishment was over. So argued poor Robin's anxious brain as he reached the foot of the stairs ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... one another for many months together, I was blameless. Each successive friend who asked explanations of my alleged heresy, was satisfied,—or at least left me with that impression,—after hearing me: not one who met me face to face had a word to reply to the plain Scriptures which I quoted. Yet when I was gone away, one after another was turned against me by somebody else whom I had not yet met or did not know: for in every theological conclave which deliberates ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... rivals met face to face at the exit of the grounds. Tony glared at the author of his woes, and his two chums made threatening gestures; but, of course, they did not dare place a finger on Ralph at ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... been punctured occasionally by a swift scattering of rain. Nancy was half-way across the court before she realized that Collier Pratt was still occupying his accustomed seat under the shadow of the big Venus. She had not seen him face to face or communicated with him since the day she had looked him up in the telephone book and sent his cape to him by special messenger. She stopped involuntarily as she reached his side, and he looked up and smiled ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... after him to the threshold—thronging around him as he stood face to face with John Dory. His finger never wavered—it was pointing steadily towards that closed door a few feet to the left. Suddenly Letty Shaw rushed past ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... living animal, that these pads, when struck from beneath by the tusks of an opponent, would be turned upwards, and would thus admirably protect the somewhat prominent eyes. I may add, on the authority of Mr. Bartlett, that these boars when fighting stand directly face to face. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Fifth Avenue, and walked slowly downtown. He was about opposite Twenty-eighth Street, when he came face to face with the ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... attempted to stoop for them. Instead of going back on his mistake, he seized the rough trunk with both hands, and swung himself behind it with such impetuosity that, going right round in the very flash and report of the pistol-shot, he reappeared on the other side of the tree face to face with General Feraud. This last, completely unstrung by such a show of agility on the part of a dead man, was trembling yet. A very faint mist of smoke hung before his face which had an extraordinary aspect, as if the lower jaw ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... and as he straightened up he found himself face to face with Jack. The young captain had been on an errand to the next tent, and had seen the rascally ex-lieutenant in the darkness more by chance ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... know—" began the guileless young Breton, his face glowing with the happiness of being face to face with his idol. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... and George Borrow is equally sound despite his bigotry, while Gautier is invaluable. Arsene Alexandre in writing of Zuloaga acutely remarks of the Spanish conspiracy in allowing the chance tourist only to scratch the soil "of this country too well known but not enough explored." Therefore when face to face with the pictures of Zuloaga, with romantic notions of a Spain where castles grow in the clouds and moonshine on every bush, prepare to be shocked, to be disappointed. He will show you the real Spain—the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... coming to an understanding of either question. He was disturbed in mind and resolved to keep out of Snap's way. He went to the orchard, but his stay of an hour availed nothing, for on his return, after threading the maze of cottonwoods, he came face to face with the ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... data like the whiteness, smoothness, or squareness of this paper. Whether such qualities be truly ultimate aspects of being, or only provisional suppositions of ours, held-to till we get better informed, is quite immaterial for our present inquiry. So long as it is believed in, we see our object face to face. What now do we mean by 'knowing' such a sort of object as this? For this is also the way in which we should know the tiger if our conceptual idea of him were to terminate by having led ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... back, contemplating in imagination the scores of great ships surrounding them on all sides, invisible in the night: in each Wardroom there was doubtless a similar cheerful gathering beneath the shaded electric lights. Musing thus, glancing from face to face, and listening, half uncomprehending, to the laughing jargon, he glimpsed for an instant the indefinable Spirit of the Fleet. Each of these communities, separated by steel and darkness from the other, shared it. It stretched back into a past of unforgotten memories, linking one and all in ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... not till a fortnight had passed that the two women came face to face alone. The few occasions on which they had met hitherto had been those of solemn public mourning, when the great questions between them necessarily remained untouched. The desire to keep apart was common to both, for neither was sufficiently ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... him, she was always conscious of the insistent, throbbing note which told her that, underneath his self-control, there pulsed a fiery nature which was curbed, but not yet tamed, that the day might come when the Puritan would meet the Russian face to face, and the Russian would be dominant, if only for one brief hour. And then? Often as she asked herself the question, Margaret Gannion never swerved from her original answer. In the end, the Puritan would rule. No man could so dominate others and fail ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... the hedge of the war-shafts, a mighty man there came, One-eyed and seeming ancient, but his visage shone like flame: Gleaming grey was his kirtle, and his hood was cloudy blue; And he bore a mighty twi-bill, as he waded the fight-sheaves through, And stood face to face with Sigmund, and upheaved the bill to smite. Once more round the head of the Volsung fierce glittered the Branstock's light, The sword that came from Odin; and Sigmund's cry once more Rang out to the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... being performed, but begged for a week in which to prepare for it. He had always been a charming personality, and had lived a life that was outwardly blameless; but he had never given very serious thought to religion. Now, however, when he was face to face with death, the great eternal verities became more real to him, and during the week of respite the study of the New Testament and the counsel and sympathy and prayers of his friend Cairns prepared him to face his trial with calmness, and with "a trembling ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... which he recognized as Dr. Kreiss's, drawn up before his house. Fairly unmanned by emotion, he sprang up the steps, threw open the door, and met the doctor face to face. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... violence. It would be ungenerous. I will wait and bear, contented that Heaven knows my innocence at least in this. For her, when at my best I dreaded that my love might bring sorrow on her—how much more now, when I have seen my doom face to face, and when the first step towards her would be what I cannot openly and absolutely declare to be right? That would be the very means of bringing the suffering on her, and I ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is fundamentally sound, it is not surprising that the nervous man is in a state of distress. Indigestion, fatigue, over-sensibility, sound like problems in physiology, but we cannot go far in the discussion of any of them without coming face to face with the emotions as the real factors in the case. When we turn to the mental characteristics of nervous folk, we even more quickly find ourselves in the midst of an emotional disturbance. Worried, fearful, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... an only child I had always been fairly well looked after and protected, and the result was an amazing confidence in the practical goodness of the people one met in the world. I knew there were robbers in the world, just as I knew there were tigers; that I was ever likely to meet robber or tiger face to face seemed equally impossible. ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... they stood there face to face, Gania still holding her wrist tightly. Varia struggled once—twice—to get free; then could restrain herself no longer, and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The Origin provided us with the working hypothesis we sought. Moreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the dilemma—refuse to ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... placed first in the mouth of one and then of the other. The bridegroom's party dance in the marriage-shed and their feet are washed. Two plough-yokes are brought in and a cloth spread over them, and the couple are seated on them face to face. A string of twisted grass is drawn round their necks and a thread is tied round their marriage-crowns. The bride's dowry is given and her relatives make presents to her. This property is known as khamora, and is retained by a wife for her own use, her husband having no ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... for the cutting taunt it proved to be, for it was a strange fashion on the frontier, when two enemies came face to face in deadly encounter, for each to try to goad the other to the point of what may be termed nervousness before ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... that which most often comes back to me as I recall those days is the feeling of the ruthless human will grappling with nature and winning the mastery. Who can call China aged and in decay face to face with her success in conquering a passage up these gorges? Who can question the vitality of the Chinese, that has watched the trackers at work pulling a huge junk against a current like the rapids of Niagara, clambering over wet, rough boulders, creeping like cats along a thread of a trail ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... glad of the opportunity of standing, once more, face to face with a man of culture and intellect. I could a tale unfold ... Popularly I am known here as "the countess" and God is my witness that in my earlier youth I was not far removed from that estate! For ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... and while pinning it was rather startled by a rushing noise in the vicinity. I looked up to the sky, thinking a squall was coming on, but not a breath of wind stirred in the tree-tops. On stepping out of the bushes I met face to face a huge serpent coming down a slope, making the dry twigs crack and fly with his weight as he moved over them. I had very frequently met with a smaller boa, the Cutim-boia, in a similar way, and knew from the habits of the family that there was no danger, so I stood my ground. On ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... brought face to face with imminent danger, always weigh their words, and say as little as possible, for fear of committing themselves ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... stand face to face with her, smite her with reproaches, heap upon her curses, show her how he could trample on her love and fling her back her perjured vows. And then? This done, what was there left? From Jerrem he could free himself. A word, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... and that, though civil wars and clan feuds had long died out, and the memory of the Scotch rebellion was no more than a picturesque tragic romance, a trifle of awkwardness survived in the encounter, face to face once more, in the very guise of the past, of the descendants of the men and women who had won at Prestonpans and lost at Culloden. It was said that a grave and stately formality distinguished this ball—a tone attributed to dignified, troublesome fashions—stranger then, but ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... near the end, a large party of gentlemen, apparently very riotous, and who were hallooing, leaning on one another, and laughing immoderately, seemed to rush suddenly from behind some trees, and meeting us face to face, put their arms at their sides and formed a kind of circle, which first stopped our proceeding and then our retreating, for we were presently entirely enclosed. The Miss Branghtons screamed aloud, and I was frightened exceedingly; our screams were answered with bursts of laughter, and for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... came to the camp and the great chief of the Ottawas, haughty, shrewd, politic, ambitious, met face to face the bold, self-possessed, clear-headed Major of the British Rangers. It is interesting to note how calmly the astute ally of the French accepted the new order of things and prepared for an alliance with his former enemies. He and Rogers had several ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... reached my ear, and I sprang forward just in time to intercept the victor, who stumbled over me as he rushed out, and a heavy bag rolled from him. The next moment the other was at my side, and I stood face to face with the captain and his brother in the broad moonlight. The bag for which they had sneaked, and sinned, and scuffled, had burst by the fall, and its contents—stones, gravel, and sand, with some small sparkles of gold-dust amongst them—were scattered at my feet. Both stood stupefied, and I stepped ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... life as "an unfortunate love affair." Indeed, apart from his frank avowal of the wandering fever in his blood, I am grown to believe that it was the very reverse of unfortunate for him. It brought him, as such things do, face to face with Realities, and showed him, sharply enough, that at a certain point in a man's life there is a Gate, guarded by the Fates, whose questions he must answer truthfully, or turn sadly aside into the vague thickets of an aimless existence. And never did there live a youth more ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... rebels and traitors. They defended themselves by bringing accusations against Mary, and produced the Casket Letters and other documents in support of their assertions. Mary asked to be brought face to face with her accusers; Elizabeth thought the claim "very reasonable", and refused it. Mary then asked for copies of the letters produced as evidence against her, and when her request was pressed upon Elizabeth's notice by La Mothe Fenelon, the French ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... him or heard him until just as Farmer Brown's boy stepped out from behind one side of a thick little hemlock-tree, Buster Bear stepped out from behind the other side of that same little tree, and there they were face to face! Then everybody held their breath, even Blacky the Crow and Sammy Jay. For just a little minute it was so still there in the Green Forest that not the least little sound could be heard. What ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... his quaint attire and the persistence with which he kept at his side his great mastiff, Rudge. I had long since heard of the old gentleman as one of the most interesting residents of the precinct. I had even seen him more than once on the avenue, but I had never before been brought face to face with him, and consequently had much too superficial a knowledge of his countenance to determine offhand whether the uneasy light in his small gray eyes was natural to them, or simply the result of present excitement. But when he began to talk I detected an unmistakable tremor ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... room, but as he did so he heard a quick step behind him; and looking round, found himself face to face with a young man of two or three and twenty, elegantly dressed, who eyed him carelessly, and then passing him, entered the room with the air of one perfectly at home. A suspicion of who he was flashed across Rust's mind. That he himself was unknown to the other was not strange, for ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... where, throughout the night, she nursed them tenderly. At daybreak she took them back to the warmth and the comfort of the nest. Shortly afterwards, when their eyes were opened and they were following the parent voles on one of their customary night excursions, the mother found herself face to face with a far more formidable antagonist ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... 'Lusitania,' did that submarine commander ask himself, or any one else, what would happen to the women and children who were pitched into the sea? You are wild to murder innocent, harmless people belonging to an enemy nation, yet when you yourselves are brought face to face with death you are all alike. You whine! You beg! Dreiner, you are not man enough to play the game! Your appeal in the name of your eight children, who, for that matter, may not even exist, falls ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... admiration struggle strangely together. One cannot sympathise and yet one dare not condemn. One feels a horrible suspicion that there are dark and slimy corners, vile secrets, ugly memories, in the minds of hundreds of seemingly respectable people; the book brings one face to face with the mystery of evil; and yet through the gloom there steals a silvery radiance, a far-off hope, an infinite compassion for all weakness and imperfection. One can hardly love Rousseau, though one does not wonder that there were many found to do so; and instead of ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this volume being to commend its subject as an example for boys, I think it right to call attention to this trait which he possessed in a conspicuous degree. Brought face to face with difficulty—with what might almost be called the impossible, he did not say, "Oh, I can't do it. It is impossible." He went home to ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... on Ambrose as he and David stood still for a moment to take breath. Brought face to face with Rumborough Common in this way, it seemed to present all manner of possible perils, which might come to light at any moment. He would willingly have turned back, and had he been alone would certainly have done so; but—David was there. It would not do ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... left alone, remained silent, face to face. Aramis seemed to await a comfortable digestion; D'Artagnan, to be preparing his exordium. Each of them, when the other was not looking, hazarded a sly glance. It was Aramis who ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in a room that was splashed with blood, that was shuddering, so to speak, with crime, and yet face to face with the still warm bodies of three murdered men he could ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... soldier's tent or the traveler's inn. This body, I say, is a tent, and a tent of Kedar, because, by its interference, it prevents the soul from beholding the infinite light, nor does it allow her to see the light at all, except through a glass darkly, and not face to face. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Captain Palliser's little sketches were known in divers places, and it became a habit to discuss what had happened, and what might possibly happen in the future. There were those who went to the length of calling on the new man because they wanted to see him face to face. People heard new things every few days, but no one realized that it was vaguely through Palliser that there developed a general idea that, crude and self-revealing as he was, there lurked behind the outward candor ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers with which she played—but could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from the topmast shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh, baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee?" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... half an hour," she thought, as she tripped past the breakfast trays and started downstairs. "Kit and Churn may be out a long while yet. I'd hate to come face to face ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... soldier of the imperial army, he is in less danger than he would be, as a civilian of Esslingen. I thank Heaven, dear Marie, that your betrothed is not here. At least he fights face to face, with arms in hand; while we—oh, what weapon can avail ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... we saw it in profile, shorn of its nose—flat-nosed like a death's head—but having already an expression even when seen afar off and from the side; already disdainful with thrust-out chin and baffling, mysterious smile. And when at length we arrived before the colossal visage, face to face with it—without however encountering its gaze, which passed high above our heads—there came over us at once the sentiment of all the secret thought which these men of old contrived to incorporate and make eternal behind this ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... can hardly be compared, because it originated under conditions so widely different, and was developed in an environment so strangely dissimilar. It is, moreover, one poem, while they form a multitude of dramas. But few would hesitate to admit that in reading Dante we are face to face with a soul, if less gifted yet less earthly than that of Shakespeare; a soul which "was like a star and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... voice. She missed her mother childishly day and night, and all that premature self-possession and knowledge of the world, born of her cosmopolitan training, which at Oxford had made her appear so much older than other English girls of twenty, seemed to have broken away, and left her face to face with feelings she could not check, and puzzles she wanted somebody else ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Pain, I think thy face Will be, in all the heavenly place, The sweetest face that I shall see, The swiftest face to smile on me. All other angels faint and tire; Joy wearies, and forsakes desire; Hope falters, face to face with Fate, And dies because it cannot wait; And Love cuts short each loving day, Because fond hearts cannot obey That subtlest law which measures bliss By what it is content to miss. But thou, O loving, faithful Pain— Hated, reproached, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... face to face Allonby's jovial countenance showed no sign of embarrassment. He waved his visitor to a chair, and leaned across his desk with the encouraging smile ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... by no means flurried when she came face to face with Trenholme. The female of the species invariably shows her superiority on such occasions. Trenholme knew he was blushing and rather breathless. Sylvia was ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... herself, Toni cannoned violently into her husband, and the unfortunate youth from Sandhurst, brought to an unexpected halt, found himself face to face with an unknown man whose expression was not ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... passport into a brighter, a juster world. Let us meekly bear it. Cheer up! arm yourselves with the spirit of the Lord; it will give you fortitude to live out the long journey of slave life. How we shall feel when, in heaven, we are brought face to face with master, before the Lord Judge. Our rights and his wrongs will then weigh in the balance of heavenly justice." With these remarks, Harry counsels them to join him in prayer. He kneels on the brick pavement of the yard, clasps his hands together ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... steadily strengthened under the experiences of life. She was dressed with a sort of personal taste, in a rich gown of black lace, which came up to her throat; and she did not subject me to that embarrassment I always feel in the presence of a lady who is much decolletee, when I sit next her or face to face with her: I cannot always look at her without a sense of taking an immodest advantage. Sometimes I find a kind of pathos in this sacrifice of fashion, which affects me as if the poor lady were wearing that sort of gown because she thought she really ought, and ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... but others hesitated. Every musket was, however, raised and leveled at me. Faimungo poised his great spear and said, "No, you shall not kill Missi to-day. He is with me." Having made this flourish, he strode off after his own men, and my Aneityumese followed, leaving me face to face with ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... saying. Unhappily the wedding feast, as is too often the case with our foreign citizens, degenerates into a drunken brawl. It is a convenient occasion for paying off old scores. There is general melee, a scrap, in short. Suddenly these two men come face to face, their passions inflamed. On the one hand there is a burning sense of wrong, on the other an unquenchable hate. For, gentlemen, remember, the man that hates you most venomously is the man who has wronged you most deeply. These two meet. There is a fight. When all is over, one man is found dead, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor |
