"Tossing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of land greeted Neeland when he rose early next morning and went out on deck for the first time without his olive-wood box—first a few gulls, then puffins, terns, and other sea fowl in increasing numbers, weed floating, fishing smacks, trawlers tossing on ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the hopes deep sunken Like anchors under the ice,— Of souls that wait for Love's sweet freight And the spices of Paradise: Far off their barks are tossing On the billows of unrest, And enter not in, for the hardness and sin That ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... without any unusual preliminaries, but quickly increased to a hurricane, and when night fell it saw the big ship rolling and tossing in a tempestuous sea. Torn was anxious about his big gun, but the captain assured him that double lashings would ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... the Aline Proctor he knew. It was not the well-poised, gracious, and distinguished beauty he had seen gliding among the tables at Sherry's or throwing smiles over the footlights. This Aline Proctor was a very indignant young person, with flashing eyes, tossing head, and a stamping foot. Extended from her at arm's length, she held a photograph of herself in a heavy silver frame; and, as though it were a weapon, she was brandishing it in the face of Chester Griswold. As Cochran, in ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... and Dot Winthrop are coming over to see us. I'd put on that white poplin skirt and the waist with the blue butterfly bow at your throat. You look awfully fetching in that. Yes, Catherine, I'm coming," and she flew out, tossing ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... league farther than the eye could see, lay the mighty forest whereof the trees soared two hundred feet or more into the air; the dark illimitable forest that rolled as the sea rolls beneath the pressure of the gale, and indeed, seen from above, looked like a green and tossing ocean. At the sight of the water Rachel and Noie began to run towards it hand in hand, for they were parched with thirst whose mouths were full of the salt dust of the desert. The bearers of the litters in ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... exhorts them to see to it that, in the cultivation of the so-called womanly excellence of gentleness, they do not let it run into weakness, nor, on the other hand, aim at strength, to the loss of meekness. The yielding birch- tree, the 'lady of the woods,' bends in all its elastic branches and tossing ringlets of foliage to the wind; but it stands upright after storms that level oaks and pines. God's strength is gentle strength, and ours is likest His when it is meek and lowly, like that of the 'strong ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... And oft would stare at Heaven and laugh his scorn: "O fools, think not to trick me!" then forlorn Would gaze about green earth or out to sea: "This is the end of man in his degree"— Thus would he moralise in those bare lands With hopeless brows and tossing up of hands— "To sow in sweat and see another reap!" Then, pitying himself, he'd fall to weep His desolation, scorned by Gods, by men Slighted; but in a flash he'd rage again And shake his naked sword at unseen foes, And dare them bring Odysseus to his blows: Or let the man but flaunt ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... concerts, is too long, cut down one- half it would have been all right and we should have liked to hear it twice. As it was, all we could say was that it was much better than we had expected. I did not like the look of the young man who wrote it and who also conducted. He had long yellowish hair and kept tossing his head to fling it back on to his shoulders, instead of keeping it short as Jones and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... then!" cries Crozier, tossing down a doubloon to pay for it. "A gallon, if you'll only have the goodness ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... their party descending the Grand River towards Lake Erie, while La Salle, as they supposed, began his return to Montreal. What course he actually took, we shall soon inquire; and meanwhile, for a few moments, we will follow the priests. When they reached Lake Erie, they saw it tossing like an angry ocean under a wild autumnal sky. They had no mind to tempt the dangerous and unknown navigation, and encamped for the winter in the forest near the peninsula called the Long Point. Here they gathered a good store ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... posing, and Le Songe d'une Nuit d'Ete, with a companion picture of two lovers bathing at night; Pile ou Face (a girl who is so divided between two lovers that a friend advises her to toss up, with the pessimist-satiric addition that no doubt, between tossing and marriage, she will be sorry she did not take the other, but afterwards will forget all about him) is slighter; and Au Docteur J. P. looks like a kind of study for a longer novel or at least a ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... profit. And now, having so commendabiy disposed of the moral of our bargain, let us approach its legitimate, if not its lawful, conclusion. There," he added, drawing a small bag from an inner pocket of his frock, and tossing it carelessly on a table; "there is thy gold. Eighty broad Johannes is no bad return for a few packages of furs; and even avarice itself will own, that six months is no ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Clunienses (Hafen Slawkenbergius means the Benedictine nuns of Cluny, founded in the year 940, by Odo, abbe de Cluny.)—the Carthusians, and all the severer orders of nuns, who lay that night in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than the abbess of Quedlingberg—by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night long—the several sisterhoods had scratch'd and maul'd themselves all to death—they got out of their beds almost flay'd alive—every ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... burst in phosphorescent floods over them; and their escape, if we consider the smallness of the caravels, and the force of a tropical cyclone, was little less than miraculous. At last, after eight days' tossing to and fro, the admiral gained the mouth of a river, which he named the Bethlehem, because he entered it on the ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the garment aside. "It's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth over the counter these six months. Take it or leave it. Hallo! What have we here? Little Finnegan, eh? Your mother not dead yet? It's in the poorhouse ye will be if she ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness—saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faultering, rising, clutching as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds—saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm,—these ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... like a boat! The Ship of State is tossing about in a stormy sea! Let it dance the cancan! Let it dance ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... he reached the top of the long, straight hill leading down into Westchurch, Richard arrived at these unflattering conclusions. On either side the road, upon the yellow surface of which the sunlight played through the tossing leaves of the plane trees, were villas of very varied and hybrid styles of architecture. They were, for the most part, smothered in creepers, and set in gardens gay with blossom. Below lay the sprawling, red-brick town blotted with purple ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the flat roof tops, reclining on purple and fine linen, looking down on the street below from the thick foliage of her citron boughs and her red Syrian roses, was an Egyptian wanton; and leaning beside her, tossing golden apples in her bosom, was a young centurion of the Roman guard, languid and laughing, with his fair chest bare to the heat, and his armour flung ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... knew. Now a strange eagerness and joy possessed him. His bubbling wake cut straight and milky across the glittering afternoon. In a ruddy sunset glow, the sea darkened through all tints of violet, amethyst, indigo. The horizon line sharpened so clearly that he could distinguish the tossing profile of waves wetting the sky. "A red sky at night is the sailor's delight," he said to himself. He switched on the port and starboard lights and the masthead lanterns, then lashed the wheel while he went below for supper. He did not know exactly where he was, for he seemed to ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... when she throws it aside in order to take up a Pack of Cards, adjust a Curl of Hair, replace a falling Pin, or apply her self to any other Matter of Importance. This Part of the Exercise, as it only consists in tossing a Fan with an Air upon a long Table (which stands by for that Purpose) may be learned in two Days Time as well as in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... up a scarf pin set with a diamond, and, tossing the old Woman a five-dollar piece, said as he left the room: "You can tell Ernestine that I bear ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... strange life of ours, imposed by the discipline of events, has become a second nature, which we scarcely know how to shake off. Like tired dogs, we still creep into our holes. The youngest were moaning and tossing, as they have done every night for weeks past—shaking off sleep like a harmful narcotic, because the poison of fighting is too strong for most blood in these degenerate days. What sounds have I not heard during the past two months—what ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... and nights went by, whilst Kanmakan lay tossing upon coals of fire, till he reached the age of seventeen: and indeed his beauty was now come to perfection and his wit had ripened. One night, as he lay awake, he communed with himself and said, "Why should I keep silence, till I consume away, and see ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... the ring with which she is playing,—her wedding-ring,—and when it falls into the water while she is tossing it in the air, we hear persistently the theme of Fate, which, with the Golaud theme (portentously sounded, pp, by horns and bassoons), closes the scene. There is an interlude in which the Golaud, Melisande, and Fate themes ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... a bigger lamp still—out there, beyond this out?—Ah! here was the living thing that would not be seen, come to her again—bigger to-night! with such loving kisses, and such liquid strokings of her cheeks and forehead, gently tossing her hair, and delicately toying with it! But it ceased, and all was still. Had it gone out? What would happen next? Perhaps the little lamps had not to grow great lamps, but to fall one by one and go out first?—With that, came from below a sweet scent, then ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... well as musical performances. Among the minstrels who came into England with William the Conqueror was one named Taillefer, who was present at the battle of Hastings, and rode in front of the Norman army, inspiriting the soldiers by his songs. He sang of Roland, the heroic captain of Charlemagne, tossing his sword in the air and catching it again as he approached the English line. He was the first to strike a blow at the English, but after mortally wounding one or two of King Harold's warriors, he was himself ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... herself down on the ground near Esther, tossing off her hat and resting her head on the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... to the Divine conflict.... How his own fight, how all the conflicts of men were lost in that gigantic battle, wherein the suns rain down like flakes of snow tossing on the wind!... He had laid bare his soul. And, just as in those dreams in which one hovers in space, he felt that he was soaring above himself, he saw himself from above, in the general plan of the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... chance of birth, come into the control of great wealth. The world of finance is of delicate balance. Squabbles in certain directorates may throw the Street into panic. Suddenly, you emerge from decent quiet, and run amuck in the china-shop, bellowing and tossing your horns. You make war on those whose interests are your own. You seem bent on hari-kari. You have toys enough to amuse you. Why ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... him to call me Gatty?" said the little beauty, tossing her long locks and speaking in a half aside to Diana. "Now he would like that I should return the compliment and call him Evan; but I won't. What do you do, when men call you by your ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... wind rose and howled through the rigging. It tore at the sail of The Duff, and the great Pacific waves rolled swiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and tossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, and, as the wind dropped, and they looked ahead, they saw, cutting into the sky-line, the mountain ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... bowing towards each other like the giant dancers in some stately minuet, he was there to watch. All day he went from field to field and watched the strong young labourers building; those on the ground tossing to those on the stooks, while the air was full of a deep rustling. One man would crawl about on the growing mow, arranging each sheaf as it was tossed up to him, so that its feathery crown lay towards the centre, away ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... large house," said my friend, tossing his head, and putting on an air of dignity and consequence. "A hundred dollars difference in rent is a small matter compared with the increase of comfort ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... and was thrilled by their power and pathos, upon a stormy March evening in Fort Sumter! Walking along the battlements, under the red light of a tempestuous sunset, the wind steadily and loudly blowing from off the bar across the tossing and moaning waste of waters, driven inland; with scores of gulls and white sea-birds flying and shrieking round me,—those wild voices of Nature mingled strangely with the rhythmic roll and beat of the poet's impassioned music. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... beast; they shook and they swayed and they rocked; the sabers played about their heads so quick that it was like lightning, as they flashed and twirled in the sun; the hoofs trampled up the sand till a yellow cloud hid their struggle, and out of it all you could see was the head of a horse tossing up and spouting with foam, or a sword-blade lifted to strike. Then the tawny cloud settled down a little, the sand mist cleared away, the Arab's saddle was empty—but Rire-pour-tout sat like a rock. The old Chief bowed his head. 'It is over! Allah is great!' And he ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... from little acorns grow,'" quoted Godfrey, tossing the book back upon the desk. "But for the fact that you blotted the envelope, Miss Vaughan, young Swain would never have ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Livingstone, had sailed in December in a wretchedly uncomfortable little craft, called the Hetty Ellen. On reaching the Kongone they saw no token of the Pioneer, but after waiting in great discomfort, tossing at the mouth of the river, the vessel made for Mozambique. There they fell in with H.M.S. Gorgon. Captain Wilson, resolved to render them every service in his power, took the ladies on board, the vessel in tow, and carried them to Quillinane, where they presently fell ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... storm, and fragments are torn away from them which sweep overhead. The sea, looked at from the height, shows white edges almost to the horizon, and although the waves at a distance cannot be distinguished, the tossing of a solitary vessel labouring to get round the point for shelter shows how vast they are. The prevailing colour of the water is greyish-green, passing into deep-blue, and perpetually shifting in tint. A quarter of ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... Tuolumne Valley, from which excursions may be made to Mounts Dana, Lyell, Ritter, Conness, and Mono Lake, and to the many curious peaks that rise above the meadows on the south, and to the Big Tuolumne Canyon, with its glorious abundance of rock and falling, gliding, tossing water. For all these the beautiful meadows near the Soda Springs ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... all a merry Christmas, and they wished him the same and many of them. Then the table was put outside, and the room cleared for a dance. The young people took the floor and waltzed, I dare say, for miles—their heads as they whirled around tossing the green bushes that dangled from the rafters; while the old people, with beaming faces, sat admiring them, and swaying their heads about and beating time to the music by patting the floor with their feet. Someone called out "Faster!" Kate gave it faster. Then to see them and to hear ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... with the buggy from camp. And Ba'tiste was there, to boom at him, to call Golemar's attention to the fact that a visit to a physician in Boston had relieved the bandaged arm of all except the slightest form of a splint, and to literally lift Houston into the buggy, tossing his baggage in after him, then plump in ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... twisting partly on his side, stared out in the direction of the nicker. Down the road, through the swaying purple of the early lilacs, ridden by a picturesque cowboy, paced a great horse, glinting ruddy in the morning sun-gold, flinging free the snowy foam of his mighty fetlocks, his noble crest tossing, his eyes roving afield, the trumpet of his love- call echoing ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... subdued the tossing storm-cloud of hair, she stood with one hand upon her hip and the other shading her eyes, looking intently into the streets of the new settlement. And again there was bantering jest from the men about, and the ready, careless response ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... bushel-baskets and down on the heads of the people in the street. They were packed into balconies all the way along the straight vista of the Corso, in which their calcareous shower maintained a dense, gritty, unpalatable fog. The crowd was compact in the street, and the Americans in it were tossing back confetti out of great satchels hung round their necks. It was quite the "you're another" sort of repartee, and less seasoned than I had hoped with the airy mockery tradition hangs about this festival. The scene was striking, in a word; but somehow not as I had dreamed of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... extinct among us. Every now and then a batch of youngsters is brought before the magistrates charged with vulgar 'tossing' in the streets; and every now and then we hear of some victim of genteel gambling, as recently—in the month of February, 1868—when 'a young member of the aristocracy lost L10,000 ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Miss Tescheron—Miss Gabrielle Tescheron?" asked Jim, tossing his hair into windrows and looking straight away ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... at the north; but before the northern brand was thrown he lighted with it the bark bundles of his comrades. As each brand disappeared over the fence some of the spectators blew into their hands and made a motion as if tossing some substance after the departing flame. When the fascicles were all lighted the whole band began a wild race around the fire. At first they kept close together and spat upon one another some substance of supposed medicinal virtue. Soon they scattered and ran apparently without concert, the rapid ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... man's ideas change, I said; his view broadens. And I remembered Penelope as I first saw her, in her tattered frock and with the faded ribbon tossing in her hair. I liked Penelope. I thought of her with brotherly affection. But I said to myself that she could never grow to the wonderful ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... horse had all the while been pawing the earth, tossing his head with impatience, and whinnying. Cinq-Mars, as agitated and restless as his steed, gave it the rein; and the whole party was soon near the city of Tours, which the bells of St. Gatien had announced from afar. To the disappointment of old Grandchamp, Cinq-Mars would not enter the town, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... drop for the old Hudson, and a merry time it has until it gets down off the mountains. I have thought how long it would be before that very water which was made for the wilderness will be under the bottom of a vessel and tossing in the salt sea. ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... last farewells and quip last jokes to many, looked squarely down at me. On his head he wore my ilima lei, which I had made for him and placed there. And into the canoes, to the favoured ones, they on the yacht began tossing their many leis. I had no expectancy of hope . . . And yet I hoped, in a small wistful way that I know did not show in my face, which was as proud and merry as any there. But Lilolilo did what I knew he would do, what I had known from the first ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... couldn't make a fairer offer—all I possess against all that any other man owns, though it should only be half an ounce of gold," said the bully, tossing off a glass ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... sailed towards the setting of the sun. For many days they sailed yet they saw no land: nought was about them but the restless, tossing waves. But at length one day to their watching eyes there appeared a faint grey line far on the horizon. Then their hearts bounded for joy. They had not sailed in ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... wholly ignorant of the danger which threatened him, was thinking of his unhappy friend, Simon Turchi, overpowered by a heart sorrow, tossing on a bed of suffering, while he was on his way to serenade his beloved Mary. He also, in his own mind, deplored the involved condition of Simon's business affairs, and determined to save him, even at the cost of great personal sacrifices, ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... Sahwah was tossing on the bed and muttering when they came in. She had a high fever and was living over again her strenuous escapade of the afternoon. She cried aloud that the shore was running away from her, that the clouds were ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... buffalo, when grazing, always post and maintain a line of sentinels to warn the main body of the approach of danger. When a strange object comes within sight or smelling distance, these sentinels immediately give the alarm by tossing up their heads and tails and bellowing furiously. The whole herd instantly heed the warning and are soon in motion. Buffalo run with forelegs stiff, which fact, together with their ugly-looking humps and the lowness of their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... firing the Kiowas left the islanders alone for the rest of the day. The fever of the wounded man mounted. Most of the time he was out of his head, and in tossing to and fro was continually disturbing the cold-water bandages ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... tumult arose, and there were cries of "The werewolf!" "The werewolf!" Terror seized upon all—stout hearts were frozen with fear. Out from the further forest rushed the werewolf, wood wroth, bellowing hoarsely, gnashing his fangs and tossing hither and thither the yellow foam from his snapping jaws. He sought Yseult straight, as if an evil power drew him to the spot where she stood. But Yseult was not afeared; like a marble statue she stood and ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... which he left at the tunnel exit worked busily making what preparations were possible to receive their pursuers. Big Bob, who had jumped down into the opening, kept tossing out bricks at a furious rate, and Frank joined him and did likewise. Meanwhile, by the light of his matches, aided by the moonlight, which here in the woods, however, was not direct enough to be of any great help, Tom Barnum investigated the ground ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... the most difficult feats of juggling is, I understand, the deft tossing up and catching of a heavy weight (say a dumb-bell), a very light weight, such as a champagne cork, together with any old thing of irregular shape, a bedroom candlestick, for instance. Mr. WALTER HACKETT'S The Barton Mystery is a most ingenious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... peaceful embrace. As I approached it, the tolling of the bell struck on my ear in a touch of gladder tidings than I had received from all the melody of the great wind-harp of the trees, with all the soft accord of the tossing billows. Stroke after stroke, distinctly falling, seemed to bring to me the echoes of a million holy telegraphic towers all over the surface of the globe; and when I came to stand under the eaves of the small sanctuary, the measured turning, in the belfry, of the wheel, by revolutions such as ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... air? Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, The pine is bending his proud top, and now Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes! Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! The deep distressful silence of the scene Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds And universal motion. He is come, Shaking a shower ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... very happy to find that she has some good fortune at last,' returned Miss Pecksniff, tossing her head. 'I congratulate her, I am sure. I am not surprised that this event should be painful to her—painful to her—but I can't help that, Mr ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... that night in tossing and tumbling [about in my bed]. In the morning, I went again and presented myself [to wait on the princess], and entered the seraglio along with the confidential servant, and saw the same scene I had seen the ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... laughed Camilla, tossing her pretty head, "but it evidently does not interest you very much. In fact—" she glanced sidewise—"it is understood that no woman ever interests you for ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... garden: not even a turnip, a carrot or a cabbage. After dinner, we talked of the crooked spade used in Sky, already described, and they maintained that it was better than the usual garden-spade, and that there was an art in tossing it, by which those who were accustomed to it could work very easily with it. 'Nay,' said Dr Johnson, 'it may be useful in land where there are many stones to raise; but it certainly is not a good instrument for digging ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... be called Mademoiselle Norah," the girl said, tossing her head. "I am Irish on both sides, and have not a drop of French blood in my veins. To strangers I am Miss Norah O'More; to you, and to any I may love, ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the gorge, and now lifted it bodily over the dam. It sank in a chaotic mass, surged onward and upward again, struck the bridge, and in a moment lifted it from its foundations and swept it away, a shattered wreck, the red covering showing in the distance like ensanguined stains among the tossing cakes of ice. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... on the beach or curve about and swerve and jostle each other. Exploding Eggs was the king of us all, and Teata was queen. She advanced as effortlessly as a mermaid, her superb figure shining on the shining water, tossing her long black hair, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Topham's advice, leaving gun belt, carbine, and everything else he could unload in Callie's keeping before he swung up on Shiloh. The big colt was nervous, tending to dance sideways, tossing his head high. Drew concentrated on the business at hand, striving to forget the crowd opening up to let him through, shouting encouragement or disparagement. Ahead was the appointed track, a beaten stretch of earth, part of the old road leading to the mines. The Kentuckian talked to Shiloh as ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... the creaking of the davits and the commands of the officers. Then the boat sprang away under the impulse of the oars, and came toward them. The wind had been rising, and already the sea was too rough to permit the frail craft to lie alongside the tossing schooner; but watching their chance, and taking advantage of the boarding ropes thrown to them, an officer and a couple of men clambered aboard. The boat then sheered off into safety and lay to its oars, a young midshipman, sitting in the stern and ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... but it don't now," I replied, tossing the draft on the desk, at which he was still seated. "I will take only ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... letter," added Miss Grace, wiping her eyes, and tossing her brother's letter into Miss Letitia's lap. Miss Letitia took the letter and read it. "Good fellow!" she exclaimed warmly, "you see just what I say,—his heart ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... flakes of foam. She clasped her hands together, and shrieked aloud for help. And when she cried, help met her: for now there came over the rocks a tall and stately man, and looked down wondering upon poor Danae tossing about in the chest ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... the giant has been tamed to obedience, and is manacled in bonds which an earthquake would hardly rend asunder. No! It was the sight of the boats hanging along at the sides of the deck,—the boats, always suggesting the fearful possibility that before another day dawns one may be tossing about in the watery Sahara, shelterless, fireless, almost foodless, with a fate before him he dares not contemplate. No doubt we should feel worse without the boats; still they are dreadful tell-tales. To all who remember Gericault's Wreck of the Medusa,—and those ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... life that our spirit bounds with him. His rioting band, marching with song and laughter, seems to people that golden country-side with fit inhabitants. The careless satyrs and little merry, goat-legged fauns shock us no more than a herd of forest ponies, tossing their manes and dashing along for love of life and movement.[3] Yet almost before this series was put in place Titian was showing the diversity of his genius by the "Deposition," now in the Louvre, which was painted at the instance of the Gonzaga, Marquis of ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... front of it, until horses, lines, lash and cuss words drop in despair, and give it up. The desirable and necessary thing was to preserve the exact and delicate shape of the moldboard so that it would scour as bright as a new silver dollar in any soil, rolling and tossing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Dipping, tossing, rolling; the two privateers swooped down upon their prey, like hawks. She flew the yellow flag of Spain—and—as the first ball of lead cut across her bowsprit, it fluttered to the deck. Up went a white ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... intentions of Don John, drugged Philip copiously with calumnious reports and unwarrantable insinuations. Be that as it may, we are inclined to believe, among other matters of a very different complexion, that, without repugnance on the part of Philip, there was a tossing about for a time, in the lottery of events, a marriage between Don John and our beautiful and unfortunate Mary. There is a pleasure and a grace sometimes in idle speculation; but to the leisure of a happier fancy than ours we ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... a slight armament with which to run the gauntlet through countries swarming with hostile hordes, and a slight bark to navigate these endless rivers, tossing and pitching down rapids, running on snags and bumping on sand-bars; such, however, are the cockle-shells with which these hardy rovers of the wilderness will attempt the wildest streams; and it is surprising what rough shocks and thumps these boats will endure, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... waved aloft their weapons; but the men of Shadowy Vale who were standing amidst the men of the Face knew not how to demean themselves, and some of them ran forth into the Field and leapt for joy, tossing their swords into the air, and catching them by the hilts as they fell: and amidst it all the Woodlanders now stood silent, unmoving, as men abiding ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... Balakot to Chilas. The Kagan is a beautiful mountain glen. At places the narrow road looks sheer down on the river hundreds of feet below, rushing through a narrow gorge with the logs from the deodar forests tossing on the surface, and the sensation, it must be confessed, is not wholly pleasant. But again it passes close to some quiet pretty stretch of this same Kunhar. There are side glens, one of which opposite Naran contains ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... a particle of strength in my limbs. Then to assure myself the moving of the tree was not an illusion, I rubbed my eyes, pinched myself, called aloud; but it made no difference—the rustling, bending, and tossing still continued. Summing up courage, I stepped into the road to get a closer view, when to my horror my feet kicked against something, and, on looking down, I perceived the body of an English soldier, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... broke away from him and ran. He did not pursue her. The tall hedges tossing in the wind, the wide fields, the clouds driving over the sky and the sky itself wheeled about her in masses of green and white and blue as if the world were breaking up silently in a whirl, and her foot at the next step were bound to find the void. She reached the gate all right, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... contrived, by bribing the maid, to carry on the affair most successfully, and she agreed to run away with me: everything was ready, the postchaise was at the corner of the street, she came with her bundle in her hand. I thrust it into the chaise, and was just tossing her in after it, when she cried out that she had forgotten something, and must go back for it; and away she went, slipping through my fingers. Well, I waited most impatiently for her appearance, and at last saw her coming; and what d'ye think she'd ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... bottle out into the raging sea. Little did he know that it was the identical bottle which had contained the wine in which had been drunk the toasts of joy and hope for him and her, that was now tossing on the billows with these last remembrances, and the message ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... face again flushing painfully, tore the sheet into small bits, turning and tossing them into his waste basket. Then he again ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... the commotion, the second officer came on deck just as the sailor lost his hold. Tossing aside his cap, overcoat and jacket, he bade the seamen take a bowline hitch around his body and lower him away. The volunteer life-saver was cheered by the passengers as he went over. It was bitter cold, the sleet sharp and the swells ugly. A strong ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... are but the North star, And the moaning forest tossing wild arms before, The maiden murmurs, 'O sweet were yon bells afar, And hark! hark! hark! for he cometh, he ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... regime which the reader has noted—that regime of sloth and inaction which converted Tientietnikov's residence into a place of dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap of dust be left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing about the salon, and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not near the sofa. In short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov's mode of life become, that not only his servants, but even his very poultry ceased to treat him with respect. Taking ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... breeze, as it waned or strengthened, carried delicate perfumes to and fro. Yon was the sea, with well-defined horizon, and down below were the few smacks and the white yacht Laura, formally bowing to one another, or tossing their noses impudently; and, far away, was the following trail of brown smoke from some ship which had ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... dear boy; give him time to get off. What's the good of running up against him again? He is to vanish, it seems. What more do you want? Better go and lie down and get a little sleep; you have been tossing about all night, I expect. But everything ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... now light enough to scan the surface of the restless sea for some distance out, no struggling form could be seen battling with the waves; nor was there a single fragment of the wreck noticeable, tossing about on the billows that still rolled in thunderingly on the beach, marking out the contour of the bay with a line of white surf, which shone out in contrast to the glittering black sand that was ever and anon displayed ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... I saying? All is gone again. It seemed but now I was the little child Who played within a garden long ago. Beyond the walls the festal trumpets blared. Perhaps they carried some Madonna by With tossing ensigns in a sea of flowers, A painted Virgin with a painted Child, Who saw for once the sweetness of the sun Before they shut her in an altar-niche Where tapers smoke against the windy gloom. I gathered ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... the generation of the Bull by the Serpent and of the Serpent by the Bull, the biting of the testicles of the Bull by the Scorpion, on the Mithriac Monuments; and that Jupiter made Ceres with child by tossing into her bosom ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... similarly protected, and the fight would have ended in no more than a mauling all around, had not the mate, Walter Dakon, a very powerful man, hit upon the idea of ending the matter by tossing the mutineers overboard. This was joined in by Captain Nicholl, the surgeon, and myself, and in a trice five of the six were in the water and clinging to the gunwale. Captain Nicholl and the surgeon were busy amidships with the sixth, Jeremy Nalor, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... were not particular about the bearing of their similes. "Homer likens one of his heroes, tossing to and fro in his bed and burning with resentment, to a piece of flesh broiled on the coals." "The present Emperor of Persia," he continues, "conformable to the Eastern way of thinking, amidst a great many pompous titles, denominates himself the 'Son of Glory,' and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... excited, and even more self-conscious. It was as if she were in momentary expectation of being challenged by these hardy debaters: "Are not you a free-thinker?" Her interest was personal; the interest of one in peril. Compared to the discussions at the Cedars, this discussion was as the open, tossing, windy sea to a weed-choked canal. The talk veered into mere profane politics, and Mr. Orgreave, entrenching himself behind an assumption of careless disdain, was severely attacked by all his sons except Jimmie, who, above Hilda's left shoulder, pretended to share the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... schoolboys at a treat when we got the order to fix bayonets, for we knew we should fix them then. We had about 200 yards to cover before we got near them, and then we let them have it in the neck. It put us in mind of tossing hay, only we had human bodies. I was separated from my neighbors and was on my own when I was attacked by three Germans. I had a lively time and was nearly done when a comrade came to my rescue. I had already made sure of two, but the third would have finished me. I already had about three inches ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... He would put a great stone on his stomach, and, while he supported himself on his feet and hands, Luigi would break the stone with a sledge hammer. He, Cleofonte Fabiani, would lift her far above his head, tossing her to Luigi, who would catch her upon his shoulders. And the Signora meanwhile would juggle with a piece of paper, an egg, and a cannonball. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... of little Italians about me, all a-babbling their pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go down to the bay and get in an anchored boat, and lie there all the morning, catching the sunlight in my eyes, trimming the brown babies and the boat with flowers, looking off at the water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit, and laughing, and playing, and enjoying. Later, there'd be a run on the beach, and a ride on a donkey, and a dance, with delirious music and frolic. And then the moon and quiet,—and I would steal away from the crowd, and take a little boat, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... looked at her, and remembered the sailor-boy, who was, perhaps, tossing in some awful night-storm, or lying on the lonely deck, in the midst of the wide Atlantic. And she thought, that when her time came to love and be loved, she would not take everything ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... adjoining fields, who use them in common. Rain in harvest is very unusual; therefore the trouble and expense of covering them is considered unnecessary. At each of these threshing-centres I find a merry gathering of villagers, some threshing out the grain, others winnowing it by tossing it aloft with wooden, flat-pronged forks; the wind blows the lighter chaff aside, while the grain falls back into the heap. When the soil is sandy, the grain is washed in a neighboring stream to take out most of the grit, and then spread ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... bare ten inches from Wefers' madly tossing head. The constable, in his crazy panic, flung both bony arms about the dog. And, man and collie together disappeared under the surface, in a swirl ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... he piloted the column through the trackless forest. At night he slept in the same tent, stretched across the doorway. Despite the enormous fatigue, he slept the light sleep of the townsman, and often he was awakened by Durnovo talking aloud, groaning, tossing on his narrow bed. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... stood stock-still, then commenced pawing the ground, tossing his head and tail, bellowing, and eyeing Jack, who was leisurely moving towards him right in front. He had apparently grown tired of charging this figure that always eluded him, and was uncertain ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Harley came into his friend's room, Egerton was asleep. But the sleep seemed much disturbed; the breathing was hard and difficult; the bed-clothes were partially thrown off, as if in the tossing of disturbed dreams; the sinewy strong arm, the broad athletic breast, were partly bare. Strange that so deadly a disease within should leave the frame such apparent power that, to the ordinary eye, the sleeping sufferer seemed a model of healthful vigour. One ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... eye No longer could its distant track descry; 40 Till on the confines of the billows hoar A while it hung, and then was seen no more, And only the blue hollow cope I spied, And the long waste of waters tossing wide. More mournful then each falling surge I heard, Then dropt the stagnant tear upon my beard. Methought the wild waves said, amidst their roar At midnight, Thou shalt see thy son no more! Now thrice twelve moons through ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... what you mean by his being driven from home," said Mrs. Crawford, tossing her head. "He made himself disagreeable, and, not being able to have his own way, ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... To render it perfectly clean for eating, a point to which they are particularly attentive, it is put a second time into a lesung of smaller size, and, being sufficiently pounded without breaking the grains, it is again winnowed by tossing it dexterously in a flat sieve until the pure and spotless corns are separated from every particle of bran. They next wash it in cold water and then proceed to boil it in the ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... subjoining said: What is the matter, for God's sake, that we endeavor to solve this difficulty by the unintelligible fancied motion of the air, and neglect the tossing and divulsion thereof, which are evident? For Jupiter, the great ruler above, doth not covertly and silently move the little particles of air; but as soon as he appears, he ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... days, the Pic Bory had a way of tossing high into the air huge spouts of boiling lava, which rushed with great force down the mountain-side, overwhelming everything which came in the way. Now, just as gunpowder rammed into a cannon drives heavy balls ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... has seen death smite another beside one but flit close by oneself, I assure you, girl, it forces one to reflect. Oh, how dreadful the nights are in the sick chamber, with a night-light dimly burning and the sufferer moaning and tossing! Then my turn came to occupy the patient's position, and it was frightful. Can you not see I am much ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas |
