"Topple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he didn't topple over when I touched his boat," said Louise. "I should have thought it all my fault, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... on getting up to him to jump off his horse, seize the steer by a horn and the muzzle, then stoop down and grip the animal's upper lip with his teeth, turn his hands loose, and so by means of his powerful jaws and neck alone throw down and topple the steer over. The negro took many chances, and often the huge steer would fall on him in such a way as would have broken the neck or ribs of any ordinary white man. In this case also the steer must be an active one and going at a good pace, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... wavered and seemed about to topple over, at the same time emitting a groan of pain which proved him to be thoroughly human. Helen was frightened, but there was a new kind of awe in this fright. All suggestion of superstition had left her and in its place was ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... ain't got anything to tell," said Peaches, folding her arms and tilting her chin so high Mickey feared she might topple backward. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... pile thirty-five feet high on one side and six or seven rods square, putting hay between the outside layers to exclude the air; for when the wind, though never so cold, finds a passage through, it will wear large cavities, leaving slight supports or studs only here and there, and finally topple it down. At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla; but when they began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this became covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a venerable moss-grown and hoary ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... I shall desire you to choose some other whelp. Being in your best lust, I would topple with ye, And pluck a good crow, ere ye brake your fast with me. What? are you mankin[261] now? I reckon it best, I, To bind your hands behind you, even as ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... showing you," was the reply. "If you built your heavy wall on the bank, the water would strike the concave bank at one of these crossings, eat away the earth under the wall and your wall would topple in. Then the current would cross the stream, undermine the bank on the other side and your masonry would crumble there, too. So ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... was right. The houses were generally constructed of canes, plastered with mud, and painted yellow. As the result of earthquakes, scarce a house stood upright—some leaned sideways, and looked as if they were going to topple over into the road; while others leaned back, as if, were you to push against them, they would collapse and crush ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... and the carpenters walked away, leaving him looking up at the trees and thinking how it would seem to see them topple over and come crashing down into the Cocahutchie, to be made up into chairs and tables. Just as long as he could remember anything he had seen the old trees standing guard there, summer and winter, leafy or bare, and they were ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... a huge head projecting over the edge. I could not be mistaken. It was that of a lion. In another instant he might spring down upon me. My only hope of escape was to fire immediately, and drive him off. Even then I dreaded that he might topple over when shot, and destroy me in his dying struggles. I raised my rifle and fired. A fearful roar was the answer to the sound of my piece. Scarcely daring to look up, I began loading again as rapidly as I could; for even then I feared that the monster would spring down. ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... the back of a chair, feeling she was surely going to topple over in a swoon. Summoning all her reserve of nerve power, she strove ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... onto that stay or you'll topple overboard," warned Frank, as Ben, balancing himself, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... lightless passage to the front rooms, a curious sensation touched Halder—a terrifying conviction that some undefinable thing had just gone wrong. And with that, his whole body was suddenly rigid, every muscle locking in mid-motion. He felt momentum topple him slowly forwards; then he was no longer falling but stopped, tilted off-balance at a grotesque angle, suspended in a web of forces he could not feel. Not the slightest sound had come from Kilby, invisible in the blackness ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... brought up the pictures when he escorted his wife. There were two pretty bits of landscape on the shore of Lake Geneva, and the other a Holland scene, with a stretch of canal and a queer house that looked as if it might topple over some day, if the foundation was ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... overthrown militarily by Laurent Desire KABILA, who immediately assumed governing authority; KABILA pledged to hold elections by April 1999, but in December 1998 announced that elections would be postponed until all foreign military forces attempting to topple the government had withdrawn from the country; KABILA was assassinated in January 2001 and was succeeded ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... one wonders, that there are times when one small nook of earth shuts out, as it were, the whole universe from our eyes, when one personal interest occupies us to the exclusion of the whole world of action, and progress, and speculation, and thought? Thrones may topple over, nationalities be effaced, revolutions in politics, in religion, in science be effected, and all pass unheeded while we sit counting our own private loss and gain in love or friendship, in grief or joy. Whilst Madelon has been wearying out her little heart ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... by a little stream, and leads, serpent-fashion, towards the rocks. We pass, in this brief progress, the Sugar-loaf; and observing the ravages which time is making on its inverted cone, we anticipate the hour, probably not very distant, when it will topple over, and fall flat upon the earth. But this is nothing. Our ragged guide conducts us across a wooden bridge, up a road, hollowed out by nature, through the rocks, till suddenly we reach what resembles the mouth of a mine, across which a door is drawn. ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... would be a scramble for gold. And people would begin to hoard things ... and no one would trust any one else. There would be suspicion and fear and greed and hate ... and very swiftly and very surely, civilisation would reel and topple and fall to pieces.... At any moment that might happen. So far, indeed, things were still steady ... calamity had not come so quickly as imaginative men had foretold ... but presently, when the slums ... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... detective found himself falling, and knew that his chair must topple over, the thought instantly came to him that Chick would escape the greater part of the confusion resulting from it—and he knew that he could rely upon Chick's activity and resource as ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... know not what feeling 'more than joy' can be, unless haply it topple over t' other side and become woe, and I would be loth ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... to topple, and von Liegnitz himself spun away from the blow. The spanner caught him on the shoulder, and he grunted in pain, but he kept ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... fight continued. It could not last much longer. Despair pulled at the German's heartstrings as he saw his observer topple for a moment in his seat, then pitch forward into space. The biplane tipped dangerously, righted itself and sped like a homing pigeon in the direction of the German lines. There was nothing left but to fly for it. The German dared not look behind; only by the mercy of God were the Frenchman's ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... a game in which they pile blocks up to see how high they can go before they topple over. In medieval times, petty rulers in their Italian states vied with one another to see who could build the tallest tower. Some beautiful results of this game still remain in Florence, Siena, and other Italian hill cities. Currently, Americans vie in a similar way ...
— A Brief History of Element Discovery, Synthesis, and Analysis • Glen W. Watson
... correspond closely to her ideal of a man, something that was dear to her. If that ideal did not—and his intelligence insisted that he could not—survive the reality, then his house was built on sand and must topple. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... mother—himself, his own valuable, important future? And all for a sewer rat! Let him hang, let the fellow hang if he must! And that was not certain. Appeal! Petition! He might—he should be saved! To have got thus far, and then, by his own action, topple himself down! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fetes—if not, another bright summer holiday—that I once saw darkly disturbed in this quiet little hamlet. Standing upon the table-rock that juts out at the foot of the fall so as to half-bridge over the lower-most eddy, I saw a small object topple over the summit of the cascade. It was nothing but a common pail or stable-bucket, as I perceived, when it glided past, almost within arm's length of me, and disappeared down the winding gorge. When I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... that a theoretical physicist was judged by his inability to handle research apparatus; the clumsier he was in research, the better he was with theory. But Wolfgang Pauli was a lot more than clumsy. Apparatus would break, topple over, go to pieces, or burn up if Pauli just walked into ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I knows on," drawled the old fellow, laughing until his old head seemed ready to topple from his shoulders. "No blood relation, any how, sir. You see, my wife's cousin's aunt's husband's brother Jerry was a cousin to Nicodemus Dunce, who, if I don't disremember, was related in some way to Isacker Pete's wife's ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... dash o'er them and topple around, They see they are pretty near sure to be drowned. A terrible wave o'er the quarter-deck breaks, And the vessel it sinks ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Windsor Park, and it is not impossible to miss the right path through the trees. But if you are walking north from the lake it is worth while to make your way to the Cumberland obelisk—a gaunt column which the clustering ivy and shrubs at its base will some day topple down among the grass and heather—and to reach the Bishop's Gate through the single narrow stretch of Windsor Great Park that lies in Surrey. In winter, pheasants crouch under the brushwood or splutter through the trees; ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... night when I break from the fight, My Kingdom's awaiting for me; There's comfort and rest, and the warmth of your breast, And little ones climbing my knee. There's fire-light and song — Oh, the world may be wrong! Its empires may topple and fall: My home is my care — if gladness be there, It's a mighty ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... foaks were thar, fra near an' far, At couldn't fairly hopple; An' laffin' brats, as wild as cats, Ower heeads an' heels did topple. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... that, you see," Mary went on; "set for the climax, like the springs in a French play, when I came along at just the moment and with just the word, to topple it over. Being Paula, she couldn't help doing exactly what she did. So, however it comes out, I shall be the one person she won't be ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... so quaintly that she broke into peals of silvery laughter over him. Paul was pleased with her, and half inclined to be proud of her for the first time in his life, though he had a nervous fear lest her gaiety should topple over like an unskilled ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the queen receives the homage of her subjects. She gets her presents, and there are pretty speeches made to her, and she has her dainty feast and her crown of flowers. Yes, that time is the crown of the day, and that is just the moment when the poor little queen shall topple down. The throne shall be knocked from under her; the presents will vanish; the sovereignty will cease to exist. Poor, poor little queen without a kingdom! How will you like it, Paulie? Do you think you could bear it? To have no kingdom and ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... "'Tention-l !" shriek a dozen soprani. Some passenger's fingers have entered his vest-pocket, and the boys are on the alert. Through the air, twirling and glittering, tumbles an English shilling, and drops into the deep water beyond the little fleet. Instantly all the lads leap, scramble, topple head-foremost out of their little tubs, and dive in pursuit. In the blue water their lithe figures look perfectly red,—all but the soles of their upturned feet, which show nearly white. Almost immediately they all rise again: one holds up at arm's- length ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... mandate, and his autocrat promptly dragged one foot from under him, causing him to topple on the parapet. He hissed at her. Le Rossignol looked up at the threatening flat head and ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... is banked very steeply at the corners, and when the motorist is going round these corners at, say, 80 miles an hour, his motor makes a considerable angle with the level ground, and looks as if it must topple over. The aeroplane acts in a similar manner, and, unless some means are taken to prevent it, it will ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... you are dying. The only way for us to find out is to try to get the machine working and topple ourselves one way or the other. If we fall back, we will all live. If we fall into ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... stopped outside the door. He stood openmouthed, maddened and still, as if in the midst of a catastrophe. The door-handle rattled lightly. It seemed to him that the walls were coming apart, that the furniture swayed at him; the ceiling slanted queerly for a moment, a tall wardrobe tried to topple over. He caught hold of something and it was the back of a chair. So he had reeled against a chair! Oh! Confound it! ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... implored me not to fire. I hesitated, and just then the stately head turned round to look behind, and exposing the beautifully curving neck full to my aim, I fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the fine buck topple ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... battle-shout—pealed above the bellowing stadium. Even as he cried it, all saw his form draw upward as might Prometheus's unchained. They saw the fingers of the Spartan unclasp. They saw his bloody face upturned and torn with helpless agony. They saw his great form totter, topple, fall. The last dust cloud, and into it the multitude ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... firm on my legs yet," he laughed, "and I must n't topple over, as Miss Batterson has left me for a ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... beach Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge That on the unnumber'd idle pebble chafes, Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight Topple down headlong. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... vase swayed backwards and forwards; it seemed to be uncertain whether or no to topple over on to the head of one of the old men, but eventually determined to go the other way, and came crashing over towards the German poet, who darted out of the way ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... slide guided by the hand of a stronger and more expert companion. How soon we learned to do the trick, and what fun there was in "keep the pot a-boiling," while strings of youngsters took the slide. What if some did topple over? No bones were broken, and the incident always caused a ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... and Cape Roux are so exposed to the sun, and so protected from the cold, that this region has been called the Petite Afrique. Cape Roux itself, the abrupt termination of a lofty ridge, looks as if it would topple over into the sea, to which it is so close that both the rail and the road have to pass through it by tunnels. On the eastern side of this cape is the equally picturesque and sheltered bay, the Mer d'Eze, backed by a phalanx of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... through me. Some little distance back a tree hung over the sandy bottom, its roots partially laid bare by the washing of the stream which had now disappeared. The trunk was inclined at a sharp angle; but little force would be needed, I thought, to topple it over until it lay athwart the path which the pursuers must follow. Its foliage was thick, and though I did not flatter myself 'twould put an end to the pursuit, I thought it might serve as a check, and enable Uncle Moses to gain strength ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... meant that nook for your garden. It is the only place that is sheltered from the wind and at the same time has sunshine and a good outlook. But the wall has thrice been all but finished, and each time the stones have begun to sink and topple. This time Howel the mason was nearly killed. Of course, a feeble bent old woman who can hardly hobble ten rods cannot have undermined a wall at this distance. That is absurd. But the panic the men have got into is not. That wall will have to ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... of the road a bent figure came, stepping slowly and with age, a woodstack on his back. Heavier even than a knapsack containing a spirit kettle and a Decameron and biscuit remainders in a paper bag, it must be. Peter watched the slow figure sympathetically. Would he sway and topple over; and if he did would the woodstack break his fall? The whisky flask ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... besieged had combined, shoulder to shoulder, to make one magnificent and desperate onslaught on to the obdurate door, they quietly "raised the siege," and quitting their hold, left the phalanx of small heroes to topple head over heels and one over another on to the stone floor of the passage, while they sauntered off arm-in-arm to the scene ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Icarian pinions, all too frail, Were sure my fancy's flight to fail. Confined within this mortal clod, Vain man would yet ascend to God, Presumptuous, as of yore, to be The heir of immortality. But, from those fair, celestial heights Of fervid fancy's loftiest flights, My airy visions topple down To where cool reason's realm is found, And fancy folds her weary wings, Content, the while, with ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... point, from 250 deg. below zero to 500 deg. above it, or the point at which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack, shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over; and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed up forever in the yawing chasms of the ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... slid away cursing. There were some who lounged with a false sedateness, and some who fluttered in an equally false timidity. Some wore velvet shoes without heels. Some had shoes, the heels whereof were of such inordinate length that the wearers looked as though they were perched on stilts and would topple to perdition if their skill failed for an instant. They passed and they looked at him; and from each, after the due regard, he looked away to the ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... by a moment of complete silence, of complete inaction. The crew behind the captain stood still, staring and frozen with consternation. The captain stood slightly stooped over, his knees bent, mouth open, gasping for air, his eyes popping. Slowly, brutishly he began to wilt and topple forward. He was almost bent double before he fell; and with the thud of his body upon the deck, one of the crew groaned: "Killed by a fist blow, ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... Jean Roland and no one else. She is the smallest and the darkest and much the best dressed. I do hope and trust it will be love at first sight. She is already just wild about you, without ever even seeing you, and when she sees you she is sure to topple over completely." ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... man, and was bending to clamp it over the pit, when from the parapet to the right a sudden cross-fire swept the head of the breach. A bullet struck him in the hand. He looked up, with the pain of it, in time to see Major Frazer spin about, topple past the sergeant's hand thrust out to steady him, and pitch headlong down the slope. The ladder-bearer and another tall Royal ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... when a few goatskin bags were pierced the raft would begin to topple over and the men with oars would themselves direct the raft toward the shore, preferring to take their chance among Kurds than with the rocks that stuck up like fangs out of the raging water. No, sahib, I could ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the spot where the voyage was to end. There was no going beyond that clear-cut line. When the ship came up to it, there would be no more water beyond; naught but a vast space into which the vessel must topple and go on falling to the end of time. The great sirens were silent, for the fog of the night before had lifted, laying bare a desolate plain. The ship was sliding into oblivion, magnificently indifferent to the catastrophe that awaited its ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the helmeted figure of Moa casting off Anita—and then the two girls leaping upon Miko. It threw him off his balance, and my hanging weight made him topple forward. He took a step to recover himself; his hand with the knife was flung up with an instinctive, involuntary balancing gesture. And as it came down again, I forced the knife-blade to graze his throat. Its point caught in the ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... and months. Why, no one is sane, straight along, year in and year out, and we all know it. Our insanities are of varying sorts, and express themselves in varying forms —fortunately harmless forms as a rule—but in whatever form they occur an immense upheaval of feeling can at any time topple us distinctly over the sanity-line for a little while; and then if our form happens to be of the murderous kind we must look out—and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lingered, were retrieved and mouthed by a well-trained butcher dog, of no recognisable breed. Sometimes, after receiving its wound, a bird would walk about for a second or two, apparently unhurt; then suddenly stagger and topple over. Sometimes, as the trap opened, a bird would stand dazed. Then a ball was trundled at it to compel it to rise. Grey breast feathers strewed the whole inclosure, in places quite thickly, like a carpet. As for ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... He had chosen a spot where the rock rose perpendicularly above the road. "Drop them over," he said, "so that they may fall straight. The biggest you must roll over with your levers, but work them to the edge and let them topple over; don't thrust them out or they will ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this side or on that. It will probably never again be the smooth, homogeneous slope it has been; "the gable" will probably always present a wide cleft, but the slopes beyond it, stripped now of their accumulated ice so as to be unclimbable, may build up again and give ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... screamed Violet as the bookcase shook and the statue seemed about to topple over by reason of Billie's ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... this feeling, for Farwell was his friend and had taught him all he knew, but Farwell's age did not in the least blind Jerry-Jo to the fact that he was a man, and he did not enjoy seeing Priscilla so free and easy with any other of the male sex, be he ancient enough to topple into the grave. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... better since we returned." And now Mrs. Corey, as if forced to the point, said bunglingly that the young ladies had wished to come with her, but had been detained. She based her statement upon Nanny's sarcastic demand; and, perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to get away from its fall. "But we shall hope for some—some other occasion," she said vaguely, and she put on a parting smile, and shook hands with Mrs. Lapham and Penelope, and then, after some lingering commonplaces, got ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the drop in her face, when he saw features and expression fall from the lofty height of anticipation as a pile of cards topple in a mass upon the table, he was sorry. Her mouth opened—gaped. She looked as if a ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... before, that was not new to me, a remembered fear, had me fast; a remembered voice seemed to speak clearly incomprehensible words that had moved me before. The sheer faces of the enormous buildings near at hand seemed to topple forwards like cliffs in an earthquake, and for an instant I saw beyond them into unknown depths that I had seen into before. It was as if the shadow of annihilation had passed over them beneath the sunshine. ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... to Ja, but he must have left after I tumbled into the tank, for I received no response to my cries. Doubtless he had felt as certain of my doom when he saw me topple from our hiding place as I had, and lest he too should be discovered, had hastened from the temple ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... numerous files of newspapers neatly arranged against the blank spaces of the walls, and a huge pile of old magazines which stood in one corner, reaching nearly up to the ceiling, and threatening to topple over each instant, like the Leaning Tower at Pisa. There were green paper shades at the windows, some faded chintz valances about the bed, and two or three easy-chairs covered with chintz. On a black-walnut shelf between ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... rise to a total height of 5,000 feet above sea level. The surface of the country, too, is often broken by groups, or clusters of rocks, either low or of moderate elevation, composed of immense boulders, the topmost ones of which are often so finely poised as to seem ready to topple over at the slightest touch. The highest point of the plateau is about 3,500 feet, and is crowned as it were by the fine bold range of the Bababuden mountains, which have an average elevation of about 6,000 ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... the long, rambling sentences that topple a letter over onto the waste basket toboggan. But the sentence with a climax, working up interest step by step, is indispensable. By eye test, by mechanical test, by erasure test and by strength ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... since his time has been to build on an addition now and then, as need arose, and to change the ornamentation to suit the taste of the day. At one time, it seemed that the whole structure might be rent asunder and topple into ruins; but again there came a master-builder named Abraham Lincoln, and with the aid of a million devoted workmen who rallied to his call, he ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... upset the spider-legged table that was always ready to topple over on the least provocation, made a hopeless labyrinth of her embroidery silks, gave her a kiss of greeting, and hurried on with numberless questions, just as if he were in the greatest possible haste, and it was a necessity of life and death that he should throw off everything ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... passed resolutions restricting the height of the buildings to six stories. They ain't going to take the chance that New York does, and have some of these big tall ten-story affairs topple over ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... the trail. When the figure was within ten yards Cutler slowly drew an ivory-handled pistol. The lieutenants below saw the man leap to the middle of the bridge, sway suddenly with arms thrown up, and topple into White River. The current swept the body down, and as it came it alternately lifted and turned and sank as the stream played with it. Sometimes it struck submerged stumps or shallows, and bounded half out of water, then drew under with nothing ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... the gratification of that naughty curiosity! Then, quite unexpectedly—oh! what a start it gave her!—the solitary white object burst upon her view, leprous and ghastly as the yawn of a cotton-mouth. Tombs ruin soon in Louisiana;—the one Chita looked upon seemed ready to topple down. There was a great ragged hole at one end, where wind and rain, and perhaps also the burrowing of crawfish and of worms, had loosened the bricks, and caused them to slide out of place. It seemed very black inside; but Chita wanted to know what was there. She pushed her way through a gap ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... recollect the horrors with which they fed my heated fancy during an eruption of Vesuvius. We were distant from that volcano, with mountains between us; but its convulsive throes shook the solid foundations of nature. Earthquakes threatened to topple down our convent towers. A lurid, baleful light hung in the heavens at night, and showers of ashes, borne by the wind, fell in our narrow valley. The monks talked of the earth being honey-combed beneath us; of Streams of molten lava raging through its veins; of caverns of sulphurous flames ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... joke, and we never thought you would fall. No one else fell. We kept pulling it away by the string, you know, a few inches at a time, so that you did not notice, but you had really farther and farther to stretch, and it was that that made you topple over." ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... gave the lariat a quick flirt, the loop running out perpendicularly, like a rolling hoop, and not more than a foot from the ground, writhing, undulating, the circle constricting quickly, sinuously. The girl saw the loop topple as it neared the steer—it was much like the motion of a hoop falling. It met one of the steer's hoofs as it was flung outward; it grew taut; the rope straightened and Patches swung off to the right at an acute angle. He did not brace his legs, this time. This ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... have been a heavy blow for you, my poor ALINE. I can understand that your spirits can never be really high again. And then for poor Master Builder SOLNESS to be so taken up with that Miss WANGEL as he was—that, too, was so wretched for you. To see him topple off the tower, as he did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... and because his heart failed him he began to sink. If we turn away from Jesus Christ, and interrupt the continuity of our faith by calculating the height of the breakers and the weight of the water that is in them, and what will become of us when they topple over with their white crests upon our heads, then gravity will begin to work, and we shall begin to sink. And well for us if, when we have sunk as far as our knees, we look back again to the Master and say, 'Lord, save me; I perish!' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... staggering under the weight of falling buildings, and being overwhelmed in the ruins; upheaving masses of rock, and burying themselves beneath; vainly striving to sustain the pillars of heavy roofs that topple down upon their heads; and, in a word, undergoing and doing every kind of mad and demoniacal destruction. The figures are immensely large, and exaggerated to the utmost pitch of uncouthness; the colouring is harsh and disagreeable; and the whole effect more like (I should imagine) a violent ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... come nearer to being killed right here in Baileyville than ever I have while cruising in mid-ocean. Folks take their lives in their hands every time they cross a city street. Then, too, aren't there high buildings to topple over; flagpoles to snap asunder, signs to blow down; chimneys to shower their bricks on your head; not to mention the death-dealing currents that come through telegraph and telephone wires? Add to this threatening collection ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... had not played football for three seasons for nothing. He quietly ducked, allowing his unscientific assailant to overbalance himself, and topple head first on the lobby outside, at the particular moment when the real owner of the racehorse and the real wine-merchant, who had just arrived, reached the top of ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... pavilions of the new Louvre and the Tuileries, were crowned by a blaze, which lent them the aspect of sacrificial pyres. The dome of the Invalides was flaring with such brilliancy that you instinctively feared lest it should suddenly topple down and scatter burning flakes over the neighborhood. Beyond the irregular towers of Saint-Sulpice, the Pantheon stood out against the sky in dull splendor, like some royal palace of conflagration reduced ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... booming, bell-like tone. "Never be in a hurry—-especially don't be in a hurry about answering letters. If you leave things long enough and quiet enough they answer themselves, whereas if you hurry matters balanced on the edge of a precipice, they often topple over instead of settling and ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... blink hastily, he derived some moral support from the green gleam of the starboard light shining feebly upon the flight of rain and sprays. He was actually looking at it when its ray fell upon the uprearing sea which put it out. He saw the head of the wave topple over, adding the mite of its crash to the tremendous uproar raging around him, and almost at the same instant the stanchion was wrenched away from his embracing arms. After a crushing thump on his ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... Well!" she said. "If old Topple hasn't another lot of kittens. Have them? To be sure you may, and welcome, when they are big enough ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... of the palanquin bearers went down, and the palanquin itself began to topple. The Greatest Noble screamed as he fell ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... brakes to prevent them from running sideways, and so off the grade. I rode down one of these places, but it was the last as well as the first. Every time the big wagon jolted over a stone—and it was jolt over stones all the time—it seemed as if it must topple over the side and roll to the bottom; and then the way the driver talked to the mules to keep them straight, and the creaking and scraping of the wagons, was enough to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... time a man has discovered that he is in love with a woman, she is usually so fagged out waiting for the phenomenon, that she is ready to topple right over into his arms ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... of an earthquake!" Do the words express the reality before us as we move along the mile of road between Albert and La Boisselle? Hardly. The earth-shudder that visits a volcanic district may topple towns and villages into ruins in a few minutes. It does not tear and grind and pound what it has overturned, through hour after hour, till there is nothing ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the left of the road, which had now become absolutely impassable again on account of innumerable transports. It was a dangerous ride, for any moment the bicycle might smash into some unseen obstacle and topple over into the abyss on the right, into which stones and loose earth were continually falling as the cycle pushed them ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... not again, though, topple into any flour barrels. It was Sue who had the next accident at the corner grocery, and this ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... good to turn one's back on that hideous thing, and when they heard the headless trunk topple over on to the floor of the car behind them, both shivered, and the chauffeur's knuckles stood out white as he ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... things people can live without," said Fleda, rather dreamily, intent upon settling an uneasy rose that would topple over. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... laughed with the rest over the story of the poor tailor who promised a coat to a customer for one, two and three weeks, heaping up his promises one on the other until he had a perfect pyramid of them, only to topple about his ears. She heard with the rest the magnificent voice ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... receiver and reviewed it all calmly. There were a hundred things which might happen to the line, for it passed through rough country near Vegas; but the weather was fair and there was no wind blowing to topple over the poles. No one used the line but him—it had been connected up by Blount when he had first taken over the mine—and yet the wire had been cut. But by whom? As he sat there pondering he raised his eyes to the hill-top, and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... and won he felt that silent approbation behind him; insensibly it steadied Ford and sharpened his instinct for reading the faces of the other players, so that the miniature towers of red chips and blue grew higher until they threatened to topple—whereupon other little towers began to grow up around them. And the men in the saloon began to feel the fascination of his success, so that they grouped themselves about his chair and peered down over his shoulder at ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... ranged in a loose semi-circle, waiting and watching; only the colts, ignorant of what was to come, had begun to frolic together or bother their mothers with a savage pretense of battle. Alcatraz saw one solid old bay topple her offspring with a side-swing of her head. She wanted an unobstructed ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank and destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And you are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the embankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One of the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one night, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no novelty ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... chimney pots, its narrow streets and vivid awnings, its wide avenues and the ancient Castle to the north. To the south, the fortress and the bridges; encircling the city a thick, high wall with here and there enormous gates flanked by towers so grim and old that they seem ready to topple over from the sheer fatigue of centuries. A soft, Indian summer haze hangs over the lazy-lit valley; it is always ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... finished her sweeping, had come out on the porch also, and in garments that indicated no padding whatever dropped into a rocking chair, crossed her legs, made a dab at her loosely piled hair to see it did not topple down, and proceeded to read the morning newspaper. It was positively shocking, thought Mrs. Barnett, how women could so far ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... his, her own pleading, and the very wind without seemed to pause for his answer. But what she asked was impossible. That wind which he himself had loosed, which was to topple over institutions, was rising, and he could no more have stopped it then than he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Schiller leads up to his climax. There is no other play of his, early or late, the entanglement of which is so palpably artificial; so like a child's house of cards, built up with bated breath lest a breath should topple it over. According to Boettiger, Schiller once took note of what some critic had remarked upon this lavish use of silence in 'The Bride of Messina' and expressed surprise that any one could so misconceive him. He went on to say, if we can trust Boettiger, that it is 'precisely ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... by forming an imperceptible crevice which grew and grew with the passing of centuries. The natural wall leaned for years and years above the waves, which beat furiously at its base, until it would lose its balance some stormy night and topple like the rampart of a besieged citadel, crumbling into blocks, peopling the sea with new reefs soon to be covered with slimy vegetation, while the winding passages would seethe with foam and sparkle with the metallic gleam ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... inland, are almost invariably found to terminate against glaciers. Thick ice frequently appears, too, crowning the exposed sea-cliffs, from the edges of which it droops in thick, tongue-like, and stalactitic projections, until its own weight forces it to break away and topple down the precipices into ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... divinable. She had found the Tree of Knowledge, but about on every side a great wall soared blackly enclosing her in from the Tree of Life—a wall which her thought was unable to surmount even while instinct urged that it must topple before her advance; but instinct may not advance when thought has schooled it in the science of unbelief; and this wall will not be conquered until Thought and Instinct are wed, and the first son of that bridal will be called The ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... enclosure from which they had come and the hill where Gahan of Gathol lay watching, and then suddenly the smaller figure struck its companion full in the face. Gahan, horrified, saw the latter's head topple from its body, saw the body stagger and fall to the ground. The man half rose from his concealment the better to view the happening in the valley below. The creature that had felled its companion was dashing madly in the direction of the hill upon ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to rise, but sank back dizzily. The room seemed to become suddenly dark. She feared she would topple over as Amy ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... I; and is this the cause of your lofty gait? Do you straighten yourself to think that you have committed a murder, when a chance-falling stone has often done the same? Is it a proud thing to topple down six feet perpendicular of immortal manhood, though that lofty living tower needed perhaps thirty good growing summers to bring it to maturity? Poor savage! And you account it so glorious, do you, to mutilate and destroy ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... trails. I don't just want to start out like Jean is doing and rush over three thousand just to settle down at the other end for ever and ever. I'd want to keep on going. It's such a comfort to know that the world is round after all, and you can't topple off the end." ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... of you! She's 'sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad.' No use looking daggers! It's a fact. I don't say she flirts outrageously—like I do! She simply expects homage—and gets it. She expects men to fall in love with her—and they topple over like ninepins. Sometimes—when I'm feeling magnanimous—I catch a ninepin as it falls! Look at her now, with that ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... between them. When you are ready to begin cooking, take out the smoky, burning pieces and leave a bed of red-hot coals. If you have no axe and can find no logs, a somewhat similar fireplace can be built up of flat stones, but be sure that your stone fireplace will not topple over ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... one side of him, and on the other a mountainous heap of hand-bags and valises. This is the only creature with four legs, bigger than a dog, that ever gets down the Clovelly street; and why he does not lose his balance, topple backward, and go rolling continuously down till he falls into the sea below, nobody can imagine. But the valiant little animal kept steadily on, assisted by his owner, who followed and assiduously whacked him with a stout stick, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... would have turned over to the other and wrought so dexterously that, thrusting his loins against one of the sides of the chest, which had not been set on a level place, he caused it first to incline to one side and after topple over. In falling, it made a great noise, whereat the women who slept therenigh awoke and being affrighted, were silent for fear. Ruggieri was sore alarmed at the fall of the chest, but, finding that it had opened in the fall, chose ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... exhibited a strong desire to topple over and fall on people, but by the liberal use of nails and screws and bits of firewood, I made life in the same room with it possible, and then, being exhausted, I had my wounds dressed, ...
— Clocks - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... he said hastily; 'that old fellow looks as though he might topple over any minute;' and before Michael could understand what he meant, he had dived ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of that huge, uplifted log will topple off, and that man underneath will get his eyes filled with sawdust," ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... wide plains and bogs, encircled by high hills, which, like a row of Alpine mountains with pinnacles formed like saws, frown over the sea, which is separated from them only by high clay banks; and year after year the sea bites a large mouthful off of these, so that their edges and summits topple over as if shaken by an earthquake. Thus they look at this day, and thus they were many years ago, when the happy young couple sailed from Spain in the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... families, races, which tend to raise themselves above the common level; painfully they climb the rugged heights, attain the summits of power, of wealth, of intelligence, of talent, and then, no sooner are they there than they topple down and disappear in gulfs of mental and physical degeneracy." The demographical researches of Hansen ("Die drei Bevolkerungsstufen", Munich, 1889.) (following up and completing Dumont's) tended, indeed, to show that urban as well as feudal aristocracies, burgher ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... felt that if I let that failure stand against me I could never afterward speak in public; and within ten minutes, notwithstanding the protests of my friends, I was back in the hall and beginning my recitation a second time. The audience gave me its eager attention. Possibly it hoped to see me topple off the platform again, but nothing of the sort occurred. I went through the recitation with self-possession and received some friendly applause at the end. Strangely enough, those first sensations of "stage fright" have been experienced, in a lesser degree, in ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... the sill, the ledge inside, the jambs of the door, its edges; stood on the ledge, went through the motions and concluded that I could slam the door shut and not be knocked off into the ooze by its impact or topple off because of the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... occasionally, on the sidewalks, were there stray pedestrians, and these pedestrians did not loiter. They went their ways with great haste and definiteness, withal there was a curious indecision in their movements, as though they expected the buildings to topple over on them or the sidewalks to sink under their feet or fly up in the air. A few gamins, however, were around, in their eyes a suppressed eagerness in anticipation of wonderful and ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... succeed and prosper in his dealings—so long will all this world's affairs go well with him; and he will grow each day richer and greater and more powerful. But if ever he let one kindly thought for living thing come into his heart, in that moment all his plans and schemes will topple down about his ears; and from that hour his name will be despised ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome |
