"Topping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Royal Highness at any rate, and a much more topping man than most of them. Well then;—His Serene Highness the heir of the Duke of Omnium has done me the inexpressible honour of asking ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Baker, knocked down with the rest, screamed—"Don't let go that rope! Hold on to it! Hold!" And sorely bruised by the brutal fling, they held on to it, as though it had been the fortune of their life. The ship ran, rolling heavily, and the topping crests glanced past port and starboard flashing their white heads. Pumps were freed. Braces were rove. The three topsails and foresail were set. She spurted faster over the water, outpacing the swift rush of ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... and the sun with its rays was just topping the tips of the pines, when the girls rode forth to ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... place was a pretty place, the little grey cottage among the trees, if the cupboard hadn't been so bare; one can't live on flowers and nightingale's songs. Then the children came brisk, and the wages came slack; and the farmer got the new reaping-machine, and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, and the leasing, and the sack of tail-wheat, and the cheap cheeses almost for nothing, and the hedge-clippings, and it ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... began in the Tuscan valley," the philosopher proceeded, harking back to the book which had arrived by the evening's mail. "Florence was a devil—Florence was divine. They raised geniuses and devils and martyrs: the most cloud-topping geniuses, the worst devils, the most saintly martyrs. But better than being a drone in a Florence pension is all this"—with a wave of his hand to the garden and the stars—"which I owe to Mary and the little speck on her ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... arrow-shaped, lobed, and toothed. The root leaves are mostly ovate, lanceolate, and entire. The whole plant is smooth and glaucous. From the description given, it may readily be seen that when in flower it will be effective—massive heads of ruby flowers topping a shrub-like plant of shining foliage and glaucous hue. It is eminently fitted for lines or borders where other strong growers are admitted. In a cut state the flowers are very useful; they are strongly scented, something like the lilac, with just a suspicion of Valerian in it. I ought not ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... great dark spread of desolation, with only the sunlight topping the distant horizon limb. And from under us, to the side, was the source of the giant gravity-beam. Over us were the watch-Wandl vessels, and, still higher, the helpless knot of Grantline's ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... way there an angry, excitable voice stopped them. On looking up they could see several heads topping the sparse vegetation that ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... of the gardens. There was but a happy sense of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent, tossing leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining leaves; a sense of pert bird noises, and of a longer shadow than usual slanting before him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere. Certainly it ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... undershirt, Johnnie's heart began to beat so hard that he could hear it. But quietly and dutifully he folded each dear article, and placed all, one upon another, neatly, the hat topping the pile. Finished, he stood waiting, and his whole body trembled with a chill that was not from cold or fear, but from apprehension. Oh, what was about to happen ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... I was going to tell you, Mr. Sage, that one Cornet Modish had desired his friend, Captain Smart's, opinion in some affair, but did not follow it; upon which Captain Smart sent Major Adroit (a very topping fellow of those times) to the person that had slighted his advice. The Major never inquired into the quarrel, because it was not the manner then among the very topping fellows; but got two swords of an equal length, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... comes at a season when the weather is often colder, the days shorter, and the dews heavier, than when the curing of hay takes place. Nor is the curing of corn cut up green so easy and simple as that of the drying of stalks of Indian corn cut above the ear, as in the common practice of topping. The plant is then riper, less juicy, and ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... as poverty of biographical details is concerned—between Satan and Shakespeare. It is wonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing resembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing approaching it even in tradition. How sublime is their position, and how over-topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme—the two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lessened, and a rising moon cast a ghost through the wrack, just enough to let us glimpse a figure topping a rise before us. That it was no one but Rolldown, still fleeing the mystery and bleating as he fled, made no difference to the blurred eyes of Miah; he dug his toes into the sand and flung forward in still hotter chase—after ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the company grows thin, and your eyes dim with watching, false dice are often put upon the ignorant, or they are otherwise cozened, with topping or slurring, &;c.; and, if you be not vigilant, the box-keeper shall score you up double or treble boxes, and, though you have lost your money, dun you as severely for it as if it were the justest debt ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the old June weather Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" Is the house o'er-topping all. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... entrance to a river. No land was visible to the north-east; and besides quantities of grass and branches of trees or bushes floating in the water, there was a number of long, gauze-winged insects topping about the surface, such as frequent fresh-water lakes and swamps. In order to form a judgment of how much fresh was mixed with the salt water, or whether any, I had some taken up for the purpose of ascertaining its specific gravity; but before the experiment could be made, the depth ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... the boots, chewing vigorously at his straw as he stood, his hands deep in what are graphically known as "go-to-hell" pockets and his legs well straddled. "Hop over anything, what? Topping weather we're having—been like this for weeks. If you don't mind, old chap, you might wiggle her over this way a bit. Something else might blow ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... groaned under no aunts. Stout volumes in calf and vellum lined three sides; books sprawled or hunched themselves on chairs and tables; books diffused the pleasant odour of printers' ink and bindings; topping all, a faint aroma of tobacco cheered and heartened exceedingly, as under foreign skies the flap and rustle over the wayfarer's head of the Union Jack—the old flag of emancipation! And in one corner, book-piled like the rest of the furniture, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... sunrays broke, though here and there a silver birch drew a shaft of light upon their sombre background. Here were no English woodlands, no stretches of pale green turf, no vistas opening beneath flattened boughs, with blue distant hills and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken. The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals a note fell on the ear—the scream ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... drink, a cigarette, and Mistakes with the Mashie. On the table at his elbow I had in reserve Faulty Play with the Brassy and a West Middlesex Directory. For myself I wandered about restlessly, pausing now and again to read enviously a notice which said that C.D. Topping's handicap was reduced from ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o'er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now! ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... not remember that Mrs. Vigilance, during the whole period of our acquaintance, was particularly squeamish, or topping in her deportment. On the contrary, she had rather made herself remarkable for a modest and commendable reserve. But on the present occasion, she disappointed all reasonable expectation, by shrinking on one side, uttering ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said. "Saw your old friend Magglin before breakfast. Good legs. Like to get taken on again, he says. Tail wants topping—too long. Lucky for him he didn't get before the magistrates. Doctor won't have him again. Very nice little nag, but too small for service. I told him that all he was fit for was to enlist; some sharp drill-sergeant ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... learnt, through the kindness of Mr. C.E. Doble, the editor of Hearne's Remarks and Collections, ed. 1885, that a passage in that book (i. 271), confirms my conjecture that Psalmanazar was lodged in Christ Church when at Oxford. Hearne says (July 9, 1706):—'Mr. Topping of Christ Church ... also tells me that Salmanezzer, the famous Formosan, when he left Christ Church (where he resided while in Oxon) left behind him a Book in MSt., wherein a distinct acct was given of the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... were now lying becalmed about half a mile to the southeast of the low eastern coast. Gray-colored woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others—some singly, some in clumps; but the general coloring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four hundred feet the ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... am chasing the King, and some chase too, my word. I lost him this morning when my old bus broke down. But up to the present I have obtained a most excellent record. Topping day yesterday on the battlefield of Fricourt. I wouldn't have missed it ...
— 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
... results. The usual program of party campaigning in rural districts was adopted of holding a rally followed by a dance. Miss Rankin, Miss Fligelman, Miss Grace Hellmick, Mrs. Maggie Smith Hathaway, Miss O'Neill, Dr. Dean, Mrs. Topping and many other volunteer speakers went into every little mining camp and settlement that could be reached. They spoke from the steps of the store and the audience, composed entirely of men, would listen in respectful silence, applaud a little at the close, too shy to ask questions, but on ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... wound where the landslide had swept, cutting deeper and deeper, until it choked the narrow ravine with an incalculable mass of sand, crushed trees, and a rubble of broken stone. It had dammed the Little Smoky, but soon topping the obstruction, the river now poured over the crest and filled the valley with a noise of rushing and shouting so caught up by echoes that Alcatraz seemed to be standing inside a ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... again, across the seemingly illimitable plains, until, topping a range of bare brown hills, there lay spread before us the gleaming walls and minarets of that city where Paul preached to the Thessalonians. To the westward Olympus seemed to verify the assertions of the ancient Greeks that its ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... un-fathomed, and hidden power to back unsuspected projects, irradiated his cold white brow, which, owing to the shade of his hat in equatorial climates, had been left surmounting his swarthy face, like the snow topping ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do me the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da'ter Fancy, if she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, now she's not so terrible topping in health." ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles does more and risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perhaps to let loose the floods of his garrulity by making any gap in the dam of silence, Flint sat idly inspecting his fishing-tackle, shutting it up, then drawing it out, and finally topping it with the last, light, slender tip, quivering like the outmost delicate twig of an aspen as he shook it over the side of the carryall. In fancy, he saw it bending beneath the weight of a black bass such as haunted the translucent depths of a freshwater pond ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... Catholics to sit on the judgment seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them, save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion; and it left the local Judges—those with whom the people have to deal—as partial, ignorant, bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and Irish-hearted Judges ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... murmur was heard from the men. Over the high weather rail, a topping wave flung into their eyes a handful of heavy drops that stung like hail. There were low groans of indignation. A man sighed. Another emitted a spasmodic laugh through his chattering teeth. No one moved away. The little ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... To the south of the Saltersgate Inn lies the remarkable circular hollow among the hills known as the Hole of Horcum, and the bold bluff known as Saltersgate Brow rises like an enormous rampart from the smooth brown or purple heather. To the west lies the peculiarly isolated hill known as Blakey Topping, and, a little to the south, are the Bride Stones, those imposing masses of natural rock that project themselves above the moor. The Saltersgate Inn has lost the importance it once possessed as the stopping-place for the coaches between Whitby and Pickering, but is still the only place ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... sure that it would never be used against him. Who was he that he should class himself among the big ones of the world? A man may indeed measure small things by great, but the measurer should be careful to declare his own littleness when he illustrates his position by that of the topping ones of the earth. But the thing said had been true. Let the Pompey be who he might, he, the little Caesar of the day, could never ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... stared unwinking at the East Then slept under a cloak of hodden gray; The rimy fields held the last light of day, A little tender yet. And I remember How black against the pale and wintry west Stood the confused great army of old trees, Topping that lean, enormous-shouldered hill With crossing lances shivering and then still. I looked as one that sees Queens passing by and lovelier than he dreamed, With fringe of silver light following their feet, And all those lances vail'd, and solemn ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... pump-room belles; May I no more to Sidney Gardens stray, If, Bath, I wrong thee in my hum'rous lay. Court of King Blad', where crescents circling rise Above each other till they reach the skies; And hills o'er-topping with their verdant green The Abbey Church, are in the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... at length all was a trial of speed with this dashing exhibitor. A glance which, when on the point of one of his most desperate leaps, he threw back at me, seemed to be a kind of challenge, and I rushed on at speed. The Irish hunter matchless at "topping" stone walls, but his practice has not lain much among rivers; and the English horse is sometimes his master at the deep and rapid streams which, running between crumbling banks, are perhaps the severest trials to both horse and rider. The majority ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of the street is the "Yellery Gate" through which our party passed into lovely park grounds topping a line of fine cliffs which lead to "Gallantry Bower." This is the name given to an enormous headland which falls into the sea with a sheer descent of nearly four hundred feet, and forms the western boundary of ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... enter. He was not exactly in a condition to be seen, especially if the person should prove to be an American officer. His fur parka, topping those khaki trousers and puttees of his, would seem at least to tell a tale, and might complicate matters considerably. Quickly seizing his blouse, he crowded his way far back into the depths of a furry mass ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... ecole stunt, Lady Hickle," burst out a lad who rode a fallen star in the shape of a discarded discreditable polo pony. "Simply topping—but the Devil's a nervy demon, you shouldn't ride him—he'll get away with you one of these fine days. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... this year, until now so vividly a part of the present, was stricken into the past, the past of memory. Up to the very instant of topping the bluff it had been ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... pink of the ear, the softly parted lips between which gleamed the small and regular teeth of ivory, the round white throat swelling ever so slightly to her breathing,—when a sudden shout of surprised recognition aroused me from my reverie, and I looked up to see Jordan topping the sand-bank in our front, and waving his hand to some one beneath ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... work, all around, whether blinding and topping off the half-wild ponies or throwing them and tacking cold-wrought "cowboy" shoes to their flint-like feet, and more than one enthusiast came away limping or picking the loose skin from a bruised hand. Yet through it all the dominant note of dare-devil hilarity never ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... in the parlour. During our tea a tall, haggard-looking man, whose hands were trembling and whose eyes were bloodshot, entered the room, and asked us to have a glass each with him at his expense, saying, "I'm drunken Jim Topping as 'as had aw that heap o' money left him." He pressed us very hard again and again to have the drink, but we showed him the tea we were drinking, and we felt relieved when the landlord came in and persuaded him to go into the other room, where we soon heard an uproarious company helping ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... them, therefore, if possible, with a plantation on some sloping ground fairly near water, where they can get shelter from sun and wind. I have found willows excellent for this purpose, as by topping they can always be kept at the required height. Such a spot will do admirably as jumping-off place, and here the birds may regularly be expected to rest after their night's wandering in search of food. The ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... a main point of their privileges, my lord," answered Lowestoffe; "and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... and she leaned back with her face to the hills and waited. The moon was just topping the great summits. She watched it with a curious feeling of weakness. It had not been a particularly agitating interview, but she knew that she had just passed ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... face relieved against a dignified background as he sat on the stage among the Corporation of Harvard University. Motley I have only seen as he stood with iron-grey curls over a ruddy, strenuous countenance topping a figure of vigorous symmetry as he spoke with animation at a scholars' dinner. But George Bancroft, Justin Winsor, and John Fiske I knew well, the last being in particular one of my best friends. I could tell stories too, of the ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and took ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... a prisoner brought from northern Acadia, now the companion of Madockawando's daughter, knew her duty to the strangers, and gave them food as rapidly as the hunter could broil it. The hunter was a big-legged, small-headed Abenaqui, with knees over-topping his tuft of hair when he squatted on his heels. He looked like a man whose emaciated trunk and arms had been taken possession of by colossal legs and feet. This singular deformity made him the best hunter in his tribe. He tracked game with a sweep of great beams as tireless as the tread of a modern ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... born on the edge of the Cleveland Hills on February 27th, 1728, in the little village of Marton, which lies about four miles south-south-east of Middlesborough, and five miles west of the well-known hill and landmark, Roseberry Topping. Eight years later his father removed to Great Ayton, which lies close under ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... how to grant suits, How to deny them, whom to advance, and whom 80 To trash for over-topping, new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em, Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was 85 The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... perpendicular rock, to his left the curve of the blocking boulder with the skeleton tree topping it, withered in the cleft that had first nourished, then denied it nourishment. It gleamed silver gray, attracting his attention. As he gazed his sharp ears caught the tiny crack of a brittle branch. Instantly he dropped to ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... back over the hill and through the wood," she said, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands. "It's a topping evening. Poor Arthur; I wish I could have gone with him. I offered to, but he didn't want me to come. I'm not sure he didn't think they might kidnap me if I went too near." She turned to me with a bright smile ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... to be lost. Reginald says he doesn't believe in losing time in anything. And he's going to take an afternoon off and come round and knock the stuffing out of Mr. Vance this very day. He can always get an afternoon off, for he's with Messrs. Mercer & Topping, and the firm has the greatest confidence in him; he ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... been put in IV.a., and IV.b. Marjorie Kaye? You mean that girl in spectacles? No, she's not come. I heard her say that if she didn't win she was to be sent somewhere else. Where are you staying? With an aunt? I'm with a second cousin. She's nice, but I wish they'd open a hostel; it would be topping to be with a heap of others, wouldn't it? We'd get up acting in the evenings, and all sorts of fun. Well, perhaps that may come later on. I shall see you this afternoon, ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... $1.66, says nothing about her penny, but tells how she earned money, as: "Hitching up horse for grandpa, 10 cents; topping carrots, 12 cents; keeping the fowls off the wheat, 25 cents; sweeping, 17 cents," etc., all showing honest, hard work. But the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... "She talks of him with tears in her eyes as though he were a saint—Old Nick, more likely!—He has been endowed with every virtue when he has none, simply because he put the Squawk to rights." Tommy had seen Joyce that afternoon and went on to describe his visit. "She was looking topping, so was the kid; which makes it all the more mysterious, her not turning up. But, my word, she is pretty! One might be excused for any indiscretion when she makes eyes ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... opinion, is the greatest of villanies, and ought to incur some punishment, yet nothing is more common, and our topping tradesmen, who seem otherwise to stand mightily on their credit, make this but a matter of course and custom. If I do not, says one, another will (for the servant is sure to pick a hole in the person's ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... still quoting glibly from an entirely imaginary mandate of the C.O., "that no retaliatory shell fire should be attracted here. Most serious for the whole Brigade, if this bit of parapet got pushed over. Now, there's a topping place about ten traverses away. You can lob them over ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... summit of a neighbouring point of land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poor sailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interest to us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that season did I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of the sea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, dashing and foaming on the stony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fancied long, long histories of what might ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... learned a little of what New England coast weather could be and often was. And he learned, also, that that weather was, like most blusterers, not nearly as savage when met squarely face to face. He learned to put on layer after layer of garments, topping off with oilskins, sou'wester and mittens, and tramp down to the village for the mail or to do the household errands. He was growing stronger all the time and if the doctor could have seen him plowing ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... blockading ships memorable in the annals of hardship, hardihood, and suffering. Many invaluable lives perished from the inclemency of the weather; men were frozen to death at their posts. It is recorded of one devoted officer, Lieutenant Topping, that rushing on deck in anxiety for his ship, without giving himself time to put on his clothes, 'in fifteen minutes he fell upon the deck a corpse, stricken by the piercing blast ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the horizon, as we came to Cragmire Tower, had been harbingers of other and heavier banks. A stormy sunset smeared crimson streaks across the skyline, where a great range of clouds, like the oily smoke of a city burning, was banked, mountain topping mountain, and lighted from below by this angry red. As we came down the steps and out by the gate, I turned and looked across the moor behind us. A sort of reflection from this distant blaze encrimsoned the whole landscape. The inland bay glowed sullenly, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... of Oakland had dwindled till they made only a hazy flare against the sky; but to the south the San Francisco lights, topping hills and sinking into valleys, stretched miles upon miles. Starting from the great ferry building, and passing on to Telegraph Hill, Joe was soon able to locate the principal places of the city. Somewhere over ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... a bad place in a way—decent climate, topping scenery, but rather a stodgy crowd in the camps. One or two decent people, but the majority mid-Victorian, without a blessed notion except the price of mealies, who quarrel about nothing half the time, and talk tuppenny-ha'penny scandal the rest. Good Lord! I wish we had some of the perishers out ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... said. "What a topping car you have! Ours is a Rolls but an old pattern. I'm always pressing my husband to get rid of it and buy a new model. But he won't. Business men are all the same. They tot up figures and weigh the cost of everything," and she laughed ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... experiments have been in fruits, and he has brought great encouragement to us in the southern part of Minnesota. He has now moved to Owatonna and, not being content with the best, he has started out with a new plantation with two kinds of fruit, and I think he is topping the market with ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... eye-catching figure in the flooding moonlight. For, retiring to his stateroom from the table, he had divested himself of much raiment and encased his figure in a great purple bathrobe. He was a man who loved to be comfortable, was Peter. Topping the robe, he wore his new Panama. Varney looked around at the sound of footsteps, and was considerably struck by ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I feel the young rascal kicking already, like his father.—Oh, there is an elbow thrusting out: I think, in my conscience, he is palming and topping in my belly; and practising for a livelihood, before ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... run of the Templeton Harriers that early autumn afternoon. How they broke in full cry out of the fields up on to the free downs. How, with the fresh sea scent in their faces, they scoured the ridge that links Templeton with Blackarch, and Blackarch with Topping. How at the third mile they cried off inland, and plunged into the valley by Waly's bottom and Bardie's farm, through the pleasant village of Steg, over the railway, and along the fringe of Swilford Wood, to the open heath beyond. How half the hunt was out of it before ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... your father fight his battles over again, dear witch," he told Damaris, pacing the terrace walk topping the sea-wall beside her, one evening in the early November dusk. "His record is a very brilliant one and he ought to get more comfort out of the remembrance of it. Let's conspire, you and I, to make him sun himself in the achievements and activities of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... months, and may, I now realize, have been years, we came in sight of the dun escarpment which buttressed the foothills of Sari. At almost the same instant, Hooja, who looked ever quite as much behind as before, announced that he could see a body of men far behind us topping a low ridge in our wake. It was ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... each time had to put back, fearing that the heavy seas we encountered outside would crush in the baidarka, which was carried lashed to the sloop's deck. It was not until early on the morning of April 12, just as the sun was topping the mountains, that ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... datto. On the morning of his visit to the Burnside he wore a white "Americano" suit and white shoes, as, indeed, did most of his followers, one of the men topping off this very conventional attire with a magnificent red, green, and purple turban which he did not once remove while aboard ship. The headgear of the Moros consists entirely of turbans, fezes, or soft tam-o'-shanters, the latter a compromise, I fancy, between the hats of civilization ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... over the last spool and placing two small spools on it side by side. Enclose the yard with a spool fence; standing the spools a short distance from each other, as in the photograph. Use spools of larger size for the gateway, topping them with two smaller ones ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... watch your wings Topping the mountains, battling winds,—to dare Challenge the lammergeyer where she swings Down the long ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... trouble to you I am sorry, but we are all working for the good name and good times of Grande Mignon, and I hope you won't mind. Good fishing to the Charming Lass, high line and topping full! May you wet your salt early and come home again to those who are longing to ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the garden in some loose rock; the bed of sweet odours filling the gap between it and the gate of the little pasture in the rear; straight beds of hardy plants bordering the vegetable squares; the two seed beds topping the furthest bit, then a space of lawn with the straight walk of the old garden running through, to the sundial amid some beds of summer flowers at the orchard end, while the open lawn below the side porch is given ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... overshoot, overslip, are terms in hunting, overtop never; except perchance in the vocabulary of the wild huntsman of the Alps. Trash occurs as a verb in the sense above given, Act I. Sc. 2. of the Tempest: "Who t'aduance, and who to trash for over-topping." I have never met with the verb in that sense elsewhere, but overtop is evermore the appropriate term in arboriculture. To quote examples of that is needless. Of it metaphorically applied, just as in Shakspeare, take the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... minutes, then lift, wash and dry. For subsequent lots of cotton there only need be used 7 lb. Immedial blue C. 2 lb. sulphide of sodium, 3 lb. salt and 1-1/2 lb. caustic soda lye at 70 deg. Tw. The blue may also be developed by steaming with air in a suitable chest or steaming chamber. By topping with 1/4 lb. New methylene blue N, very bright blue ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... very much upon alterations beyond those of paint and paper. With the prospect of a sale the owner had unwillingly consented to replace the gingerbread porch with one in better style, but refused to do more. The big window, with its abominable topping of cheap coloured glass, was to remain ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... hither, will support us.'"[142] Massachusetts had used the pinetree flag and the motto "Appeal to Heaven," and the little navy had a sign by which its ships were known to each other, "the ensign up to the main topping-lift." Now for the first time the thirteen stripes with the British crosses in the corner were raised, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... seemed to be, particularly unlucky; for as I drew near the very entrance, lightly of foot, and warily, the moon (which had often been my friend) like an enemy broke upon me, topping the eastward ridge of rock, and filling all the open spaces with the play of wavering light. I shrank back into the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road, and gloomily employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... out with herself Minnie Ray reached the point where she fell for a dinner with the rat-faced gentleman at the Van Styne, and after he'd opened some wine—" The raconteur shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you see she wasn't accustomed to drinking bubbles and topping it ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... shortly before she reached me, she slipped on a piece of ice and, either to regain her balance, or because it appeared to her graceful, or else pretending that she was on skates, it was with outstretched arms that she smilingly advanced, as though to embrace me. "Bravo! bravo! that's splendid; 'topping,' I should say, like you—'sporting,' I suppose I ought to say, only I'm a hundred-and-one, a woman of the old school," exclaimed the lady, uttering, on behalf of the voiceless Champs-Elysees, their ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... lay hold of the plan of the fair building of her own life. And to this end the solitude, the evening quiet, the restful unrest of the forest and its wild creatures should surely have ministered? She moved forward and sat on the broad stone balustrade which, topping the buttressed masonry that supports it above the long downward grass slope of the park, encloses the troco-ground on ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... scanned the different villa slopes that showed their level lines of white and yellow and dull pink through the gray tropical greenery on the different levels of the hills. He was duly rewarded by the sight of the bold legend topping its cornice, and when he let his eye descend the garden to a little pavilion on the wall overlooking the road, he saw his acquaintances of the evening before making a belated breakfast. The father recognized Lanfear first and spoke to his daughter, who looked up from her coffee ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... that rose breast high; and a flying-leap over a five-barred gate would have been an easy exploit, compared with clearing one of these monstrous barriers. I might add, also, from experience, that leaping a log is a feat of considerable danger. There is no room for "topping;" and should the iron hoof strike, there is nothing that will yield. On the other side, the rider has the pleasant prospect of a broken neck—either for himself or his horse. Not being in any particular hurry, I took the matter quietly; ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... perfected how to graunt suites, how to deny them: who t' aduance, and who To trash for ouer-topping; new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em, Or els new form'd 'em; hauing both the key, Of Officer, and office, set all hearts i'th state To what tune pleas'd his eare, that now he was The Iuy which had hid my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... from the rivalry of the three learned professions, to say nothing of the gentlemen of the sword and of the buskin; but, thinks I to myself, 'faint heart never won fair lady,' so I at once set up a snuff-box, looked as tip-topping as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... windows just as a key grated in the lock of the heavy door, and a man of huge stature, topping the giant frame of Alexis by more than ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... alderman gets turtle soup. It is your badge, like a livery-servant's cockade or a corporal's sleeve stripes—your badge and your bellyful. Calculations were gone through at the Liberal newspaper-office, old Nevil adding up hard, and he was informed that he was elected by something like a topping eight or nine hundred and some fractions. I am sure that a fellow who can let himself be gulled by a pile of figures trumped up in a Radical newspaper-office must have great faith in the fractions. Out ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chamber of the "Three Rooks" known only to the landlady and the gentlemen who banked with her; and in this place, Mr. Sicklop, the one-eyed man who had joined in the Hayes adventure, his comrade, and one or two of the topping prigs of the county, were free. Mr. Sicklop had been shot dead in a night attack near Bath: the landlady had been suddenly hanged, as an accomplice in another case of robbery; and when, on their return from Virginia, our two heroes, whose hopes of livelihood ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I like her. She looked topping last night, too. But I dare say it'll be all right. Romer's a good chap. ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... Judged by the canons of formal beauty, the sky-line of New York city, seen from the North River, is ugly and distressing. But the responsive spirit, reaching ever outward into new forms of feeling, can thrill at sight of those Titanic structures out-topping the Palisades themselves, thrusting their squareness adventurously into the smoke-grayed air, and telling the triumph of man's mind over the forces of nature in this fulfillment of the needs of irrepressible activity, this expression ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... looking from side to side, recovering old landscape in sweep and in detail. Bit by bit, as they came to it, Strickland gave him the country news. At last there was the house before them, among the firs and oaks, topping the crag. They came into the wood at the base of the hill. The stream—the trees—above, the broken, ancient wall, the roofs of the new house that was not so new, the old, outstanding keep. The whole rested, mellowed, lifted, still, against a serene and azure sky. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... me. I was trying on Miss Marie's dress, and she slapped my face; and I spoke out before I thought, and was saucy; and she said that she'd bring me down, and have me know, once for all, that I wasn't going to be so topping as I had been; and she wrote this, and says I shall carry it. I'd rather ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you allude?" he asked cynically. "The League of Nations; or the triumph of Democracy, or the War to end War. They all sound so topping, don't they? received with howls of applause by the men who haven't had their boots off for a week." He thumped the sand savagely. "Cut the cackle, my dear girl; cut the cackle. This little performance was started by a few of the puppets ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... made the grand tour, in a twelvemonth, as a sort of topping-off to their early education, before they settled down to a business or ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... must be no "topping off" with large berries, but the fruit must be equally good all through ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... hot sun of the tobacco fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves. Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested stalks on laths and hang them in the long ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... topping the eastern cliffs, cast its bright rays upon the long stretch of open garden beneath the wall. And, too, it picked out in clear relief for any curious eyes that chanced to be cast in that direction, the figure ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... watched the very growth of land—land creeping silently, irresistibly upon the sea, yet with a movement which may be calculated and registered with exactitude. Having fulfilled its purpose, the mangrove suffers the fate of the primitive and aboriginal. Tyrannous trees of over-topping growth, which at first hesitatingly accepted its hospitality, crowd and shove, compelling the hardy and courageous plant to further efforts to win dominion from the ocean. So the pioneer advances, ever reclaiming extended areas ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... my apples caught in unprotected places. When the cold wave struck us, about November 20th, my four-legged "I-told-you-so's" had nearly completed their dwelling; it lacked only the ridge-board, so to speak; it needed a little "topping out," to give it a finished look. But this it never got. The winter had come to stay, and it waxed more and more severe, till the unprecedented cold of the last days of December must have astonished even the wise muskrats in their snug retreat. I approached ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... to others and patience under trials, the face of a very old woman scowling forever with unceasing hatred and misery at herself and all others, at life, and death, at that which had been and that which was to come. She saw instead of her own face in the glass, the face of her dead Aunt Harriet, topping her own shoulders in her ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... plant grows rapidly, the trees should be topped in the third year; but this should be done sparingly, and as a general measure it is not to be recommended; it should be resorted to only as a means to prevent the too rapid growth of the tree, or its running up to a point. Topping and taking off suckers are both necessary on meagre soils, where the trees run much to wood; and it prevents the trees being injured in the picking season, which often occurs without this precaution. The top or middle stem is broken off at a height of six or seven ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... bitter diplomatic fighting in Berlin and simmer it down to a public-palatable "peaceful and progressive meeting;" no one could quite so skillfully reduce the bloody fighting in India to a mild "enemy losses topping American losses twenty to one, and our boys are fighting staunchly, bravely,"— No one could write out the lies quite so neatly, so smoothly as ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... under the first impulse of horror, he followed his deserting chief, the laughter of the family, the unrestrainable guffaws of the negroes, sounding in the rear. But when Champe's high, offensive giggle, topping all the others, insulted his ears, he stopped dead, wheeled, and ran to the porch faster than he had fled from it. White as paper, shaking with inexpressible rage, he caught and kissed the tittering girl, violently, noisily, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... of putting up the wire occupied several days—there were ten or twelve negro men engaged in cutting down trees, and in topping and trimming ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... darkness was just beginning to fall when, topping a ridge, Connie caught the faint glimmer of a light at the edge of a spruce thicket beyond a strip of open tundra. Drawing back behind the ridge Connie motioned to the Indian to swing the dogs into a thick clump of stunted trees where they were soon unharnessed and tied. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... opened wide. Topping his long stiff body, Marigold's ugly one-eyed head appeared, and, as if he was tremendously proud ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... contents of a dozen small vials cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions; then some remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was left in several bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected flavouring extract—topping off by shaking into the mouth of the bottle various powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's influenza ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... enough, but it was slick with old grease across the chest, stained on one shoulder, and his breeches were linsey-woolsey, his boots old and scuffed. And his bush of unkempt hair was covered with a battered hat topping a woolen scarf wound ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... through the waves with redoubled speed, leaning over until the water foamed over her gunwale and was knee-deep in her scuppers, an occasional billow topping over her foc's'le, and pouring down into the waist in a cataract of gleaming green sea and sparkling spray, all glittering with prismatic colours, like a jumble ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root: through the jetty springs of which the fair skin shewed as in a fine evening you may have remarked the clear light through the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill: then the broad of blueish-casted incarnate of the head, and blue serpentines of its veins, altogether composed the most striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature. In short, it stood an ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Pete, topping the rise that hides the town of Concho from the northern vistas, turned and looked back. Far below, on a slightly rounded knoll stood the old herder, a solitary figure in the wide expanse of mesa and morning sunlight. Pete swung his hat. Montoya raised his arm in a gesture ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... with mellow sunshine, it reflects the intense blue of the ocean sky above, with a brisk breeze topping its many-furrowed waves— that are racing by and leaping over each other like a parcel of schoolboys at play—and cutting off sheets and sparkling showers of the prismatic foam that exhibits every tint of the rainbow—azure and ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the stairway Gordon was waiting for his bride—handsome and prosperous as a bridegroom should be, with a dark sleek head and eager eyes, and beside him Porter Bigelow, topping him by a head, and a red head ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... shining down from a starlit sky, as the rough but faithful and sturdy cow ponies ambled along. Now the boy ranchers would be down in some swale, or valley, and again topping one of the foothills which led to Buffalo Ridge or Snake Mountain, between which elevations lay Happy Valley, where the cattle of ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... diversion was caused one day when the Huns came over in full force (thirty to forty Gothas) in a daylight raid. I was delighted! This was something I really did understand. It was topping to hear the guns blazing away once more. Everyone in the place seemed to be ringing their electric bells, and, afraid I might miss something, I put my finger on mine and held it there. Presently the matron appeared: "You ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... 1 befell us one forenoon, as Cousin Molly Belle and I were topping and tailing gooseberries for tarts, on the side porch. Baby Carter was on the mat at our feet, bulging his eyes and swelling his cheeks in futile efforts to extort a squeak from a chinquapin whistle his father had made for him. The kind that, as you may ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... that I decided that it would be a sound scheme for me to stop on in America for a bit instead of going back and having long cosy chats about the thing with aunt. So I sent Jeeves out to find a decent apartment, and settled down for a bit of exile. I'm bound to say that New York's a topping place to be exiled in. Everybody was awfully good to me, and there seemed to be plenty of things going on, and I'm a wealthy bird, so everything was fine. Chappies introduced me to other chappies, and so on and so forth, and it wasn't long before I knew ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Topping the growing tobacco plants was a practice originated by the colonists. The main purpose was to limit the production to the large lower leaves and to do away with the small immature leaves at the top of the stem. The General Assembly often specified the number of leaves ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... spot en Satellite III there was a small lake, long rather than wide. At its shallow end, the lake lost itself in marshy, thick-grown swamps; at its deep end it washed against the slopes of a low, rounded hill. Topping the hill was a rude ranch-house, which to the casual eye would appear the unimportant habitation of some poor jungle-squatter, with beds of various vegetables and fruits growing around it, and guarded against the jungle's animals ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... Sallie I could make that dress by another pattern, and you'd better sit with him a good distance during the show," said Mrs. Addcock, as I finished shoe-topping Mamie and picked up my pink-lined white sunbonnet, which had been a present from Mrs. Addcock herself and was astonishingly frilly and coquettish emanating from such a source, and ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... settled, I borrowed a pair of breeches, and the long boots belonging to one of them; and the dirty ragged canvas overalls of the other; topping off with a dilapidated blue worsted cap which I had been wearing continually since joining the "Mouette," and my ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... back corner booth of the Base Dispensary as Roger told about David. Martin Drengo listened without interruption. He was a thin man from top to bottom, a shock of unruly black hair topping an almost cadaverous face, blue eyes large behind thick lenses. His whole body was like a skeleton, his fingers long and bony as he lit a cigarette. But the blue eyes were quick, and the nods warm and understanding. ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... feature of the district consists in the masses of hard stone, gray with lichen, that lie about, here topping a sandhill, there dropped at random in the plain. There was at one time many more of these, but owing to their power of resisting heat they were largely exploited as hearthstones. These masses, there can be no doubt, are remains of superincumbent beds of hard rock that have been removed ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... was topping!" he hinnied. "I stuck on her skirt and jersey and tam o' shanter and took in everybody. I walked down the street, and up the drive to the school door, and prowled round the garden. There was a window open, so in I went and found exam questions all ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... in front of the tennis-court called the Doe, at the door of which were gathered a number of the topping citizens of the town. The novel appearance of the conveyance and team, and the noise of the mob who had gathered round the cart, induced these honourable burgomasters to cast an eye upon the strangers; and among others a Deputy-Provost named La Rappiniere came up, accosted them, and, with the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Copper Green, a peculiar mottled light green. All the domes, except the six yellow ones in the Court of the Universe, are of this light green. It forms a sharp contrast with the blue sky and a pleasing topping to the travertine walls. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... towards a head. They were represented to me as lads by common in capacity, but with unsettled notions of religion. They were, however, quiet and orderly; and some of them since, at Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester, even, I am told, in London, have grown into a topping way. ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... said, topping her hand with his, "why didn't you let me know sooner? Your letter an hour ago came out of a clear sky. You see, I didn't ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... I had known that you were in London, I should have been very glad to have given you a letter of introduction to the Smiths. They are quite the topping people ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... BOOT-TOPPING. The old operation of scraping off the grass, slime, shells, &c., which adhere to the bottom, near the surface of the water, and daubing it over with a mixture of tallow, sulphur, and resin, as a temporary protection against ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... to see you, Charles," he cried in a round and jovial voice. "I have been telling my up-river good friends that I have the most topping fellow in all London for my guest, and you ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... "Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it! All wool and a yard wide! Precisely as mother makes it! You look ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... water did not burst the deck in or smash one of the hatches, if the engines did not give up, if way could be kept on the ship against this terrific wind, and she did not bury herself in one of these awful seas, of whose white crests alone, topping high above her bows, he could now and then get a sickening glimpse—then there was a chance of her coming out of it. Something within him seemed to turn over, bringing uppermost the feeling ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... against Topping.—This was an information against Mr. John Lewis Topping, a dealer in tea and coffee, charging him with having thirty-seven pounds of vegetable powder in his possession. The article seized was produced to the commissioners of ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... lagoon thirty miles by ten or twelve, and the coral tow-path, which they call the land, some eighty or ninety miles by (possibly) one furlong. That part by which we sailed was all raised; the underwood excellently green, the topping wood of coco-palms continuous—a mark, if I had known it, of man's intervention. For once more, and once more unconsciously, we were within hail of fellow-creatures, and that vacant beach was but a pistol-shot from the capital city of the archipelago. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yesterday trying to trail 'em. But you can't do much tracking in these rocks back here toward the river. I was hitting for the highway to catch a ride if I could, when I saw you topping this last ridge over here. Don't blame me much for bumming a breakfast, do you?" And he added, with a sigh of deep physical content, "It sure-lee ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... accident, and its probable consequences, engrossed his every thought. Another rocket served to show him he was taking the right direction; and at so rapid a pace did he proceed, that the enlivening sounds of voices became more and more distinct, when, topping the brow of the hill, a blue light, most opportunely lighted up, disclosed to him at a very short distance on the opposite side of the valley, a substantial gentleman's house, in front of which a motley and mixed medley of some couple of hundred people or more—some of them gentlemen, but the majority ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... that Mr. Casbury said that he remembers not the year of Sir Everard Charlett's death, but it was 1692 or 3. He died suddenly in October. [Several lines describing his unpleasant habits and reputed delinquencies are omitted.] Having seen him in such topping spirits the night before, Mr. Casbury was amaz'd when he learn'd the death. He was found in the town ditch, the hair as was said pluck'd clean off his head. Most bells in Oxford rung out for him, being ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... more eggs, couldn't you, Jag? Waiter, two more poached eggs and some more strawberry jam. You see, dear, we haven't done anything exciting yet. That's all been the luck of the battle-cruisers and destroyers. They've had a topping rag—three of our term have been wounded already. But we aren't allowed to gas about what we're going to do—why, that waiter might be a German ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself, I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him. The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon him, the last that ever fell upon his body to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... shall haul up my canoe somewhere about here; follow up the lake-shore a mile or so, with the idea of catching a deer in the edge of the water, come there to keep off the flies; then, perhaps, cross over to the Magalloway, down that, and over to this place; when, by way of topping off, I will show you, by that time, if you are about here so ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... swung an ebony cane. His mustaches were turned straight upward from the corners of his mouth and the aggressive chin shot outward as he glanced right and left, talking meanwhile with his companions. The third figure was very tall, topping even the Archduke, who was by no means small of stature, by at least six inches; his hair, or as much of it as could be seen beneath the soft hat, was gray, and a long beard, almost white in the patches at either side of the chin, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs |
