"Somersault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that you could keep; for, if it went, you couldn't get it back. It left you bare, like those trees when they lost their leaves; barer and barer until you, too, withered and came down. And, by a queer somersault of thought, he seemed to see not Annette lying up there behind that window-pane on which the sun was shining, but Irene lying in their bedroom in Montpellier Square, as it might conceivably have been her fate to lie, sixteen years ago. Would he have hesitated then? Not a moment! Operate, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... face over and over again. The lady-bugs wept many tears, because they could not go with the company; the crickets chirped rather gloomily, because none with short limbs could go on the journey; while Daddy Long-legs almost turned a somersault for joy when told he might carry a bundle in the train. All being in readiness, the procession was to start at six o'clock in the morning. The exact minute was to be announced by the time-keeper of the mansion, Flea san, whose house was on the back of Neko, a great black cat, who ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... he, 'since it changes to sweetness whatever I eat and drink, it will sweeten my voice also, so that the Plough will obey.' So he put the ring between his lips and whistled; and at the sound his heart turned a somersault for joy, for he felt that out of his mouth the farmer's magic had ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... is taking us slap up against it," said Turly. A few minutes later they went bang into a rock; the boat made a somersault, flung the children high and dry, and "ran off with itself, laughing", as ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... into three fractions, has decided, one for the ministerial compromise, another for the exclusion of the State, and the third for the exclusion of the corporations. So that today no more than before do the public or M. Arago, in spite of their somersault, know ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... position to give me information on the subject. Will you kindly give me the name—the real name—of the author of this book? I have reasons, valid reasons for requiring it.' And he glared down at Mark, who had a sudden and disagreeable sensation as if his heart had just turned a somersault. Could this terrible old person have detected him, and if so what would ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... a deer. Crowd one an' he gets to jumpin' high. 'D you see that jack turn a somersault just as I threw my ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... Hawk-Eye was a little pleased at their courage in following them. Anyway, he said: "Well, you can climb like squirrels. We shall not be gone many days. Come along." Firetop sprang up and whooped for joy. Firefly turned a somersault. Hawk-Eye and Limberleg laughed. They couldn't help it. You see, even in those early times parents were fond of their children, although they didn't know any better punishment for them than spankings. There are some parents like ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Coyote did. He stubbed his toes and turned a complete somersault. He looked so funny that the little scamps watching him had all they could do to keep from shouting right out. Old Granny Fox and Reddy Fox, looking on from a safe distance, did laugh. You know they had not been ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... bird, a top, a rabbit, a corkscrew, a sprite, a fleshball, all in an instant. When you think he's erect, he is down, and when you think he is down, he is up. He drops his glove on the ice and turns a somersault as he picks it up. Without stopping he snatches the cap from Jacob Poot's astonished head and claps it back again "hindside before." Lookers-on hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is arctic weather under your feet, but more than temperate ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... ain' stole one on 'em sence las' mont'," protested Zeke, as he turned a somersault into the road, "en dat warn' stealin' 'case hit warn' wu'th it," he added, rising to his feet and staring wistfully after the wagon as it vanished in a ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... by a somersault, whirling, Whirling from cushion to floor; Waked from a wild rush of safety From window ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... the Place d'Armes and drove up the narrow Rue de la Mer, Susan seemed to take a sudden header and almost threw a somersault! I had gone into an invisible hole in the ice, two feet deep, extending half across the street. For some reason it had melted (due probably to an underground bakery in the vicinity). I reversed anxiously and then hopped out to feel Susan's springs as one might a horse's knees. Thank goodness they ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... a gate, instead of taking time to open it, he rolled himself somersault-like right over it! When he met man or woman, instead of turning from his straight course, he knocked them over and passed on, garments flying and legs and arms circulating with the velocity of ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... with a guarded and wary eye and Pauline Augusta does not always approve of me. Yesterday, when I got on Briquette and made that fire-eater jump the two rain-barrels put end to end Dinky-Dunk told me I was too old to be taking a chance like that. So I promptly and deliberately turned a somersault on the prairie-sod, just to show him I wasn't the old lady he was trying to make me out. Gershom, who'd just got back with the children and was unhitching Calamity Kate, retreated with his eyebrows up, toward the stable. And on the youthful ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... taken, I said I did not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi got up, his face bleeding and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... that last voice should stop I could begin, but all at once my mind seemed to turn a somersault, and, instead of looking out upon them, I seemed to be looking in on myself—to see a white-faced little girl in a white dress, standing alone under a blaze of light in a glare of red, gazing fearfully at this ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... with his regular trapeze work—doing some back flyaway jumps that thrilled the audience. This trick is done by grasping the trapeze bar firmly at arm's length, swinging backward and downward until the required momentum is reached. When Joe was ready he suddenly let go and turned a backward somersault to the life net. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... slackened for a flash, he himself got a wrestler's grip that left him ready to do business. As the priest broke free, he slid around in an attempt to fasten himself on Kirby's back. Quickly, tensely Kirby doubled, and knew that he had done enough. The cacique shot over his shoulders, described a somersault in midair, and landed with a sharp crack of head and shoulders ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... a kick from one of the clowns, turned a somersault and tumbled in a grotesque heap outside the ring. A dialogue between two clowns began, and the Gadfly seemed to wake out ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... swinging and tumbling along up the great limb that reached out toward the window at which Sukey sat. By the time he had finished it, he was standing on the window-sill, where he had alighted after a giddy somersault. He laughed heartily—so heartily that Sukey laughed, too, though she could not tell why. Then he took off ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... or the agility of an acrobat. Of the latter we have an example in the Turin Museum. The girl is nude, with the exception of a tightly fitting belt about her hips, and she is throwing herself backwards with so natural a motion, that we are almost tempted to expect her to turn a somersault and fall once more into position with her ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... During a rapid descent the nose of the sledge dipped through the snow, and stopped dead against a rock. Mr. U—— was instantly buried in the snow, falling into a young but prickly Spaniard, which assaulted him grievously; but F—— shot over his head some ten yards, turned a somersault, and alit on his feet. This sounds a harmless performance enough, but it requires practice; and F—— declared that for weeks afterwards his neck felt twisted. The accident must have looked very ridiculous: the sledge one moment gliding smoothly ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... one of my luggage horses. For some reason of his own he bolted, and galloped to the top of one of the kanat cones, when getting frightened at the deep hole before him he jumped it. His fore-legs having given way on the steep incline on the other side, he fell on his head and turned a complete somersault, landing flat on his back, where, owing to the packs, he remained with his legs up in the air until we came to his aid and freed him ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... same alienated tongue, "Yes; keep to the left," and she dived straight downward in the long plunge, till, just before she reached the net, she turned a quick somersault ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the road for the fields on the right, reared, fell, leaped against the stone side of the culvert, apparently trying to climb it, stood straight on end, whirled backward in a half-somersault, crashed over on its side, flashed with flame and explosion, and lay hidden under a cloud of dust ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... lee rail of the poop, fetched up against it with a force that must have knocked the breath out of him, and then— although the rail was breast-high to him—in some inconceivable fashion seemed to lurch forward upon it, turn a complete somersault over it, and plunge headlong into the sea. It was Mrs Vansittart's shriek of "Julius!" and her look of petrified horror, that caused me to wheel round, and I was just in time to see the lad ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... Lord Burgoyne, all unmindful of love or gratitude, and with an eye single to avenging this insult to his dignity, struggled from the arms of his captors, and, planting his head full in Diddie's chest, turned her a somersault in the mud. Then, lowering his head and rushing at Chris, he butted her with such force that over she went headforemost into the ditch! and now, spying Dilsey, who was running with all her might to gain the lumber-pile, he took after ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... easily caught, and it was from this fact that it got its name, which comes from dote, to be "silly" or "feeble-minded." When the name of the bird is used to describe a silly person, the word is really, as an interesting writer on the history of words says, turning "a complete somersault." The same is the case with dodo, which is also used, but not so often, to describe a stupid person. This bird also got its name from a word which meant "foolish." It comes from the Portuguese ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... that he fitted up a play-room for Jack on the attic floor, and by means of an apparatus, the peculiarities of whose construction he alone knows, he managed after a while to store up the superfluous energy which Jack expended upon everything that he did. Every time Jack turned a somersault he contributed, unknown to himself, something to the growing bulk of hoarded force in the reservoir provided for its reception. All the strength necessary for the somersault was devoted to that operation. The superfluity went to the reservoir. So, also, when in his play of scaling imaginary ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... feats of agility; swinging each other round by the hand; throwing up and catching the ball; or flinging themselves round backwards head-over-heels, in imitation of a wheel; which was usually a performance of women. They also stood on each other's backs, and made a somersault from that position; and a necklace, or other reward, was given to the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... had turned a somersault and cracked open across another. Its inverted wheels on their trucks had made a bower of steel about the bridegroom. The flames from the stove and from the oil-lamps were blooming like hell-flowers everywhere. And the ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... instant, the whole was one writhing and tumbling heap of contortion, reminding me of the live pyramids of intertwined snakes of which travellers make report. As soon as one was worked out of the mass, he bounded off a few paces, and then, with a somersault and a run, threw himself gyrating into the air, and descended with all his weight on the summit of the heaving and struggling chaos of fantastic figures. I left them still busy at this fierce and apparently aimless amusement. And as I ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... leaps from a springboard, in which all the acrobats took part, was introduced. From a point thirty feet back the performer ran swiftly till he reached the springboard, from which a leap was made accompanied by a somersault, carrying him over a considerable space ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... You only think you can. Besides, that's not a cartwheel; that's a double somersault. It's a real stunt, let me tell you. Why, I can do a cartwheel myself. But up in the air like that—well, I don't know. I guess not. I'd be willing to try it, though, if I had something below to catch me," added the lad, critically surveying the figures on the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the lights had been extinguished, and the doors of the music-hall were shut. The Little Wonder was tired after the performance; his attempt to do the double somersault had strained him, and his failure had brought a whipping. Although the outhouse in which he was to lie was cold and damp and smelt horribly, he was glad when his master thrust him into it, and he was content to lie down in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... be a bit "smart." He made a half somersault forward, trying to spring up on his feet. He fell back, however, and sat down squarely in what ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... turns round and says, "If you want a head put on you, just keep on talking; so that folks can't hear the brothers turn a somersault. You'll ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... back. There are two sweeps, or arms, worked by machinery, on the sides. You ask their use, and the superintendent replies, "When, in a violent shock, there is danger of the monster's upsetting, an arm is put out, on one side or the other, to keep the thing from turning a complete somersault." You get one idea, and an inkling of another. So you take out your Accident Policy for three thousand dollars, and examine it. It never mentions battles, nor duels, nor snowplows. It names "public conveyances." Is a snowplow a public conveyance? You are ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... jumped on the calf's back. He tried to stand on his head. Then he turned a somersault on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... later, before the men had finished reloading their pistols, Scapin dashed in through the window, throwing a remarkable somersault like an acrobat as he came, and seeing that the three ruffians had laid down their swords beside them on the floor while attending to their other weapons, he seized upon them all, ere their owners had recovered from their astonishment ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "What a somersault has taken place in the general slippery coalitions of these capricious provinces! Every Potsdammer, a little while ago, was counting on Roumania!... The breaking up of the confederation of the Balkan States under Russian influence was what ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... her patience, and although it wasn't right, Retorted that for all she cared he might sit up all night. He approved of this arrangement, and he danced a jig for joy, And turned a somersault with glee; ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... may, thanks to them, soar very high, but—modern Icarus—may not also some adverse fortune, an unexpected loss of popularity, or, perhaps, some revolution fatal to your philosophy, bring you down with a somersault, and then you would not be sorry to find in your quiver the means of gaining your bread. Agreed that you have now an invincible repugnance to the practice of medicine, it is evident from your last two letters that you would ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... expected that we might be able to surround them. I touched Aggahr with the spur, and he shot ahead of the leading elephants, when I turned sharp to the right exactly before their path, and gave a shout to check their advance; in the same instant, Aggahr turned a complete somersault within a few yards of their feet, having put his fore-leg into a deep crevice, and I rolled over almost beneath the elephants with the heavy rifle in my hand. The horse recovered quicker than I, and, galloping ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... baffled rage I hurled the useless weapon full at the advancing brute. Almost at the instant we struck, my horse went down with the impetus, while over us both, as if shot from a cannon, plunged our pursuer, his horse turning a complete somersault, the rider falling so close that I was upon him almost as soon as he struck ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... sticks, which are curiously rigged together in the shape of an open pair of scissors. Press the ends of the sticks at the bottom; and the acrobat tosses his legs over the string, seats himself upon it, and finally turns a somersault. Price, one-sixth of ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... play the crank. It was evidently written in his stars. When will he turn his last somersault and stand on ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... candles burning in the various places, just seized the opportunity to run out and hide himself, when he unawares rushed, head foremost, into lady Feng's arms. Lady Feng speedily raised her hand and gave him such a slap on the face that she made the young fellow reel over and perform a somersault. "You boorish young bastard!" she shouted, "where ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... beast's legs were jerked out from under him and with a roar of rage he turned a complete somersault and crashed to the ground, every bit of his wrath jarred out of him ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... before Devil and Holy Father simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clenched, and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the late and cavern danced before his eyes and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Williams. She almost achieved a back somersault. Six young members of the tribe of Williams made a simultaneous plunge for a position behind the stove, ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... slewed round, and began to blow with undiminished violence from the northeast. Plunging and swerving, and sometimes threatened with a complete somersault, the aero hurried away in its crazy flight, while its unfortunate inmates clung to one another, and held on by any object within reach, in the endeavor to keep from being dashed against ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the giant rhinceros with the body of his father stooped its head to drink from the lake, he put an arrow through it and it turned a somersault and fell over dead: while all the other rhinceroses turned tail and ran away. Then the boy climbed down from the tree and pulled the dead body of his father off the horn of the dead animal and laid it down at the foot of a tree and began to weep over it. As he wept ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... now walking on thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up and began over again. And between each time he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... opened the folds and entered, his fellow-soldier, who was lying on his back, with his heels much higher than his head, and a short pipe in his teeth, tumbled himself up; with a rapid somersault, and stood bolt upright, giving the salute; a short, sturdy little man, with a skin burnt like a coffee-berry, that was in odd contrast with his light, dancing blue eyes, and his close, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... them together without any trouble. By the mere turning over of one he will convert it into the other without any change whatever in the relative position of its parts. What he could do with the pyramids he could also do with one of us if we allowed him to take hold of us and turn a somersault with us in the fourth dimension. We should then come back into our natural space, but changed as if we were seen in a mirror. Everything on us would be changed from right to left, even the seams ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... the dunes; the night was continuously lighted up by flashes from the big guns, both French and German. We were pulled up with a jerk, which sent me flying over the left wheel, doing a somersault, and finally landing head first into a lovely soft sandbank. Spluttering and staggering to my feet, I looked round for the cause of my sudden exit from the car, and there in the glare of the headlight were two French officers. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... from the cliff, and whirling through the air, lit upon his head on the hard plain below! We could see that he came down upon his horns, and rebounding up again to the height of several feet, he turned a second somersault, and then dropped upon his legs, and stood still! Nothing daunted, the rest followed, one after the other, in quick succession, like so many street-tumblers; and, like them, after the feat had been performed, the animals ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... state papers show with what marvellous vigilance, activity, and efficiency he conducted, from that centre, the diplomatic affairs of the commonwealth. At the restoration of the monarchy, he made the quickest and the loftiest somersault in all political history. It was done between two days. He saw Charles the Second at the Hague, on his way to England to resume his crown: and the man who, up to that moment, had been one of the most ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... office, and get down on the floor to play with blocks with the children. I do not mind that so much, but I have to play horse, and ride the children around on my back, and then, to cap the climax, I have to turn a somersault." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... charge!" The coursers started; with a yell and furious vault, High in air the Moorish champion cut a wondrous somersault; O'er the head of Don Fernando like a tennis-ball he sprung, Caught him tightly by the girdle, and ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... in which I think he was unrivalled—falling down without breaking his knees, and in running backwards. In performing the first feat, which, on an average, occurred twice in three weeks, he fell, without a moment's hesitation, directly on his head, and instantly took a somersault on his back; so that literally he never had time to break his knees, though he broke the saddle now and then. The second, he could perform at a frightful pace; and the more one whipped and spurred, the faster ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... other armed fore leg, touching the intrusive nose, which was instantly jerked back and again slowly and inquiringly brought forward. Then the mantis suddenly flew in Cartucho's face, whereupon Cartucho, with a smothered yelp of dismay, almost turned a back somersault; and the triumphant mantis flew back to the middle of the ox-hide, among the plates, where it reared erect and defied the laughing and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... children and the two dogs sat watching the little rings in the water around the floaters. Sometimes farther out they saw larger rings, and a fish feeling pretty happy, because of the cool September weather, would jump out of the water and turn a somersault through ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... one tell Nettie she's to go too?" said the eldest boy. "She's most good of all. What does Nettie want to go away for? But I don't mind; for we have to do what Nettie tells us, and nobody cares for Chatham," cried the sweet child, making a triumphant somersault out of his chair. Nettie stood looking on, without attempting to stop the tumult which arose. She left them with their mother, after a few minutes, and went out to breathe the outside air, where at least there was quiet and freedom. ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... of an admiring gallery at the head of the stairs, Master Shelton was performing jugglers' tricks with their visitor's best silk hat. Twice it had turned a somersault in the air, and twice safely alighted well down over Dicky's ears, but a third time it might miss even such a conspicuous mark and be smashed out of symmetry on the hard floor. French beat a hasty retreat, but he was no match for Dicky in change of tactics; as he came ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... it, swung the door open, and slowly climbed out into the fantastic beauty of endless space. No sooner was he outside than the synthetic gravity generators lost their pull on his body and he started into space. Tightly grasping two metal handles in the hull, the big cadet performed a quick somersault and planted his feet firmly on the hull. His magnetic-soled space boots held him fast and he called Roger over ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell |
