"Brink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eternity be the same thing, and he's looked all round the bargain for more'n a year, so 'tis up to me to help him in the way he very clearly wants to go." And I set about him and made it easy for him to see he wouldn't get "No" for an answer when he brought himself to the brink. I made it so clear as a woman could that I cared for Sweet, and I aired my views and dropped a good few delicate-minded hints, such as that he didn't look to be getting any younger and more didn't I; and when the Rev. Champernowne preached a very fine ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... itself. In writing the book I have naturally incurred debt in various directions; debt of which the source would be difficult always to trace. I may mention my obligations to the work of Professor Morley, Professor Earle, Professor Ten Brink, and Professor Albert S. Cook: also to the writers of Chapters I-VII of "The Cambridge History of English ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... the upper end of a pineapple it would have been more like it. I wish the man who wrote it would go to Glacier Park. I am not a vindictive woman, but I know one or two places where I would like to place him and make him swallow that orange. I'd like to see him on a horse, on the brink of a canon a mile deep, and have his horse reach over the edge for a stray plant or two, or standing in a cloud up to his waist, so that, as Aggie so plaintively observed, "The lower half of one is in a snowstorm while the upper part ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in Martha's mind. She drew back from the question as from the brink of the Abyss, yet felt drawn magnetically toward it. Ren watched and knew what that question would be. She ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham
... in the weedy pool Beyond the western brink, Where crewless vessels lie and rot in waters black as ink. Torn out again by a sudden storm Is ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... Columbus in Spain, and the impediments thrown in the way of all his measures for the benefit of the island by the delays of cabinets and the chicanery of Fonseca and his satellites. At this critical juncture, when faction reigned triumphant, and the colony was on the brink of ruin, tidings were brought to the Vega that Pedro Fernandez Coronal had arrived at the port of San Domingo, with two ships, bringing supplies of all kinds, and a ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... is the goblet from whose brink All creatures that have life must drink: Foemen and lovers, haughty lord And sallow beggar with lips abhorred. The new-born infant, ere it gain The mother's breast, this wine must drain. The oak with its subtile juice is fed, The rose drinks till her cheeks are red, And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... stop and think, Before ye further go! How can ye sport upon the brink Of everlasting woe? On the verge of ruin, stop! Now, the friendly warning take: Stay your footsteps ere ye drop Into ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... held much the position of our mounted infantry, men skilled in the use of firearms and accustomed to fight as well on foot as in the saddle. A party of these advanced in open order down the hill to the brink of the dyke and opened a smart fire on the Covenanters, who answered with spirit, but both in their weapons and skill were naturally far inferior to the royal soldiers. Meanwhile, some troopers had been sent out to skirmish on either flank, and to try for a crossing. This they could not ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... pausing on the brink, "that it flows towards the sea in the direction we have come from. Now step into the water and follow me ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... was, that in reality she had not so entirely conquered her passion; the little god lay lurking in her heart, though anger and distain so hood-winked her, that she could not see him. She was a thousand times on the very brink of revoking the sentence she had passed against the poor youth. Love became his advocate, and whispered many things in his favour. Honour likewise endeavoured to vindicate his crime, and Pity to mitigate his punishment. On the other side, Pride and Revenge spoke as loudly against him. And ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... rapidly as possible until, when Nasmyth was lagging some distance behind, there was a shout in front of him and his companion's rifle flashed. Making a last effort, he broke into a run and presently came to the brink of a steep descent covered with thick brush and scattered trees, with a wide reach of palely gleaming water at the foot of it. It was the kind of place one would have preferred to climb down cautiously, but there was a sharp ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... they observed a lofty palisade that extended for miles along the barren waterfront. They saw a fire atop this elevation and active men and women at various tasks within the narrow circle of its warmth. A cave mouth opened at the brink of the precipice near the spot ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... ceased smoking, not yet fully aware of the reason for his dawning excitement, except that the last words had called up a vision of Bishop Wycliffe to his mind. He was in a state of suspended perception, trembling upon the brink of a discovery he was loath to make, waiting with painful ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... The ferryman told us that when the wind was northerly he crossed to the south of the bar. As we climbed the hill of the Noss the mist began to drift thinly around us from the sea, and flocks of sea-birds rose screaming from the ground at our approach. At length we stood upon the brink of a precipice of fearful height, from which we had a full view of the still higher precipices of the neighboring summit, A wall of rock was before us six hundred feet in height, descending almost perpendicularly to the sea, ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... use to God are the merits and good works of men?" continued the other. "For one thing," replied he, "God thereby saves you from taking a false step. You are standing on the brink of a precipice, and you have your eyes shut. Let me give you a ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... dark chasm whose steep black walls and upstanding boulders lead one precariously into the caves with which we were familiar, he turned aside to another narrower gash in the tumbled rocks, and we stood on the brink wondering where he would take us. For, well as we knew the nooks and crannies thereabouts, we had never ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... under a flowering cherry tree, upon the brink of a little stream which, crossed by a wide single log, purled ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... five days from thee, my husband?' On coming to the sentries her supporters stopped and remained standing; she moved on, and walked once around the pit, paused a moment, and while muttering a prayer, threw some flowers into the fire. She then walked up deliberately and steadily to the brink, stepped into the centre of the flame, sat down, and leaning back in the midst as if reposing upon a couch, was consumed without uttering a shriek or betraying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... again. And this time he paused, on the brink of a dark canyon of a lane, running back between walls hung ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... breathless by that time, and they had to sit down and rest. They looked back over the field. It was a long way to the brink of the bank from which they could see ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... convey the impression of something unique and yet representative; and it must carry the mind through and beyond itself, to the very brink and margin of the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... we awake in the morning when we have slept out the night, so sure shall we then awake. What if our carcasses become as vile as those of the beasts that perish, what if our bones are digged up and scattered about the pit brink, and worms consume our flesh, yet we know that our Redeemer liveth, and shall stand at the last on earth, and we shall see ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... kind was procurable nearer than sixty miles away, with a weekly post. One night, to make me sleep they gave me laudanum (a bottle of which Metcalfe had with him for toothache) and the following morning I was discovered standing on the brink of an artificial pond nearly a quarter of a mile off, barefoot and half naked, to reach which I must have walked over places I could not easily have passed in my senses. This was when the brain attack came on, and for a week I lay, I was told, almost unconscious. Metcalfe contrived to send some ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried to stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in vain! He stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the brink of the ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... their parents. Few who sustain that endearing relation, are devoid of concern for the honor and happiness of their offspring. However they may have themselves conducted, while in the pursuit of worldly objects, or under the influence of appetite or passion, when they come to stand on the brink of another world, the fascinating charms of this, lose their power—the infinite difference between time and eternity appears; and the true value of objects is seen and estimated. Then the counsel which is given is that of wisdom—it points to duty —to peace ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... courier was sent off with letters of confirmation; Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett following leisurely, with a more ample commission. The stone which had been laboriously rolled to the summit of the hill was trembling on the brink, and in a moment might ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... fringes of green hair, and bushy shrubs which reminded me of heaths. Above these, enormous ferns with fronds twenty or thirty feet in length, and thickets draped in variegated mosses were thriving in the spray of a thousand slender cataracts which poured from the brink of the precipitous crags on ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... singular deliberation and, to a patient listener, excellent effect. After all these ups and downs, he seemed still, like the rich student that he was of yore, to breathe of money; seemed still perfectly sure of himself and certain of his end. Yet he was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had set himself to found the strangest thing in our society: one of those periodical sheets from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in which young gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so much a line, to garble facts, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by the river's brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... 1671 the movements of the Indians began to give anxiety; and in 1675 Philip's War broke out, which brought the colony to the brink of ruin, and in which the clergy saw the judgment of God against the Commonwealth, for tenderness toward the Quakers. [Footnote: Reforming Synod, Magnalia, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... to my feet. One of the fellows stopped and severed the bonds that held my ankles. I could scarcely stand alone. The two pulled and hauled me through the low doorway and along the trench. A party of forty or fifty warriors were awaiting us at the brink of the excavation some ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... their faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then the whole black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the "souls of ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... his career as an itinerant. Now he asked only to be allowed to hatch his golden dollars peacefully, afar from all harsh winds of controversy. That his own son should feel a more stirring ambition left him clucking, a bewildered hen on the brink of perilous waters. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that life's dreaded experiences, when we meet them, carry in themselves the light which takes away the peril and the terror. The night of sorrow comes with its own lamp of comfort. The hour of weakness brings its own secret of strength. By the brink of the bitter fountain itself grows the tree whose branch will heal the waters. The wilderness with its hunger and no harvest has daily manna. In dark Gethsemane, where the load is more than mortal heart can bear, an angel appears, ministering strength that gives victory. ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... in reaching between the brink of the precipice and the wall of the building, a spot some few inches broader. A few more would have enabled me to turn him round; but to attempt it here would have been fatal, and I dared not venture. I sought to resume my backward progress, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that he forgot for the moment the horror of his situation, just as, when engaged ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as completely as if he were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race, of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with a sense of relief, he started for the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... arched was it by willows, birch-trees, and wild hazel. There, in a swing of boughs above the water, was perched no pied bird, but a young, dark-haired girl with, dangling, bare, brown legs. And on the brink of the black water goldened, with fallen leaves, the boy was crouching, gazing up at her with all his soul. She swung just out of reach and looked down at him across the pool. How old was she, with her brown limbs, and her gleaming, slanting eyes? Or was she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... course—for the whole history of the Colorado is one long story of hardship and disaster, and we knew, even better than our advisors, what risks lay before us. We told our newfound friends, in fact, that we had lived for years on the brink of the Grand Canyon itself, a gorge deeper and more awful, even, than Lodore; with a volume of water ten times greater. We knew, of course, of the river's vast length, of the terrible gorges that confined ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... imagine the eternal vacillation of such a contest? Then you will know that desire fighting against reason now drove my will back step by step until it was tottering on the brink of chaos, and again, in a triumph of resistance, my determination swept everything before it until I longed to rise, to throw my arms upward, fingers extended, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... indulged would almost madden us,—agonies of that kind we do not brood over as we do over the death or falsehood of beloved friends, or the train of events by which we are reduced from wealth to penury. No one, for instance, who has escaped from a shipwreck, from the brink of a precipice, from the jaws of a tiger, spends his days and nights in reviving his terrors past, re-imagining dangers not to occur again, or, if they do occur, from which the experience undergone can suggest no additional safeguards. The current of our life, indeed, like that of the rivers, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... having an attraction of their own which many miss, are the Botanical Gardens hard by Magdalen Bridge. Their situation on the brink of the River Cherwell, and almost under the shadow of Magdalen Tower, is what probably appeals most strongly to the ordinary observer, while those who merely pass the gardens by will delight in ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... strictly observed, would not have produced a sum equal to the public expenditure. It was therefore necessary to devise other measures for the prosecution of the war. During the distresses which brought the army to the brink of dissolution, these measures were under consideration. So early as December, 1779, congress had determined to change the mode of supplying the army from purchases to requisitions of specific articles on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... the lagoon, a mysterious procession, almost in silence—the canoe with the two Europeans going first, the others following at a slight distance—and landed at last on the brink ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... a member of your party," said Talleyrand, "and at heart I was always one of the most faithful and zealous servants of the king. I can prove it, for it was I who led Napoleon, step by step, frequently even in spite of his reluctance, to the brink of ruin, on which he is standing now, and I am ready to give him a last thrust to plunge him into the abyss. The emperor has been guilty of great folly to-day. He ought to have had me arrested, but he failed to ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart to see how quick a bound Nature has set to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... lighted by the dazzling light from the giant crater, reflected into every smallest fissure. Now and again the madman would lash himself into a fury, and stop for a moment to gaze at Lilama, who never moved from her crouching position some ten feet from the canyon's brink. Even Peters, the stoic, was moved—but moved to anger rather than to grief or fear. He inwardly chafed, and madly raved, by turns, at the impotency of his position; whilst Pym seemed frozen into statuesque despair. How much ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... spirituous liquors. The newspapers still printed descriptions of its splendor and no foreigner (so we understood) ever came to these shores without visiting and bowing humbly before the voice of its waters.—And to think that we, poor prairie boys, were soon to stand upon the illustrious brink of that dread chasm and listen to its mighty ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... have been secretly present at the interview, a reality, or the creature of Anne Catherick's excited fancy? It was impossible to determine. The one thing certain was, that we had failed again on the very brink of discovery—failed utterly and irretrievably, unless Anne Catherick kept her appointment at the boat-house for ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... failed, and the ewes broke back—for of all created creatures no breathing thing is so obstinate as an old ewe. Finally, the dog succeeded in forcing two into the water, but no power on earth could drive the others farther than the brink, and the only result was that by their presence they effectually prevented those already in the water from leaving it, and in the end the two were drowned. At last "Yarrow" seemed to realise that he was beaten, and that to persevere farther would be dangerous, and he left the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... and they were, perhaps, nowhere so abundant as in the very city where the new machinery had been first set up for their suppression. Towards the close of the second century their multitude was one of the standing reproaches of Christianity. What was called the Catholic Church was now on the brink of a great schism; and the very man, who aspired to be the centre of Catholic unity, threatened to be the cause of the disruption. It was becoming more and more apparent that, when the presbyters consented to surrender any portion of their privileges to the bishop, they betrayed the cause ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... afraid she might still escape him; and Ephie had hard work to keep up with him. As she trotted along, a few steps behind, there arose in her a strong feeling of resentment against Maurice, which was all the stronger because she suspected that she was on the brink of hearing her worst suspicions confirmed. But she could not afford to yield to the feeling, when the last chance she had of getting definite information was passing from her. Knitting both hands firmly inside her muff, she asked, with an earnestness which, to one who knew, was fatally ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... beaver-brown; the wild-rose scrub glowed blood-crimson in the hollows; and the aspen bluffs, touched with frost, were as yellow as saffron. The wild and beautiful panorama was made complete in their eyes by a great golden eagle perched on the brink of the immediate foreground and, like themselves, gazing over. Though but a hundred yards or so distant, he contemptuously disregarded their arrival. When Garth, full of curiosity, came closer, he spread his vast wings and drifted indifferently ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... please, and see everything ready for slipping our cable and making sail at a moment's notice. But let everything be done in absolute silence; and keep a hand aloft to watch the brig and report anything further he may notice on board her; it really looks as though we were on the brink of some important discovery. Now go ahead with your story, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... to see his life as a completed whole. He could now see life in its true light; for life does not appear the same when we look back upon it from the end as it does when our gaze is turned forward in the busy hurry of the days of health. When one is brought to the brink of the grave, life takes on a different aspect; it appears in its true perspective. We are usually so absorbed in the present that the past and the future have little place in our thoughts. Most lives are lived, not according to any ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... To the left a mighty chasm trenched the adamant, its bottom lowered away to depths of mysterious blue. Its side, above which the three stout ponies picked their way, was a jagged set of terraces, over the brink of ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... late— How shall so poor a thing congratulate The blest completion of a patient wooing, Or how commend a younger man for doing What ne'er to do hath been his fault or fate? There is a fable, that I once did read. Of a bad angel that was someway good, And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood, Looking each way, and no way could proceed; Till at the last he purged away his sin By loving all ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Province of Georgia delivered, when brought to the very brink of destruction by a formidable enemy. Don Manuel de Monteano had been fifteen days on the small island of St. Simons, without gaining the least advantage over a handful of men; and, in the several skirmishes, had lost a considerable number of his ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the remotest water of the Missouri. They had now reached the hidden sources of that river, which had never yet been seen by civilized man; and as they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain—as they sat down by the brink of that little rivulet, which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent ocean, they felt themselves rewarded for all their labours and all their difficulties. They left reluctantly this interesting spot, and pursuing the Indian road through ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... charter, set out upon the career of a nation, properly aspiring to become of the first among the powers of the earth, and succeeding in the higher sense in this ambition, it yet remains to be told how near our Republic came, in time, to the brink of that engulfing chasm which in past ages has swallowed up other nations for their wicked oppression and ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... sink Low to the river's brink. Dead! Where the mountains spring Higher than eagle's wing. ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... wellnigh complete degeneracy offered by the roister-doistering slough brethren of the Vale of Tears gave Herr Carovius a new lease on life. He had a really affable tendency to associate with men who were standing just on the brink of human existence. He always drank a great deal of liqueur. The brand he preferred above all others was what is known as Knickebein. Once he had enjoyed his liberal potion, he became jovial, friendly, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... for his friends; it was only of them he thought now. They faced each other across a chasm too wide to be leaped or bridged; only by a descent into chill dark depths could their outstretched hands meet. He did not blame them for having strayed to that brink; not in the impulses of the heart do we ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... sick-chamber, and who lifted the hood and chafed the pale, cold hands of the young maiden; the knight then strode to the recess. The Lady of Longueville was on the bed of death—an illness of two days had brought her to the brink of the grave; but there was in her eye and countenance a restless and preternatural animation, and her voice was clear and shrill, as ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Genifrede stood on the brink of the deep and brimming reservoir—her hands were clasped above her head for the plunge, when a strong hand seized her arm, and drew her irresistibly back. In ungovernable rage she turned, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... no longer earthen after he touched it) and hastening to the riverside. As he scampered along, and forced his way through the shrubbery, it was positively marvelous to see how the foliage turned yellow behind him, as if the autumn had been there, and nowhere else. On reaching the river's brink, he plunged headlong in, without waiting so much as to pull ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... keyword,—to the left, to the left. The fog had now lifted, so that I could form a better idea of the lay of the land. Twice I looked down the steep sides of the mountain, sorely tempted to risk a plunge. Still I hesitated and kept along on the brink. As I stood on a rock deliberating, I heard a crackling of the brush, like the tread of some large game, on a plateau below me. Suspecting the truth of the case, I moved stealthily down, and found a herd of young cattle leisurely browsing. We had several times ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... surprise of his physicians, did not die, but he hovered on the brink of it for many thin weeks and his son gave up his entire vacation to be with him. The letters he sent Honor were brief bulletins of his father's condition, explosive regrets at having to give up his summer with her, but Jimsy was not ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... he hears, Which suddenly along the forest spread; Whereat from out his quiver he prepares An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head; And, lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears, And onward rushes with tempestuous tread, And to the fountain's brink precisely pours, So that the giant's join'd by all the boars. Morgante Maggiore ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... the bank of the river, opposite New Orleans, around which was a fosse twenty-five feet in width, the earth from which was thrown up to form a steep glacis, from the summit of the wall serving as a parapet to the brink of the fosse. Here a battery of two twenty-four pounders commanded at once the road and the river back ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... not" than inconceivableness by ourselves. There is one thing certain, namely, that we can have nothing certain; therefore it is not certain that we can have nothing certain. We are as men who will insist on looking over the brink of a precipice; some few can gaze into the abyss below without losing their heads, but most men will grow dizzy and fall. The only thing to do is to glance at the chaos on which our thoughts are founded, recognise ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... seemed to be on a strain of mingled emotions, among which I seemed to detect that old one of fear. A pitiful outlook for an adoring bride, you will think, who, without real friends to interest themselves in her, allows herself to be pushed to a brink she is wise enough to see, but not strong enough to recoil from. Yes, but its full pathos did not strike me then. I only felt anxious to have the ceremony over, to know that the die was cast beyond my own powers ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... centuries speed away, Has seen his oak and birk-land shrink, Where teeming cities on its brink Crowd in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... waist, with a heavy bag of money in his left hand and a knife in his right, took a long farewell of his house and stepped out into the silent groves of coco-palms. A short walk brought him to a salt lagoon. On the brink he stood and waited, until a trembling, voiceless figure joined him from out the depths of the thick mangroves. Hand-in-hand they fled along the narrow, sandy path till they reached the beach, just where a few untenanted thatched ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... to be an anchel, and wiss the anchels stand—holding sings in his hands and on his head! He's too good for this wile world. He'd linger shifering on the brink and fear to launch away all his durn life—if some one didn't push him ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... love; and there beyond was the cottage of Daddy Tuggar, with that old man smoking upon the porch. But, chief of all, he could mark the very spot by the brook in the garden where Annie's hand, like an angel's, had plucked him from the brink of despair, and given the first faint hope of immortal life. Tears blinded his eyes, but the bow of promise shone in them as he looked heavenward, and said, "Merciful Father! how kind of Thee, in view of my past, to give me this dear earnest ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... friendly to me. He ferrets me day and night to do something. He tends me, amidst all his own worrying and heart-oppressing occupations, as a gardener tends his young tulip. Marry come up! what a pretty similitude, and how like your humble servant! He has lugged me to the brink of engaging to a newspaper, and has suggested to me for a first plan the forgery of a supposed manuscript of Burton the anatomist of melancholy. I have even written the introductory letter; and, if I can pick up a few guineas this way, I feel they will ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... ran down into this sink and stood, sometimes a foot or two deep over several acres. In some past time of heavy flood the water had washed out to the edge of the highland overlooking the ocean beach. There it had crumbled the brink of the Head away, the water gullying year after year a deeper and broader channel, until now the slanting gutter began a hundred yards back from ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... came back to him he felt as weak as a child. Then a deadly nausea came over him, and the water which he had swallowed gushed up through his mouth and nostrils. Somewhat relieved by this, he rose to his feet, and tottering to the river's brink loosed the veil from his waist, and dropped it into the flowing water. For he remembered the request of Ino, to whom he owed ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... still filled the prisons and pillories with victims; but every sentence of these courts fanned the flame of discontent, and hastened the catastrophe which was rapidly approaching. The volcano, over whose fearful brink the royal family and the haughty hierarchy were standing, was now sending forth those frightful noises ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... twelve hundred feet above the level of the lake, with a perpendicular face of its full height toward the west; the Indians have a superstition, which one can hardly repeat without becoming giddy, that any person who may scale the eminence, and turn round on the brink of its fearful wall, will live ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... brink of eternity so far as Australia is concerned and yet meet an animated mummy of a swagman who will talk of going "out back." Out upon ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... shocked and pained him more than was possible to say, and yet it was evident that he could neither cease loving her nor commence comprehending her real nature. I sometimes felt, as we took our long walks through the monotonous country, across the oak-dotted grazing-grounds, and by the brink of the dull-green, serried hop-rows, talking at rare intervals about the value of the crops, the drainage of the estate, the village schools, the Primrose League, and the iniquities of Mr. Gladstone, while Oke of Okehurst carefully cut down every tall thistle ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the painter, Plucked from his willow-tree Two big paper lanterns And ran to the brink of the sea; Over his head he held them, Crying, and only heard, Somewhere, out in the darkness, The cry of a ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... jubilant at the discoveries they had made. Drew and Ruth were sure that they were on the very brink of finding the pirate hoard, and might, that very afternoon, have uncovered it if they had had a few more hours of daylight. To-morrow, they felt sure, would find them ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... you had forgotten us," says Molly, springing to her feet with a sudden return of animation. "But you have come in excellent time, as we were on the very brink of a quarrel that would have disgraced the Kilkenny cats. And what have you brought us? Tea, and strawberries, and dear little hot cakes! Oh, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... a living, or by fear of starvation, to have recourse to a trade which most of them loathe, many regard with indifference, and some few follow in obedience to the laws of their constitution. But on the brink of the gulf of prostitution in Paris, the young girl of sixteen, beautiful and pure as the Madonna, had met with Castanier. The old dragoon was too rough and homely to make his way in society, and he was tired ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... On the brink of his next speech Trent hesitated. He remembered that the lady had not wished to repeat to him the story already given to the inspector-or to be questioned at all. He was not unconscious that he desired ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... never been brought face to face with famine, but in India the masses are always upon the brink of starvation; a little too much, or too little, rain during the monsoon, and the lives of millions are endangered. The miserable wretches—mere skeletons—we saw to-day sitting on the dusty road sides beseeching passers-by ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... singularly calm,—his sole consideration was for his friend Sah-luma, whom he entwined with one arm as he sprang down from the position they had hitherto occupied on the brink of the fountain, and made straight for the nearest of the six broad avenues that opened directly into the Square. Sah-luma looked pale, but was apparently unafraid,—he said nothing, and passively allowed himself to be piloted by Theos through the madly raging multitude, which, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... shot down through the wood at a speed that could almost compete with the car's. In a bound he jumped the bank, and, plunging into the river, struggled to her help and succeeded in pulling her back out of the current into the shallow water among the reeds at the brink. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... literature, or love of fame or notoriety which accompanies it. Here is Mr. H[enry] M[ackenzie] on the very brink of human dissolution, as actively anxious about it as if the curtain must not soon be closed on that and everything else.[57] He calls me his literary confessor; and I am sure I am glad to return the kindnesses which ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... magpie, who had fluttered down all this way before them, to see if they were on a foraging expedition, and if there were any plunder going, and now could not summon courage to cross the river, but stood crooning and cursing by the brink. Then they sauntered away, side by side, along the sandy track, among the knolls of braken, with the sunlit boughs whispering knowingly to one another in the evening breeze as they passed beneath.—An evening walk long ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... the brink of this awful abyss, and close behind the horseshoe range of rocks, stood a humble log-cabin, occupied by an old free negress, who picked up a scanty living by telling fortunes and showing the way to ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... pace, they did not fall behind. At noon they passed through a large town, but Jesus paused only long enough for them to draw water to drink. Farther south they entered the narrowest part of the Jordan Valley. The road followed the brink of low limestone cliffs which overhung the Jordan. The swift water was cutting into the banks; whirlpools and rapids swirled below them. Occasionally they had to walk around places where the river had undermined a section of the bank and caused ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... as they are seen in the approach, however: nestling, with their clustering roofs and towers, among trees on steep hill- sides, or built upon the brink of noble bays: are charming. The vegetation is, everywhere, luxuriant and beautiful, and the Palm- tree makes a novel feature in the novel scenery. In one town, San Remo—a most extraordinary place, built on gloomy ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... end of four years, some youths, climbing by a ladder in search of pigeons' nests, detected the fatal secret; and, as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the excommunication, he trembled on the brink of the abyss which had been so treacherously dug under his feet. A synod of bishops was instantly convened to debate this important question: the rashness of these clandestine anathemas was generally ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... it aside; he paced up and down, and spent a long time, with his hands clasped behind him, looking out into the desolate garden, where a still, red sunset burnt behind the leafless trees. He was like a man who has made up his mind to a grave decision, and shrinks back upon the brink. When his food was served he could hardly touch it, and he drank no wine as his custom was to do, but only water, saying to himself that his head must be clear. But in the evening he went to his bedroom, and searched for something in a press there; ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... all. If I ever saw the creature, it was a long, long while ago; and, to tell you the truth, I doubt whether I ever did see him. One day, to be sure, when I was quite a youth, I remember seeing some hoof-tramps round about the brink of the fountain. Pegasus might have made those hoof-marks; and so ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... one. Far beyond, and somewhat below the garden and shrubberies in which the summerhouse stood, flat meadows stretched to the brink of the river, on the other side of which were the park woods. All was bathed in the afternoon sunshine, except where a tree here and there cast a flake of shadow upon the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... a lost art. "Except in a few instances," says a writer in the 'Farmers' Magazine' of 1803, "Scotland was little better than a barren waste." Cattle could with difficulty be kept alive; and the people in some parts of the country were often on the brink of starvation. The people were hopeless, miserable, and without spirit, like the Irish in their very worst times. After the wreck of the Darien expedition, there seemed to be neither skill, enterprise, nor ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... is deliciously pure and sweet, much better than that of wells opened by man in the same country. These enormous deposits generally have a rugged path, sometimes very steep, leading to the water's edge, but daring natives throw themselves from the brink, afterward ascending by stout roots that hang like ropes down the walls, the trees above sucking through these roots the life-sustaining fluid more than a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... has done what he has by financing in Europe,—by George! there's no limit to what he might do with us. We're a bigger people than any of you and have more room. We go after bigger things, and don't stand shilly-shally on the brink as you do. But Melmotte pretty nigh beats the best among us. Anyway he should come and try his luck, and he couldn't have a bigger thing or a safer thing than this. He'd see it immediately if I could talk to him for ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... significant heap of rocks near the centre of the little plateau, he made his way to the brink of the cliff overlooking the river. There he had a wonderful view of the winding stream, the harvest fields, the groves, and the herds in the far-reaching stretches of what was considered the greatest corn raising "belt" in the United States. Some ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... brink of—let us say, his twentieth precipice, it was next necessary to stay a few days longer and reconcile him to the hardship of being rescued in spite of himself. You would have been greatly shocked, if you had seen how he suffered. He gnashed his expensive teeth; he tore his ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins |
