"In the air" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clothes, he mounted on any kind of a horse, which he made to bound in the air, to jump the ditch, to leap the palisade, and to turn short in a ring both to the right and left hand. There he broke not his lance; for it is the greatest foolishness in the world to say, I have broken ten lances at tilts or in fight. A carpenter can do even as much. But it is a glorious and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... piano-forte pieces are treated. He was too immoderately productive, wrote incessantly, mixing insignificant with important things, grand things with mediocre work, paid no heed to criticism, and always soared on his wings. Like a bird in the air, he lived in music ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... barking, and the hermit's hound replied by baying with his nose in the air—a sound to make anybody shiver! The Rattlesnake Man gave a lusty shout, and a door opened, flooding the porch of the ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... for an opportunity of laying hold of him. When he seemed off his guard, and was crying "Ho-ho! ha-hah!" with infinite glee, the prince suddenly throwing himself forward, seized him by the long nose, and after holding him up kicking in the air for a few moments—for he was as light as a feather—with a sudden jerk pitched him away out into the river, where, after bobbing up and down some half a dozen times, and crying "Ho-ho! ha-hah!" he disappeared. "Ho-ho! ha-hah!" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... rapidly grew warmer, showing that the sudden winter had come only on the high mountains, and that autumn yet lingered on the lower levels. The gorgeous reds and yellows and browns and vivid shades between returned, but there was a haze in the air and the ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was lying very comfortably on her side taking a good breath after her race, and not offering to resume her feet. As for the waggonette it was lying equally comfortably on its side, with one wheel up in the air. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... place, though chilly, had a distinct sense of oppression. There was no vitality in the air—it ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... into the air on a bundle of steel rods and rubber, a propeller and a petrol engine, the phlegmatic German took no risks with a balloon. He found, however, that Zeppelins were expensive freaks. They had a habit of catching fire in the air, because the tail created a vacuum and sucked back some escaping gas into the engine where ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... are many guides. A vague common tradition is in the air about us—it expresses itself in journalism, in cheap novels, in the uncritical theater. Every merchant has his stock of assumptions about the mental habits of his customers and competitors; the prostitute hers; the newspaperman ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... of his assassins, who believed him already, finished, succeeded, by one of those convulsive starts frequent in the last agony, in raising himself to his feet for a few seconds; then, blind with wounds and loss of blood, striking about his arms in the air as if to parry blows that were no longer struck, he muttered these words, which came from his mouth, accompanied by a crimson torrent: "Mercy! I am no poisoner. Mercy!" This sort of resurrection produced so great an effect on the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the working-day world and made her feel many years older. Such reflections and ideas came to grown women doubtless, she thought. A great unrest arose from the shadows of these varied speculations—a great unrest and disquiet—a feeling of coming change, like the note in the air when the swallows meet together in autumn, like the whisper of the leaves on the high tops of the forest before rain. Her heart was very full. She walked more slowly as the thoughts weighed heavier; she went back to her home round-eyed and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the Juniper,' says the old prospector kind of innocent; and Abe he jumped right up in the air. ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... now. She's that superior, and so twisty in the corners of her mouth, that I'm always wishin' I could fix the kind of fall her pride's goin' to have some day. Bound to have it, pride is. 'Ain't no law to hold it up any more than an apple in the air, and both of 'em is got to come down. When folks pass other folks what they know in the street, and don't any more speak to 'em than if they was worms of the dust, they think it's on account of bein' who they are, and they don't know it's on account of bein' what ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... High up in the air, Split smiled superbly. There was noblesse oblige in that smile; also the strong teasing tincture which no Madigan could resist using, even upon ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... raised his left hand with his fungoid booty, frankly trusting, and his fellow-pupil delivered a sharp kick at the bottom of the wicker receptacle—a kick intended to send the golden chalice-like fungi flying scattered in the air. But George Vane Lee was as quick in defence as the other was in attack, and his parry was made in the ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... then, Cecilia," said her mother, "build no matrimonial castles in the air; standing or falling they do mischief—mischief either to the builder, or to those for whom they ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... seen, was soaring round and round, and coming lower and lower, till it was so close to him that he could feel the wind of its wings wafted pleasantly over his face. The bird's back was soft and cushiony, and it seemed to be inviting him to take his place upon it for a ride up in the air; and he was thinking of doing so, and gliding off over the silver-topped mountains to look out for caves where they could chip out crystals, and perhaps discover valuable metals; but just as he was about to throw a leg ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... of Red Bank they came up with Marsworth and Miss Stewart. Nelly's curiosity was more piqued than ever. If all that Marsworth had said to her was true, why this evident though suppressed agitation on the girl's part, and these shades of mystery in the air? Daisy Stewart was what anybody would have called 'a pretty little thing.' She was small, round-cheeked, round-eyed, round-limbed; light upon her feet; shewing a mass of brown hair brushed with gold under ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... measured, all is arranged. Cleveland, a splendid shot, fired first. He grazed Vivian's elbow. Vivian fired in the air. The seconds interfered. Cleveland was implacable, and, "in the most irregular manner," as Sir John declared, insisted upon another shot. To the astonishment of all, he fired quite wild. Vivian shot at random, and his bullet pierced Cleveland's heart. Cleveland sprang nearly ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the coast, and has left three leagues of marshy ground between it and the town, where the hot sun, and stagnated waters, breed not only flies, but distempers also; beside this, there is, and ever was, something very peculiar in the air of the town itself: it is the only town in France where verdigris is made in any great quantity; and this, I am inclined to think, is not a very favourable circumstance; where the air is so disposed to cankerise, and corrode copper, it cannot be so pure, as where none ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... with food for their viaticum, and commodities for traffic." "It is not," lucidly continues the Bishop, "the bigness of any thing in this kind, that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork; and an eagle flies in the air, as well as a little gnat. This engine may be contrived from the same principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove, and Regiomontanus a wooden eagle. I conceive it were no difficult matter, (if a man had leisure,) to show more particularly the means ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... drawing stars from heaven, I, And turning the course of rivers, did espy. She parts the earth, and ghosts from sepulchres Draws up, and fetcheth bones away from fires, And at her pleasure scatters clouds in the air, And makes it snow in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... letter? A man must have a head filled with exaltation, and a character as weak as Kranitski's to write such a letter. It may be—it is even sure to be so, for during a number of days she has felt in the air a catastrophe. But if?—Well! Is that a misfortune? Oh, rather the opposite?" The supposition that the dark, grievous truth of her life might be discovered by him who would seek vengeance because of it roused no fear in her; it caused her to hope for a thing disagreeable and yet desired. Let ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... "I knew it—I knew it! I knew it the moment the light fell upon his face. Trevlyn—Trevlyn! one of that accursed brood! Heaven be praised, the hour of vengeance has come! We will do unto one of them even as they did unto us;" and she waved her arms again in the air, and glanced towards the glowing fire on the hearth with a look in her wild eyes that for a moment caused Cuthbert's heart to stand still. For he remembered the story of the witch burned by his grand sire's mandate, and he felt he was not mistaken in the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that beautiful city of Petersburg which might become the prey of the conqueror. When I returned in the evening from the islands, and saw the gilded point of the citadel which seemed to spout out in the air like a ray of fire, while the Neva reflected the marble quays and the palaces which surround it, I represented to myself all these wonders faded by the arrogance of a man who would come to say, like Satan on the top ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... if I did elude their pursuit so far, I should be as much in their power in France as in England: but to tell you the truth, I do not think Thornton will inform. Money, to a temper like his, is a stronger temptation than revenge; and, before he has been three minutes in the air, he will perceive the folly of losing the golden harvest he may yet make of me for the sake of a momentary passion. No—my best plan will be to wait here till to-morrow, as I originally intended. In the meanwhile he will, in all probability, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... third week of November. Winter, the destroyer, was late, but he had come at last. There was death in the air, a whisper of death stole across the empty fields and bare hill-side. The birds heard it and were silent. The November wind was hurrying round Westhope ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... of spring was in the air though down in that calle there was yet enough of the wintry rawness to chill the tip of Don Ippolito's sensitive nose, which he rubbed for comfort with a handkerchief of dark blue calico, and polished for ornament with a handkerchief of white linen. He restored ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... misfortune and want. He is just one of the careless, good-for-nothing, happy fellows, who float, cork-like, on the surface, for the world to play at hockey with: knocked here, and there, and everywhere: now to the right, then to the left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom, but always reappearing and bounding with the stream buoyantly and merrily along. Some few months before he was prevailed upon to stand a contested election for the office of beadle, necessity attached him to the service of a broker; ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... said nothing, but flying on the tree he drew out several fine raccoons. "Here," said he, "this is the way we do" and left him in disdain, carrying his bill high in the air, and stepping over the doorsill as if it were not worthy to ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... the motions of his savage foe. He approached so slowly as scarcely to make the least noise. Then, crouching down, he prepared to make the fatal spring at his victim. At this instant, however, the officer, taking off a bear skin cap which he wore, swung it in the air, and shouted as loudly as he could. This so frightened the tiger that he made off with himself, and was soon out of sight ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... Mrs. Betham. "I'm not such a stupid as that. But I must say I like my coffee at a table like a Christian, and not setting my cup in my lap, or holding it up in the air." ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... I was up in the air. I felt like I'd been dreaming about something and hadn't woke up. I couldn't figure out what it was I seen. No ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... the ground all night, and Hazen's division had been brought into the city to assist Woods's division, already there. About eleven o'clock at night I went down-town myself, Colonel Dayton with me; we walked to Mr. Simons's house, from which I could see the flames rising high in the air, and could hear the roaring of the fire. I advised the ladies to move to my headquarters, had our own headquarter-wagons hitched up, and their effects carried there, as a place of greater safety. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the horse. Above the slight common sounds in the air came the unvarying steady rush of falling water from some spot unseen on account of the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... its baselessness When calm is in the air, The Iris half in tracelessness Hovers faintly fair. Fitfully assailing it A wind from heaven blows, Shivering and paling it To blankness of the snows; While, incessant in renewal, The Arch rekindled grows, Till again the gem and jewel Whirl in blinding ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... [Ch][Ch] hsiao chuan, or Lesser Seal, and is familiar to us from the Shuo Wen dictionary (see Literature). Though a decided improvement on what had gone before, the Lesser Seal was destined to have but a short career of undisputed supremacy. Reform was in the air; and something less cumbrous was soon felt to be necessary by the clerks who had to supply the immense quantity of written reports demanded by the First Emperor. Thus it came about that a yet simpler and certainly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... not to believe in such marvels, for honest Fabian was a man of intelligence, he arose and peered through the bushes in the grass; he looked in the air, and he closely scanned the tops of the trees; but his efforts were fruitless. The game was not to ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... moment he was well out in the stream, and left to his own resources. He got his sculls out successfully enough, and, though feeling by no means easy on his seat, proceeded to pull very deliberately past the barges, stopping his sculls in the air to feather accurately, in the hopes of deceiving spectators into the belief that he was an old hand just going out for a gentle paddle. The manager watched him for a minute, and turned to his work with an aspiration that he might not come ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... illustration of what is one of the best tales of mystery is equally picturesque and original. The five figures in front are truly remarkable. The elegant interesting figure of the woman, the fop with his hat in the air, the bully with the big sword, the man with the blunderbuss, and the bewildered rustic, to say nothing of the muffled figures on the coach, make up a perfect play. There seems a flutter over all; it is like, as it was intended to be, ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... flint and steel, and was applying the match to the wood, blowing it well the while, when, all at once, crish—crash! away goes the cow, slipping down over the roof, and dragging our good man, with one leg in the air and head downwards, clear up the chimney. What would have become of him, no one could tell, had not a thick bar of iron arrested his upward flight. And now there they are, both together, dangling in the air, the cow outside and Peter within; ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... of infantry met with a shock. Rifles flashed and revolvers spoke sharply. Steel flashed in the air and hand grenades added their deadly execution ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... grandeur of the best parlor and entered the little dark front hall. The bell was still swinging at the end of its coil of wire. The dust shaken from it still hung in the air. The captain unbolted and ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sentence hanging in the air. He nodded his head slowly, his cigar cocked at a knowing angle, looking at ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... tail up in the air like that!" Major Monkey cried. "You're spoiling the looks of the ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... rose a clangour of brass, the roar of the shield called Ocean, and the booming of the Gate-of-Battle, and the singing of swords long silent, and the brazen thunder of the revolution of wheels; and he saw strange forms and faces in the air, and the steady sun dancing in the heavens, and a man standing beside the stranger whose face was like the sun. The son of Amargin saw and heard all, for he was a seer and a prophet no less than ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... brought Dick Reynolds, a slightly built, shrewd looking young man with glasses, who kept everybody amused with exciting stories of the underworld. Yet, for all the animation, there was an atmosphere of gloom in the air, an indefinable sense of depression which all felt and could not explain. The lawyer, Dick, and Ray were in a corner carrying on an animated discussion. Helen, her mind preoccupied, her thoughts hundreds ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... moment he had the spy-glass to his eye. He stilled the boyish flailing of his legs in the air as he lay prone on the stile-top, leaning on his elbows, and intently studying something that flashed and was lost among the birches that shaded the path up the glen ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... hand and held between his fingers a card already drawn to play. For a moment, it was suspended in the air. He looked towards Norgate, and there was a new quality in his piercing gaze, an instant return in his expression of the shadow which had swept the broad good-humour from his face on his first appearance. The change came and went like a flash. He finished playing the hand and scored his points ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on the field, in front of them lying, The foeman before them: the fire-spewing dragon, Ghostly and grisly guest in his terrors, Was scorched in the fire; as he lay there he measured Fifty of feet; came forth in the night-time[5] 100 To rejoice in the air, thereafter departing To visit his den; he in death was then fastened, He would joy in no other earth-hollowed caverns. There stood round about him beakers and vessels, Dishes were lying and dear-valued weapons, 105 With iron-rust eaten, ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... cares and contrivances for the welfare and protection of this my native planet, have I lain awake whole nights debating in my mind whether it were most probable we should first discover and civilize the moon, or the moon discover and civilize our globe. Neither would the prodigy of sailing in the air or cruising among the stars be a whit more astonishing and incomprehensible to us than was the European mystery of navigating floating castles through the world of waters to the simple savages. We have already discovered the art of coasting along the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... corps, acting from Corfu as a base, and an English expedition from Malta, were jointly to attack St. Cyr in the south of Italy, raise the country at his rear and compel him to surrender. This plan was left helplessly flapping in the air by a convention which Napoleon imposed on the Neapolitan ambassador. On September 21st Talleyrand induced that envoy to guarantee the neutrality of the kingdom of Naples, all belligerents being excluded from its domains. Consequently St. Cyr's corps evacuated ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... favour, and is now his most constant means of locomotion. He has never, it is true, emulated the enterprise of his son, the Crown Prince, whom Mr. Orville Wright had as a companion for a quarter of an hour in the air at Potsdam three years ago, but his interest in the aeroplane is none the less keen because he is too conscious of his responsibilities to subject ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... the war began, says the First Lord, we have added "one million" to the tonnage of the Navy, and we have doubled its personnel. We are adding more every day; for the Admiralty are always "wanting more." We are quite conscious of our defects—in the Air Service first and foremost. But they will be supplied. There is a mighty movement afoot in the workshops of England—an effort which, when all drawbacks are allowed for, has behind it ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his hat up into the elm trees as far as he could and, when it came down, catch it on his head. Sometimes he would walk on his hands, with his legs wriggling in the air, or turn a double somersault, or jump incredible distances across the extended arms of the Simpson twins; and his bosom swelled with pride when the girls exclaimed, "Isn't he splendid!" although he often heard his rival murmur scornfully, "SMARTY ALECK!"—a scathing ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... bull did not go far. His head hung low, and the heaving flanks showed he was tired. But Apollo's head was high in the air. Dejection on one side and absolute mastery on the other were as plainly exhibited in the manners of the animals as though it had ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... him by going unto him & bearing him down under his arm to the level land. King Olaf would walk from oar to oar, on the outer side of the ship while his men were rowing the 'Serpent', and with such ease could he play with three daggers that one was ever in the air and always caught he it by the hilt; with either hand could he strike equally well, and two javelins could he throw at one time. Of all men was King Olaf the lightest-hearted & of a very merry disposition; kindly was he withal & lowly-hearted; very eager in all enterprises, ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... whitest star in the sky. She stood for many minutes close to the dog, gathering her courage, marshaling her strength, preparing herself to face Peter. He must not suspect until the last moment. She thanked God that Wapi had caught the taint of Blake in the air, and she was conscious of offering a prayer that God might help ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... did not appear. It was quite unaccountable to me and very awkward, as it left me afoot and unable to do anything. Not till about 10 a.m. did they come galloping in, greatly excited, their tails in the air, puffing and snorting. It did not look quite right. Someone had been chasing them. At noon, while preparing early dinner, a man, a stranger, rode up to the house, and of course was invited to eat. He was very reticent, in fact would hardly speak ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... uneasiness as we drove through the archway into the yard. In that inclosure there were only two cars—Manton's, and one we later learned belonged to Phelps. The sole human being to enter our range of vision was an office boy. He skirted the side of the building as though the menace of death were in the air, or likely to strike out of the very heavens ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... was not the thing I specially wanted to do at that particular moment, but I supposed it was all right. The plane took a dive, and then Johnny leaned over and fired off some rounds of the machine gun into the German lines. We turned to come back and rose in the air, when, in the roar of the wind I heard a bang behind me, and looking round saw, hanging in the air, a ball of thick black smoke. Then there was another beneath us and some more at one side. In all, the Germans followed us with six shells. Johnny turned round and ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Say, I hopes you make good!" and the lad, spinning the dime in the air, deftly caught it, and slid out ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... the school. 6. Even in winter the windows were always wide open. 7. It is for you especially (use the word "intention") that I have composed this little tale. 8. Remember that I do not want you to speak in this way. 9. The narrator stopped short with one hand in the air. 10. Do you not miss your friend a good deal? 11. The college was divided into three departments: the Senior School, the Middle School and the Junior School. 12. As for him, he might smile at me as much as he liked, I could not like him. 13. When you see them, tell them ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... the sun And mark the rising of the early stars. There will I bring my books,—my household gods, The reliquaries of my dead saint, and dwell In the sweet odor of her memory. Then in the uncouth solitude unlock My stock of art, plant dials in the grass, Hang in the air a bright thermometer And aim a ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... motionless for half a minute, then he said: "Superstition is irreligious, but there is something in the air of this place. I think it's that Indian—at ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the like arguments seem to me to hang in the air and to be quite divorced from facts. They imply a state of things which does not exist. The assertion that where devotion to our Lady prevails devotion to our Lord declines is as far as possible from being true. Where to-day is the Deity of our Lord defended most ardently and devotion to ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... waving flame was now plainly visible, gracefully gliding over the lake, and throwing its light on the water in such a manner as to tinge it slightly though in the air, so strong was the contrast, the darkness seemed to have the distinctness of material substances, as if the fire were imbedded in a setting of ebony. This appearance, however, gradually wore off, and the rays from ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... you do," returned Johnny, looking at her with chin in the air and shoulders square, and Lily wondered at ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of November there had been a smell of smoke in the air from the early morning. The marsh up north was afire—as it had been off and on for a matter of twenty-odd years. The fire consumes on the surface everything that will burn; the ground cools down, a new vegetation springs up, and nobody would suspect—as there is nothing to indicate—that only ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... taken up its position, the main body moved forward, cheering and firing in the air, to intimate to the Spaniards that their chief reliance was on the bayonet. The enemy, meanwhile, kept up an incessant fire of artillery and musketry in the direction of the shouts, but without effect, as no aim could be taken in the dark. ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... waves came plashing against the two boats; but the hare's boat was built of wood, while that of the badger was made of clay, and, as they rowed down the river, the clay boat began to crumble away; then the hare, seizing his paddle, and brandishing it in the air, struck savagely at the badger's boat, until he had smashed it to ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... taken in the fingers, don't take a long drooping stalk, hold it up in the air and catch the end of it in your mouth like a fish. When the stalks are thin, it is best to cut them in half with the fork, eating the tips like all fork food; the ends may then be taken in the fingers and eaten without ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... not reason to admire Theodorus the Cyrenean, a philosopher of no small distinction? who, when Lysimachus threatened to crucify him, bade him keep those menaces for his courtiers: "to Theodorus it makes no difference whether he rot in the air or under ground." By which saying of the philosopher I am reminded to say something of the custom of funerals and sepulture, and of funeral ceremonies, which is, indeed, not a difficult subject, especially if we recollect what has been before said ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... hold him, for the fellow was oiled, and floundered up in the same instant. No doubt the water he had swallowed kept the yell safe in his throat, but his hatchet was out and high-swung as the Sagamore grasped his wrist, holding his arm in the air. Then, holding him so, the Mohican passed his knife through the man's heart, striking with swiftness incredible again and again; and as his victim collapsed, he eased him down into the water, turned him over, and took ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... He had no idea of pictures, of Claude or Raphael, and at this time I had as little as he. He sometimes gives a striking account at present of the Cartoons at Pisa by Buffamalco and others; of one in particular, where Death is seen in the air brandishing his scythe, and the great and mighty of the earth shudder at his approach, while the beggars and the wretched kneel to him as their deliverer. He would, of course, understand so broad and fine a moral as ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... And never a cry, never a word of human voice to be heard anywhere; nothing; only the heavy rush of the wind about my head. There was a reef of rocks far out, lying all apart; when the sea raged up over it the water towered like a crazy screw; nay, like a sea-god rising wet in the air, and snorting, till hair and beard stood out like a wheel about his head. Then he plunged down into ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... occasion I was expecting orders from my editor to produce certain articles on the subject of the London hospitals. It will be remembered that the matter was very much in the air a few years ago, and as nothing is professionally more uncomfortable than to be called on suddenly for an accurate and reasonable leading article on a subject one knows nothing about, I wrote to my friend, Barton McCarthy, who is house-surgeon at St. ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... me. I had another narrow escape not long before I got this bit. I knew a gentleman's house where they laid out the breakfast dishes on the table for an hour before they took breakfast. During this hour the room was left untenanted, and the window left open to let in the air. Well, I bolted in and 'nicked' a nice silver teapot, cream jug, and one or two other things, and off I started home, where I 'planted' the articles, and then went to bed. Shortly afterwards a bobby came to the door, and although I told them to say I was not at home, to get him kept from coming in, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... admixture of decayed vegetable matter, suiting them well. Lime in any form must, however, be kept away both from Azaleas and Rhododendrons. They like a quiet, still place, where a fair amount of moisture is present in the air and soil. ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... remained so the better. He failed to understand how he had escaped; perhaps his guards had been lulled into false security by his tranquil demeanor; perhaps they had trusted to each other; or one, rendered listless by the tension in the air, had relaxed his watchfulness for a few moments. This, however, did not matter. George was free; and he only wished that he had some idea as to where he was heading. He wanted to place a long distance between him and ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... and picked up a handful from the heap, her action caused a mist to rise in the air that made them both choke and cough, and yet she was instantly struck by the fact that her handful seemed inordinately ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... further on to the right, they walked over to it. They saw a narrow path between two hedges shaded by tall trees which shut out the sun. A sort of moist freshness in the air was perceptible, giving them a sensation of chilliness. There was no grass, owing to the lack of sunlight, but the ground was covered with ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... has passed more quickly than I expected it would," whispered Lennox. "Can't you feel what a chill there is in the air?" ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... than an assault upon the ship herself. The previous experiments had clearly demonstrated that a Whitehead, when projected against a vessel at close range, and consequently with a maximum of motive force, could not get through the ordinary wire netting before expending its explosive energy in the air, and that the spars by which the nets are boomed out from the ship's side could be reduced to 25 ft. in length without danger to the hull. The ordinary wooden booms employed on board ship, however, are heavy and unwieldy, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... still stranger scene. Here was a ring of elderly and aged men, their hats wreathed with garlands, hand-in-hand, executing a slow and solemn dance in a circle. One, who seemed the moving spirit, a small wiry man with a fresh-coloured face and a long chin-beard, was leaping high in the air, singing some rustic song, and dragging his less active companions round and round. The others all entered into the spirit of the dance. One very old and feeble man, with a smile on his face, was executing little clumsy hops, deeply intent on the performance. A few others ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 13.—We have been building a most delightful castle in the air to-day. If a man-of-war comes we might go back in it to Cape Town and try to arrange with some enterprising person to come in a schooner and buy up the cattle here at a low price. What commissions we should have to execute ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... they shouted, they clashed their weapons in exultation, and the noise of the Falls was drowned in the uproar of barbarian wassail. One of their exploits was to rip open a feather bed for the pleasure of seeing the feathers float away in the air. They, however, inflicted no violence upon ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... spoken so carelessly that for a few seconds I did not realise their meaning. But there was that in the expression of the man who spoke them which showed there was no lack of realisation there. How often I have recalled them, with a sore heart, in these recent weeks of heavy losses in the air-service—losses due, I have no doubt, to the special claims upon it ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... They have a custom of killing the first stranger who comes among them after a death in the tribe, and as we filled that requirement, it seems he wanted to carry out the custom. At Equeesik's suggestion a gun had been discharged in the air as we approached, and it is probable that the knowledge that we were better armed than they had some effect in securing peace. They acted in quite a friendly manner after we came among them, and Lieutenant Schwatka and I visited all their igloos, leaving needles, thimbles, spoons, ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... bunny gentleman. "I think I should like some adventures with my feathered friends who fly in the air. When I come back I'll tell ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... the Moon the demiurgic or creative force of Osiris, who united himself to her in the spring, when the Sun communicated to her the principles of generation which she afterward disseminated in the air and all the elements. The Persians considered the Moon to have been impregnated by the Celestial Bull, first of the signs of spring. In all ages, the Moon has been supposed to have great influence upon vegetation, and the birth and growth of animals; and the belief is as widely ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... river shore where the bulrushes swayed in the gentle south wind. A stonechat of the desert sat on a rock by the river, wagged its tail, and flapped its wings, as though it wished to show something which it saw; and chattered at the sight of something strange among the bulrushes. High up in the air a hawk hovered in spiral circles, eyeing the ground below. Miriam broke off some lotus-buds and threw them at the stonechat, which flew away, but kept its beak still pointing towards the rushes. The girl girt up her dress, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... through living in water are further removed from man than other animals, which, like man, live in the air. Again, fish die as soon as they are taken out of water; hence they could not be offered in the temple ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... kite seemed to exercise. Even human beings were affected by it, as if both it and they were realities. As for the people at Mercy Farm, it was like a taste of actual death. Lilla felt it most. If she had been indeed a real dove, with a real kite hanging over her in the air, she could not have been more frightened or more affected by ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... then," cried Adams, tossing his child in the air as he went. "My beauty, you'll beat your mammy in looks yet, eh? an' when you're old enough we'll tell you all ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... it was an hour before the oarsmen could get her back so as to approach the line. It seemed then extremely dangerous to approach it, as the end of it was flying hither and thither, whipping the surges which boiled beneath it, or whirling and curling in the air, as it was swung to and fro by the impulse of the wind, or by the swaying of the yard-arm ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... any better than that with one of them twins. I won't try. If I have to 'muse her it has to be in my own way." And with her head in the air the Bunch marched up ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... side, I do not know. At any rate he did what Uncle Tad told him to do, and in another moment was close to the boat with Sue in his jaws. Uncle Tad lifted her into the boat and at once turned her on her face and raised her legs in the air. This was to let any water that she ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... a woman!" commented Bernard. "Or is it something in the air? I'll never bring Tessa out here when she's grown up, or she'll marry and be stuck here for ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... have fallen asleep: for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with an assembling shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess. iv:13-18,—corrected translation). These words, so unique and precious, give the full revelation ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... Rockets or shells bursting in the air with a loud report and throwing stars of any color or description, fired one at a ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... anxious—the anxiety of the defender of a straggling fortress which is vulnerable at a dozen points. It seemed to him that strange noises were coming from the rooms beyond the hall. Did the back door lie that way? And was not there a smell of smoke in the air? If they tried fire in such a gale the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... shout I rushed forward and hurled the ball at him. It flew as swift as a bullet toward his ribs, but without a word he swung his staff and the ball rose a surprising distance in the air. Lord Rufton clapped his hands and cheered. Again the ball was brought to me, and again it was for me to throw. This time it flew past his head, and it seemed to me that it was his turn ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that they can be just as contented with homely enjoyments as they ever were when they sat passively and were amused by some one who made it his profession. A tramp through the woods in the fall when there is a tang of frost in the air; the satisfaction of a long-planned flower bed in full bloom; a winter evening with a log fire blazing on the living-room hearth; are simple but as genuine as any of the pleasures known to city folk. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... redoubled fury, and sent her flying along with only two oars out at a furious speed. A small palm-branch which, floating by, my uncle picked up, was almost blown out of his hands as he held it in the air. We were fortunately right in conjecturing that we were entering the mouth of a stream; so we went on some distance with unabated speed, when a crash was heard, and the water came rushing into the boat. We had run ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... aught else how that this winsome maid had been lost to the world for so many years, having been scarce of the age of twelve when the ship had been lost in the weed-continent. Then, as I turned to make some remark, being filled with many feelings, there came a hail, from far above in the air, as it might be, and, looking up, I discovered the man upon the hill to be standing along the edge, and waving to us, and now I perceived how that the hill towered a very great way above us, seeming, as it were, to overhang the hulk though ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... go, for he hath such credentials," said the fool, blowing thistle-down in the air. "Yesterday was no Palm Sunday to Leicester. Delicio's head was high. 'Imperial Majesty,' quoth Obligato, his knees upon the rushes, 'take my life but send me not forth into darkness where I shall ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... worthy sir? I left home to go to the mayor's, the church, and the cook-shop, to prevent Alfred from tiring himself. I returned; what did I see? the dear old man with his legs and arms all in the air! Look, M. Rudolph!" said Anastasia, opening the door of the room, "is not that a sight to break ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and intercept the fugitives, who, fatigued with the toilsome march, were only able to proceed one stage in the day. Piran, therefore, who travelled at the rate of one hundred leagues a day, overtook them before they had passed through Bulgharia. Ferangis, who saw the enemy's banner floating in the air, knew that it belonged to Piran, and instantly awoke the two young men from sleep. Upon this occasion, Khosrau insisted on acting his part, instead of being left ignominiously idle; but Giw was still resolute and determined to preserve him from all risk, at the peril of his own life. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... writers purely destructive; their uses cease with the evils they denounce. But Rousseau sought to construct as well as to destroy; and though nothing could well be more absurd than his constructions, still man loves to look back and see even delusive images—castles in the air—reared above the waste where cities have been. Rather than leave even a burial-ground to solitude, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... corn-fields stretched away from the dyke of the Professor's garden to the south towards the red-roofed village of Echo Bank and the long ridge of Liberton, crowned by the square tower on which a stone dining-room table had been turned up, its four futile legs waving in the air like a ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... walked away, still giggling; a deep color mantled Maggie's cheeks. She turned and began to talk desperately to Mr. Hammond. Her tone was flippant; her silvery laughter floated in the air. Priscilla turned and gazed at her friend. She was seeing Maggie in yet another aspect. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... lurid light, and there was the smell of burning wood in the air, as the wind blew toward the lads. On they rushed, the warning bell on the engine clanging loudly, and mingling with the rumble of the big wheels. It was a fine sight, and one would have enjoyed seeing the sturdy lads hurrying along, with the brightly polished engine sparkling in the light ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... of her cautious question disconcerted her not a little. The boy dropped the dog and bundle to the platform, threw his hat in the air, and capered ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... and singular. On the earth is the empty tomb; near it the bier; around stand the twelve apostles, all looking up amazed. There is no allusion to the girdle, which, indeed, is seldom found in northern art. Above, the Virgin floating in the air, with the rainbow under her feet, is crowned by the Father and the Son, while over her head ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... any house which I had seen, where men, and women, and children, came together, twice a day, on Sundays, to hear the Bible read, and make good resolutions for the week to come. She told me, that the fine music which we sometimes heard in the air, came from the bells of St. Mary's church, and that we never heard it but when the wind was in a particular point. This raised my wonder more than all the rest; for I had somehow conceived that the noise which I heard, was ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... served out of a majestic Delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs,—with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper teakettle. To sweeten ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... And after the Last Man, what? He would die, and then all that any of the other stars could view of the vast panorama of our earthly generations would be an unburied corpse, with not even a vulture hovering to pick it to freshness in the air! ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... no notice, but passed on down the street without a word of farewell. When he came to the turning he looked back. She was standing by the curb, with her proud head high in the air, while the manager screamed loudly upon a whistle. A cab swung round a distant corner. Crosse reached her ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... a flagpole on the farm And flung Old Glory to the sky, And it's another touch of charm That seems to cheer the passer-by, But more than that, no matter where We're laboring in wood and field, We turn and see it in the air, Our promise of a greater yield. It whispers to us all day long, From dawn to dusk: "Be true, be strong; Who falters now with plow or hoe Gives comfort to his ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... Fay assured her with an understanding laugh. "This building's safe for a month more at least." Suddenly he grimaced and leaped a foot in the air. He raised a clawed hand to scratch his shoulder but managed to check the movement. "Got to beat it, folks," he announced tersely. "My tickler gave me the ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... honor, old man, could I?" and the young miner laughed, tossing a handful of gold nuggets up in the air and carelessly catching them as ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... got hold of a trench catapult, an ingenious contrivance of elastic that hurls a bomb some hundreds of yards, and placed in it a harpoon attached to a long coil of rope. The idea was that on release of the catapult the harpoon would be hurled in the air, the rope would neatly pay out, and then, as soon as the harpoon had grappled Mahomet, all we would have to do would be to haul on the rope and over would come the whole bag of tricks. Unfortunately something went ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... gaiety that was like that of a boy let out from school, had been a delightful person to pair off with. And then the other two had been so wrapped up in the wonderful chance to get married which opened out before them, that marriage—a beautiful, golden, romantic thing—had been in the air. One felt out of it if one didn't marry. Everybody else was marrying in shoals. And Francis had been crazy over little Marjorie from the moment he saw her—over her old-fashioned, whimsical ways, her small defiances that covered up a good deal of shyness, over the littleness and grace that made ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... mightily he smites, Shattering it more than I can tell; the sword But grinds.—It breaks not—nor receives a notch, And upwards springs more dazzling in the air. When sees the Count Rolland his sword can never break, Softly within himself its fate he mourns: "O Durendal, how fair and holy thou! In thy gold-hilt are relics rare; a tooth Of great saint Pierre—some blood of Saint Basile, A lock of hair of Monseigneur Saint Denis, A fragment of the ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... Roland's castles in the air were suddenly cut short. He was passing a dark part near the cathedral, when a rough hand—rough in texture, not in motion—was laid upon his shoulder, and a peculiar piece of paper thrust upon him. The assailant was Hopper, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in the laboratory might be caused, in some way, by the vaporous fumes diffused in its air, I had the light removed to a room at the top of the Royal Institution. The track of the beam was seen very finely in the air of this room, a length of 14 or 15 feet being attainable. This beam exhibited all the effects observed with the beam in the laboratory. Even the uncondensed electric light falling on the floating matter showed, though faintly, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... hardened clay of a blackish blue, and carburetted. These masses are fissile, very heavy, and loaded with iron; their streak is whitish, and they produce no effervescence with acids. They assume at their surface, by their decomposition in the air, a yellow colour. We seem to recognize in these argillaceous strata a tendency either to the transition-slates, or to the kieselschiefer (schistose jasper), which everywhere characterise the black transition-limestones. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... coming Bill of federalizing the United Kingdom on the lines of the Dominion of Canada—that is, of constructing a new Federal Parliament elected by the whole realm, together with new local Legislatures elected by the various fractions of the realm. Scottish and Welsh Home Rule are in the air, but they are not practical issues. English Home Rule is not even in the air. I mean that Englishmen, whatever their views on the congestion of Parliamentary business owing to the pressure of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish affairs, have not seriously considered the idea of a subordinate ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... controls of the port-lock quickly, and swung inner and outer doors open. He glided through, and then, a giant, clumsy figure, poised far out in the air, a soft breeze washing his face as he gazed down at the hill five miles below, judging his descent. As he did not use the infra-red instrument hanging from his neck, the asteroid might not have been there ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... day I danced in the woods, Under the dancing leaves? Do you remember the delicate blue of the sky And the gold-dust in the air? And the tawny harvest fields, and the heavy sheaves? Summer was surely in one of her bravest moods . . . And oh, the rare Swift joy that lifted life to an ecstasy, That shining day I danced for you, dear, ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... system was not wholly restored to health was borne in upon him as he walked along Piccadilly on his way to his flat; for, when somebody suddenly slapped him hard between the shoulder-blades, he uttered a stifled yell and leaped in the air. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture." This was the poet Cowley's opinion. "Of all the animals" scolds Boileau, "which fly in the air, walk on the ground, or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan to Rome, the most foolish animal, in my opinion, is man." People must be very bad, indeed, who get opinions as low as the two last quoted. That rapacious vulture George Peabody! that dissembling ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... rumours in the air that the chancellor's fall was imminent; nor were the efforts of his son-in-law, the Duke of York, able to protect him, for the friends of my Lady Castlemaine openly told his majesty "it would not consist with his majesty's ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... she said severely, "is always downstairs in charge of my porter. There you can enter your subscriptions if you wish to. And so I beg you to put your notes away and not to wave them in the air. That's right. I beg you also to go back to your seat. That's right. I am very sorry, sir, that I made a mistake about your sister, and gave her something as though she were poor when she is so rich. There's only one thing I don't understand, why she can only take from me, and no one else. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... when he happened to glance towards the bed. He rushed at it, enraged, with a mental scream: "it's you, crazy fanatic, who stands in the way!" He flung the pillow on the floor violently, tore the blankets aside.... Nothing there. And, turning away, he caught for an instant in the air, like a vivid detail in a dissolving view of two heads, the eyes of General T—- and of Privy-Councillor Mikulin side by side fixed upon him, quite different in character, but with the same unflinching and weary and yet purposeful ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... to understand the meaning of this question: but the persistent humming of the bees confused me, and there was a drowsiness in the air that made every thought stop and go to sleep before it had got well thought out: so all I could say was "That must depend on ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... support the present tax leaves other States free to impose comparable taxes on the same property."[737] Evidently in this area of Constitutional Law the Court is still much at sea or better perhaps, "up in the air." ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Yet, it is important to complete the history of this remarquable family. For this, must be preserved:—1 The dried leaves in paper spread out, when they are not too large; folded like a fan, dried in the air and wrapped in brown paper well tied, when they are large.—2 Clusters of flowers or carymbs with the common envelope, taking care to preserve equally the male and female flowers, when they are separate; they should be dried quickly in the open air and wrapped in paper or cloth, ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... it be on the sea, under the sea, on the land or in the air, is a science in which the human element is of at least equal importance with that of the purely mechanical. It is a science of ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife |
