"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into the kitchen and the flute-player could hear the key turn in the lock behind them. Sure that, for the moment, his dear child was safe, he now went to the door, with measured, steady tread, and ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... manner in which an evolutionist can use his standard is the obsequious method of forecasting the course society would take but for him, and then putting an extinguisher on all personal idiosyncrasies of desire and interest, and with bated breath and tiptoe tread following as straight as may be at the tail, and bringing up the rear of everything. Some pious creatures may find a pleasure in this; but not only does it violate our general wish to lead and not ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... his cot, and began to dress himself; the sounds on deck having meanwhile ceased, save for the monotonous tread overhead of the officer of the watch, and the occasional clank of the wheel-chains. The ship was heeling over to starboard, showing that she was on the port tack, and the rushing sound of the water along her sides seemed to indicate that she was ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... dens, that the few might dwell in palaces. The many covered themselves with rags, that the few might robe themselves in purple and in gold. The many crept, and cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread upon their ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... hands upon their loins for fear; yet, where is the church, the house, the man that stands in the gap for the land, to turn away this wrath by repentance, and amendment of life? Behold the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the places of the earth, and the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. But what is the cause of all this?—For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Velvet carpets hushed the tread. Many costly toys were lying, All unheeded, by his bed; And his tangled golden ringlets Were on downy ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... he becomes wise through an influx of Divine Wisdom. He is able to distinguish between the real and the sham, between the gold and the dross: he is also able to see and recognize the right path in life—a thing utterly impossible to the mind of the senses—and to tread it, thus being led into the only true success and real good of which his ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not been able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to cover the thick white soles of their broad ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... be able at least to tread his hated head under my feet," said the king, grinding his teeth. "I shall no more tremble before this malicious enemy, who goes about among my people with his hypocritical tongue, while I, tortured with pain, sit in the dungeon of my sickroom. Yes, yes, I thank you, Douglas, that you ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... beautiful gliding form, The tread that would scarcely crush a worm, And the soothing song by the winter fire Soft as the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... rein a short distance from the platform, and made a sign with his hand. Immediately the twenty-five prisoners, the bard and druids passing last, mounted with calm tread the steps of the scaffold. One by one they placed their white heads on the block, and each one of the venerable heads, stricken off by the axe of the Moor, rolled at the feet of ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... Accustomed to tread carefully among the parts of speech Are a dozen additional spasms worth living for? Fiat voluntas MEA,—let my will be done Grief borne as men bear it, felt as women feel it Guides have queer notions occasionally He smiled ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... Note carefully from this, reader, with whom Malachy had his dwelling, what sort of princes they were, what sort of peoples. How is it that he also was not a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls?[763] And therefore the Lord gave him power to tread upon serpents and scorpions,[764] to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.[765] ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... as he suspected,—the rock was slightly worn by human feet; but of fresh tracks there could of course be no trace here, for only long and constant wear and tear, and not an occasional hurried tread, can leave marks behind. But Topanashka noticed a few fragments of rock and little bits of stone that lay alongside the old worn-out channel. Without lifting his head, he extended his arm, grasped some of the fragments, and ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... on both, and the next minute they heard the little old staircase creaking beneath her tread, this being followed by the cracking of the boards in the little room over the kitchen, the visitors both listening till all ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... 7th a strange, murmurous clangor arose from the British camp, and was borne on the moist air to the lines of their slumbering foes. The blows of pickaxe and spade as the ground was thrown up into batteries by gangs of workmen, the rumble of the artillery as it was placed in position, the measured tread of the battalions as they shifted their places or marched off under Thornton,—all these and the thousand other sounds of warlike preparation were softened and blended by the distance into one continuous humming murmur, which struck on the ears of the American sentries with ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... have now to turn to those matters of internal politics which had necessarily occupied much of Clarendon's attention while the war was in progress. Here, again, he had to tread a thorny path. It seemed as if there was no possible source of mischief which did not add something to his troubles. He saw that the recklessness of the courtiers was breeding irritation and contempt towards the Crown, and weakening the nerves ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... feeding, while at the same time they also manifest the ability to surmount a score of other obstacles which the combined ignorance and carelessness of their parents or caretakers unknowingly place in the pathway of early life which these little folks must tread. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... together, bowed stiffly, from the waist, in his formal manner, and left the room. Percy Roden followed him, leaving the door open. Dorothy heard the rustle of his dripping waterproof as he put it on, the click of the door, the sound of his firm retreating tread on the gravel. Then her brother came back into the room. His rather weak face was flushed. His eyes were unsteady. Dorothy saw this in a glance, and her own face hardened unresponsively. The situation was clearly enough defined in her own mind. Von Holzen had destroyed the prescription ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too, for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he stood by the chair where his father sat listening to him, as to a strain of sweet music long out of reach. Then Leonard Ward simply and bluntly told facts about the Pacific islands and islanders, that set hearts throbbing, and impelled more than one young heart to long to tread in ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... And in the silence was heard the voice of a minister in prayer. The little group of citizens gathered around him with bared heads. He prayed for the poor slave and for the recreant republic, for peace, and that no slave-hunter should again tread quietly the soil of Massachusetts. But Jamie heard him not. He was thinking over again the old trouble: how he could not take his salary—that was needed for restitution; how he could not ask the Bowdoins, or they would wonder where his ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory of living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly and speak moderately. They are generally a little weary if not cynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but they prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into new courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue. ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... on him. He took no notice of her; he stood frowning for an instant, then, with some muttered ejaculation, he strode back into the house. We heard his heavy tread across the drawing room; we heard the door slammed behind him, and I found myself looking ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... laundresses, mistresses of dairy-farms, head nurses (I speak of the good old sort only—women who unite a good deal of hard manual labour with the head-work necessary for arranging the day's business, so that none of it shall tread upon the heels of something else) set great value, I have observed, upon having a high-priced tea. This is called extravagant. But these women are "extravagant" in nothing else. And they are right in this. Real tea-leaf tea alone contains the restorative ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... here I tread, and the wheel goes round, And the dasher comes down with a weary sound; But after awhile the butter is done, Then off I go to some richer fun Than this ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the secure gate of heaven is open, shall we shut it against ourselves? Shall we be so faint-hearted as not to suffer for the name of Christ, who died for us? Our brethren invite us by their example: their blood is a loud voice, which presses us to tread in their steps. Shall we be deaf to a cry calling us to the combat, and to a glorious victory?" Full of this holy ardor, they all, with one mind, repaired to Caesarea, and of their own accord, by a particular instinct of grace, presented themselves before the governor, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the gate. All these niceties may seem absurd and supererogatory, but depend on it they have a direct and powerful agency in refining and polishing intercourse, just as begging a man's pardon, when you tread on his toe, has an effect to humanize, though the parties know no offence was intended. Circumstances once rendered it proper that I should leave a card for a Russian diplomate, an act that I took care he should know, indirectly, I went out of my way to do, as an acknowledgment for ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... heart Helen had always longed to tread the stage of society—to her mind, a fairyland of wit and gallantry, masquerades and music, to say nothing of handsome young polo players and titled admirers from foreign shores—"big fools," all of them, as you can guess, when dazzled by the ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... than of mere brute sense, which we call instinct. For instance, an elephant will do almost any thing which his keeper commands. If he would have him terrify a man, he will make towards him as if he meant to tread him in pieces, yet does him no hurt. If he would have him to abuse a man, he will take up dirt, or kennel water, in his trunk, and dash it in his face. Their trunks are long grisly snouts, hanging down betwixt their tusks, by some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... legs, and he was otherwise helpless and had distressing hallucinations). On Jan. 8th I walked to Cambridge. At both places I was occupied in preparations for the Smith's Prize Examination and for lectures (for the latter I obtained at Bury gaol some numerical results about tread-mills). ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... noiseless tread, A playful poise of the restless head, A sleepy song of sweet content, While slyly on schemes of mischief bent— 'Tis thus the days ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into oblivion, that our little island of daylight will soon be shrouded in the gathering mist, and that we tread at every instant on the dust of forgotten continents. We treat the men of past ages quite at our ease. We applaud and criticise Hampden or Chatham as we should applaud Peel or Cobden. There is no atmospheric effect—no sense of the dim march of ages, or of the vast procession of human life. It is ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... considered with the most wide-eyed care for human welfare; every man must act as if he were the first man made. Briefly, we must always be worrying about what is best for our children, and we must not take one hint or rule of thumb from our fathers. Some think that this anarchism would make a man tread down mighty cities in his madness. I think it would make a man walk down the street as if he were walking on egg-shells. I do not think this experiment in opportunism would end in frantic license; I think it would end in frozen timidity. ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Mrs. Yoop rose from her chair and walked through a doorway into another room. So heavy was the tread of the Giantess that even the walls of the big stone castle trembled as she stepped. She closed the door of her bedroom behind her, and then suddenly the light went out and the three prisoners found themselves in ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Three days after I arrived I heard above me, for the first time, the tread of his military boots. Now again my courage began to fail. I should have preferred to leave Archie's letter lying in my desk and know my neighbor only by his tread above me. I felt that perhaps I had been presumptuous in coming to live in the same house with him. ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... authority of Mr. Burges, those noble electrical lines (electrical for double reasons) which had struck me twenty times as Aeschylean, when I read them among the recognised fragments of Sophocles. You hear Aeschylus's footsteps and voice in the lines. No other of the gods could tread so heavily, or speak so ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the Scot—a radiancy of hope, which amounted even to cheerfulness; while, although pride and effort had recalled much of Conrade's natural courage, there lowered still on his brow a cloud of ominous despondence. Even his steed seemed to tread less lightly and blithely to the trumpet-sound than the noble Arab which was bestrode by Sir Kenneth; and the SPRUCH-SPRECHER shook his head while he observed that, while the challenger rode around the lists in the course of the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... words are lightly spoken by the young, who tread life's pathway with nimble feet, whose eager hands are outstretched to gather life's roses, regardless of thorns, whose voice is rippling with laughter and mirth, with blood coursing through the veins and bright eyes looking fearlessly into the future; ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... souls not to steal, not to lie, to save their clothes, to learn their lessons, to economise their money, to obey commands, not to contradict older people, say their prayers, to fight occasionally in order to be strong. But who teaches the new souls to choose for themselves the path they must tread? Who thinks that the desire for this path of their own can be so profound that a hard or even mild pressure towards uniformity can make the ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... & your youth excuses your ignorances, you would not else talk as you do—Our design is to march thro' your country, & if we find any fires in our way, we shall just tread them out as we walk along & if we meet with any obstacle or barrier we shall remove it with all ease, but the bystanders must take care lest the splinters should scar ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... me!" he sadly sighed. "My sons—my best beloved! Woe! Woe—alas!" And as he spake, e'en while his head, gold-crowned, Bent low in pain beneath the crushing blow, An arrow from the foe his armour smote, And pierced his breast, already rent with grief. Then stepped with hurried tread a servant forth, And plucked the arrow from its cruel feast, Rending his robe to stanch the purple stream. "Heed not the wound!" exclaimed the King. "Too late! "Where Heaven smites, men's blows are light indeed." Then bending o'er his breast his kingly head He wept aloud: "Rejected of the Lord; "My ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... he said as he entered the wood. "Them heels will leave marks that a redskin could pick up at a run. Now tread, as near as you can, in the exact spot where the Seneca has trodden before you. He'll follow in my track, and you may be sure that I'll choose the hardest bits of ground I can come across. There, the varmints are ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... of the fact that the party was depressed, and at least one of his guests rapidly becoming irritable. I watched the professor furtively as Ukridge talked on, and that ominous phrase of Mr. Chase's concerning four-point-seven guns kept coming into my mind. If Ukridge were to tread on any of his pet corns, as he might at any minute, there would be an explosion. The snatching of the dinner from his very mouth, as it were, and the substitution of a bread-and-cheese and sardines menu had brought ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... by the tread of some one mounting the stairs: it was the Prophet. Concealed in the shadow of the staircase, he had listened to this conversation, and he dreaded lest the weakness of the burgomaster should mar the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Bertram,'" sang the whirring wheels beneath them, to the other. While straight ahead before them both, stretched fair and beautiful in their eyes, the wondrous path of life which they were to tread together. ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... his turn, the Indian often followed the trail of the beast. Such beginnings are indiscernible for the most part, in the dusk of history, but we still trace many an old path that once knew the tread of moccasined feet." ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... house of lords to support me, except two peers, [Denbigh and Pomfret]; both the secretaries of state silent, and the lord chief justice, whom I myself brought into office, voting for me, yet speaking against me; the ground I tread upon is so hollow, that I am afraid, not only of falling myself, but of involving my royal master in my ruin. It is time for me to retire." Bute retired as proudly as he had exercised his office, for he neither asked for pension nor sinecure, and his retirement was followed by that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... shadowy doorway waits, silent and sombre, to receive us. That gate, the gate of death, seems to me, as in strength and health I sweep along the pleasant road of life, a terrible, an appalling place. But shall I feel so, when indeed I tread the threshold, and see the dark arches, the mysterious windows to left and right? It may prove a cool and secure haven of beauty and refreshment, rich in memory, echoing with melodious song. The poor beetle knows about it now, whatever it is; he ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... their homes. And this same curse Was laid on me, and laid by none but me. Yea with these hands all gory I pollute The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile? Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch Doomed to be banished, and in banishment Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones, And never tread again my native earth; Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire, Polybus, who begat me and upreared? If one should say, this is the handiwork Of some inhuman power, who could blame His judgment? But, ye pure and awful gods, Forbid, forbid that I should see that day! May I be blotted out from living ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... precipice, when, bidding her stand perfectly still and to cling firmly to the irregular surface of the rock, he once more lighted the short remaining end of paper, utilising its brief existence to note well the perilous path they had to tread. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... ring at the doorbell while she spoke and after a pause which appeared to her interminable, she heard the shuffling tread of old Abijah, and then the clear tone of Stephen's voice, followed immediately by another speaker who sounded vaguely familiar, though she could not recall now where she had listened to him before. It was not Julius Gershom, she knew, though it might be ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... through the woods down a slight incline, the Indians moving like so many phantoms. Not a branch rattled as they glided silently forward, not a leaf rustled beneath the soft tread of moccasined feet. De Artigny led me by the hand, aiding me to move quietly over the uneven ground, but made no effort to speak. Beside us, not unlike a shadow, strode the chief Sequitah, his stern face uplifted, shadowed by long ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... dingy place she stood in, and in imagination threw herself across the lowest step. Even at that miserable moment she was aware of the strong, the artistic, the effective thing to do. "And when he came down he might tread on me," she said to herself, with a little shudder. "I wish I had the courage. But no—it might hurt, after all. I ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... winding road no one was in sight, and from our elevation a view of the tiny town below could be glimpsed through the bare branches of the trees of the little mountain we were ascending; and about us was no sound save the crunch of the buggy-wheels on the gravel road, and the tread of the slow-moving horse. It was a new world we were in—a kindly, simple, strifeless world of peace and plenty, and calm and content, and the crowded quarters close to Scarborough Square, with their poignant ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... burden of our children. Though tired with long walking, we are not allowed to sleep, but must labor the whole night, in grinding maize to make chica for them. They get drunk, and in their drunkenness beat us, draw us by the hair of the head, and tread us under foot. A young wife is brought upon us and permitted to abuse us and our children. What kindness can we show to our female children, equal to that of relieving them from such servitude, more bitter a thousand times than death? I repeat again, would to God my mother had put me ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... very ecstasy of savage delight But, on looking at his trophy closely, he recognized the features of a friend, and, smitten with remorse, he replaced the head with much solicitude. Then, moving with a slow, measured tread, he wept, and with many sighs of grief adjusted the head with much care, caught rain in his shield and poured it over the body; then rubbed and shook the limbs, which by degrees became alive by his mesmeric-like passings and chafings ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... nursery! Once it had been one among a golden sea of helmets, sweeping across a great plain like a river. The sun smote upon gleaming bayonets, passing with the eternal regularity of waves. Last autumn the world had shaken under the tread of the ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... St. Patrick lately lost, which I told him I could not presently answer; though I might have easily furnished myself to answer all those questions. They stood a good while to see the ganders and geese tread one another in the water, the goose being all the while kept for a great while: quite under water, which was new to me, but they did make mighty sport of it, saying (as the King did often) "Now you shall see a marriage, between this and that," which did not please me. They gone, by coach ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... but their fields and flocks in the valley below were defenseless. The top of the several mesas can only be reached by ascending steep and difficult trails which are hard to climb but easy to defend. The paths on the mesas have been cut deep into the hard rock, which were worn by the soft tread of moccasined feet during centuries of travel, numbering, perhaps, several times the four hundred years that are ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... I mean, the wild pig. And it would seem that he, or she, who came that way was a pig, only a precious little one. You know the ways of a pig? How you can hear him coming long before he comes; how he must snuffle, and grunt, and poke dead leaves, and snort, and tread on things, and snore. Very good. So it was here; and these things did this new-comer, who approached through the mist—only all in a dwarfed way, as if they were done by a tiny grown-up pig. Its gruntings were almost to itself; its snortings, snorings, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... from him: "Not for me," he said: "Wish I could! They won't let me look at it." And walking over, to the window with a heavy tread, which trembled like his voice, he sat down. There was something in his gait like the movements of an elephant's hind legs. He was very tall (it was said, with the customary exaggeration of family tradition, that there never had been a male ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... It is for you to choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery, in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are feeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of trying ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... roaring streets, and the unruly pomp of a proud cardinal wended its scarlet way past kneeling citizens. Cavaliers ruffled it in the chequered walks, prelates and sages loaded the patient air with discourse, and phantom tuck of drum ushered a praise-God soldiery to emptied bursaries. With measured tread statesmen and scholars paced sober up and down the flags, absorbed in argument, poets roamed absent by, and Law and bustling Physic, learned and gowned and big with dignity, swept in and out the gates of colleges whose very fame, that spurred their young intent, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... man who had it in his power To make a kingdom tremble and adore. Intoxicate with folly, see his head Placed where the meanest of his subjects tread. Like Lucifer the giddy tyrant fell, He lifts his heel to Heaven, but ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended, and thousands inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready 'to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever,' they will protect freedom in her last asylums, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... officers and Tories, in derision, in the year 1775. When that animating tune is struck up in our Theatres, it electrifies the pit and the upper galleries. When our soldiers are marching to that tune, they "tread the air." "With that tune," said general M——, the same gallant officer, who took nine pieces of cannon from the British, planted on an eminence, at the battle of Bridgewater—"with that tune these fellows would follow me into hell, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Miscreants[FN77] went trampling heavy tread, * And she hath ta'en a vengeance dire on every Arab's head. A Kafir youth like fullest moon in darkness hands her round * Whose eyne are strongest cause of sin by ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... and think'st it much to tread the ooze Of the salt deep; to run upon the sharp Wind of the North; to do me business in The veins o' the earth when it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... impossible. To be silent, also impossible. "If I look at him he will think I am studying him, I am afraid; if I don't look at him, he'll think I'm thinking of other things. If I walk on tiptoe, he will be vexed; to tread firmly, I'm ashamed." Kitty evidently did not think of herself, and had no time to think about herself: she was thinking about him because she knew something, and all went well. She told him about herself even and about her wedding, and smiled and sympathized ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... wisest, thou, 'tis said, Full deeply in Life's page hast read, And many a clime hath known my tread; Tis pantoon olbiotatos? ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... they will happen to-morrow," said the Secret Friend. "But then there is so little difference between yesterday and to-morrow. How can you tell which is which? Only clocks and calendars are silly enough to tread on the tail of a little space between sunrise and sunset and call it to-day. How do you know which way ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... boys; their chiefs and councillors no wiser than old women. There was a time when they had no bow and arrow, no hatchet, no canoe, no cabin, no corn. They were ignorant and foolish as white men. They would have mistaken the track of the moose for that of a wild cat; they would have thought the tread of a land-tortoise the trail of the grey snake; they would have killed an owl and feasted upon it, for a heath-hen. They had nothing but feet to walk with, hands to catch fish with, and tongues which loved best to utter wicked ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... country town of sober habits and eminent respectability, but now the echoing emptiness of her streets was gone, the lights shone brilliantly across the Square, the air was full of the murmur of the crowd, the tread of heavy boots, the tinkling of spurs and glasses and the laughter of merry parties. Perspiring waiters and flustered waitresses fed the hordes in the hotels, while the baths worked overtime. The road to the camp lay ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... so fearfully proper! That head-waiter down-stairs, with his side-whiskers and his velvet tread and his confidential voice—why, when he came to take my order, I wanted to pull his hair or do something to turn him into a ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... immediately interested; and I allow myself to hope that I may have something to say not altogether undeserving your attention. I shall touch as little as possible on questions of opinion; and if I tread by accident on any sensitive point, I must trust to your ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... blessing his mother Rebekah joined hers: "For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy feet against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he hath ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... worthy known! Thou didst not keep Her soul in death. O keep not now, my Lord, Thy servants in far worse—in spiritual death And darkness—blacker than those feared shadows O' the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms, Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul, And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds With which the world hath pierc'd us thro' and thro'! Give us new flesh, new birth; Elect of heaven May we become, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... toes one may tread on is hardly in the style of St. Francis; and, after all, it is possible to be tremendously earnest about wrong things, and consumingly sincere in matters which are not perhaps definitely certain to advance the higher life of the human race. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... why should not the busy, curious, thirsty fly have equal right of access with any other insect?—yet Mr. Mix contrived to hold himself up to the public as a live reformer, but not a radical, and to the League as a radical but not a rusher-in where angels fear to tread. It required the equilibrium of a tight-rope walker, but Mr. Mix had it. Indeed, he felt as pleased with himself as though he had invented it. And he observed, with boundless satisfaction, that the membership of the League was steadily increasing, and that ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... evening. Her dress had all the accuracy and finish of a Parisian toilette, being equally removed from exaggeration and neglect; and it was worn with the ease of one accustomed to be elegantly attired, and yet never decked with finery. Her step even was that of a lady, having neither the mincing tread of a Paris grisette, a manner that sometimes ascends even to the bourgeoise the march of a cockneyess, nor the tiptoe swing of a belle; but it was the natural though regulated step, of a trained and delicate woman. Walk alone she could certainly, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... snake in the grass that ever ye see and the old lady, she clean fell in with him, but Ruth, she seemed to have a regular spite agin him. And she that war as gentle as a lamb, that never had so much as a hard thought of a mortal critter, and wouldn't tread on a worm, she was so set agin Jeff, that she wouldn't so much as touch his hand when she got ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... were heading, was what at first appeared to be a frieze of small rounded balls; but a nearer view resolved these into human heads, in various stages of desiccation. Evidently justice in Dunkhot was determined that the criminal who once passed through its hands should no more tread ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... feet which tread in lowliest ways, Yet follow Christ, Are by the secular lords of power and praise Both ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... beauty was still queen in her circle, and found admirers in plenty. Perhaps she even enjoyed the freedom; for, to a woman of spirit, the constraints of taboo must be irksome at times. Not the Brahmin, who fears to tread upon sole-leather from the sacred cow, and dares not even think of the flavor of her forbidden beef, who keeps himself haughtily aloof from the soldier and the trader, and walks sunward from the pariah, lest the polluting shadow fall on his holy person, has a more difficult and engrossing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... A gruff voice was audible at the same time, which demanded in rather more energetic language than was usually employed in that orderly establishment, whether the principal was to be seen or not. The answer was evidently in the affirmative, for the lumbering tread came rapidly nearer, and a powerful double knock announced that the visitor was at the other side ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the Christian bard, rich in the glowing colors caught from Sicilian skies, hovering about the sunny flowers, itself like a winged flower—in this spot, and this scene, the brother and the sister sat together for the last time on earth. You may tread now on the same place; but the garden is no more, the columns are shattered, the fountain has ceased to play. Let the traveler search amongst the ruins of Pompeii for the house of Ione. Its remains are yet visible; but I will not betray them to the gaze of commonplace ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... nothing compared to Paris in July. The asphalt melts underfoot; the wood pavement is simmering in a viscous mess of tar; the ideal is forced to descend again and again to iced lager beer; the walls beat back the heat in your face; the dust in the public gardens, ground to atoms beneath the tread of many feet, rises in clouds from under the water-cart to fall, a little farther on, in white showers upon the passers-by. I wonder that, as a finishing stroke, the cannon in the Palais Royal does ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... knowledge of nature, men, and books? How could he paint with such exact fidelity the peculiar scenery pertaining exclusively to the subject in question, when he can be proved never to have left London? What time had he to tread the 'blasted heath,' or describe the aspect of Glammis Castle? How could he accomplish all this? Why, simply, and naturally, and easily—by affording his poet all the requisite leisure, and defraying ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... this position by a lever made of a piece of rail, which in turn was kept in its place by a wire fastened to one end and passing down to a spring concealed in the ground inside the cage. As soon as the lion entered sufficiently far into the trap, he would be bound to tread on the spring; his weight on this would release the wire, and in an instant down would come the door behind him; and he could not push it out in any way, as it fell into a groove between two rails ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... ne'er upon the Holy Land 'Tis mine in life to tread, Bear thou to Scotland's kindly earth The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the people half the time; but you cannot fool all the people all the time." But the German people, as a people, lacks this irreplaceable heritage of political self-respect. It has never yet dared to tread the path of democracy without leading strings. It has not yet learned to think for itself in politics, or formed the habit of free discussion and practical criticism of public affairs. This is the vital fact which must be borne in mind in all ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... still stood stoutly and sturdily in his thick shoes of cowhide, like one accustomed to tread independently the soil of his own acres,— his broad, honest face seamed by care and darkened by exposure to "all the airts that blow," and his white hair flowing in patriarchal glory beneath his felt hat. A genial, jovial, large-hearted old man, simple as a child, and betraying, neither ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... in by this time, and Dr. Rylance came gliding across the room with his gentlemanly but somewhat catlike tread, and planted himself behind Ida, bending down to question her about her music, and letting her see that he admired her as much as ever, and had even forgiven her for refusing him. But she rose as soon as she decently could, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... nothing of that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die, lay upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread on, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this can mean ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... Stanza ix. "There, Thou! whose Love and Life together fled,"— Stanza xv. "Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on Thee,"— Stanza lii. "Oh! where, Dodona! is thine aged Grove?"— Stanza lxiii. "Mid many things most new to ear and eye,"— Stanza lxxx. "Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground,"— Stanza lxxxiii. "Let such approach this consecrated Land,"— Stanza lxxxiv. "For thee, who thus in too protracted song,"— Stanza lxxxv. "Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... these subjects I can offer no other consolations than what are derived from religion: they have only gone before us a little while, in that path we all must tread, and we should be thankful they were spared so long to ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... dost suggest; moreover, they would go away and babble to others of what they had seen, and much of the glory and splendour of thy first appearance in those magnificent garments would be wasted. Wait until to-morrow, O Elephant whose tread causes the earth to tremble with fear, and then—when the whole army is gathered together, and all can see thee at the same moment—thou shalt reveal thyself in all thy magnificent splendour, and—and—words fail ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... and perhaps this woman also. He held his breath in suspense. What did it mean? The tone of Girasole was not the tone of love. The light drew nearer, and the footsteps too—one a heavy footfall, the tread of a man; the other lighter, the step of a woman. He ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... courage in the expression of their literary opinions. It may be said, of course, that this is due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known line may be quoted (for some people, as I have said, are rude) in which certain angels (who are not women) are represented as being afraid to tread in certain places. But I am speaking of women who are great readers. Miss Martineau once confessed to me that she could see no beauties in 'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but apart from ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... company of Nibelungs, armed with whips, and marching with a stately tread. They post themselves about the apartment. Enter another company supporting KING ALBERICH. He is grey-haired and very feeble, but ferocious-looking, and somewhat taller than the others. His robe is lined with ermine, and he carries a gold Nibelung whip—a short handle of gold, with leather thongs. ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... Little Russian rise and begin to walk. The tread of his bare feet sounded on the floor, and a low, mournful whistle was heard. Then ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... sadness until it was like the approach of death. O terrible words! Yet it was what she had feared, even when she had dared to hope for forgiveness. Now she knew what her life after death was to be since the word had been spoken by those inspired lips. O dreadful destiny! To dwell alone, to tread alone that desert desolate, that illimitable waste of burning sand stretching from star to star through infinite space, where was no rock nor tree to give her shade, no fountain to quench her fiery thirst! For that was ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... a field of rye gently shaken by the wind. How the breezes are defined upon its surface—a surface as sensitive as that of water; how they trip along, little breezes and big breezes together! Just as this glaucous green surface of the rye-field bends beneath the light tread of the winds, so, we are told, the crust of the earth itself bends beneath the giant strides of ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend 450 Doth close behind him tread. ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... earnestly, soft and low, How she'd do her part in this world of strife, And humbly look to him to know The path that her feet should tread through life— Her pastor yawneth behind his hat, And wondereth ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... character which gives it such immense value as a reservoir of moisture and a regulator of the flow of springs; and, finally, it exposes the surface-roots to the drying influence of sun and wind, to accidental mechanical injury from the tread of animals or men, and, in cold climates, to the destructive ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... shall I get by? I am sure I don't want to tread upon those butterflies. I will sit down here, myself, on a stone, and wait till they get rested and fly away. Besides, I am tired myself, and I shall ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... burst manacles, she went mad: Her heart a flaring torch usurped her wits. Such enemies of her next-drawn breath she had! To tread her down in her live grave beneath Their dancing floor sunned blind by the Royal wreath, They ringed her steps with crafty prison pits. Without they girdled her, made nest within. There ramped the lion, here entrailed the snake. They forced the cup to her lips when she drank blood; Believing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Tread softly!" said the giant, pointing to a light with a golden helmet who was leaning against a door, made of rock, apparently fast asleep. But before the words had been out of his mouth, Cask stumbled and the iron on the heel of his shoe struck a stone so forcibly ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... of the life of the Eternal Pilgrim, the inner Man, the human Soul, during a cycle of incarnation. Before he commences his new pilgrimage—for many pilgrimages lie behind him in the past, during which he gained the powers which enable him to tread the present one—he is a spiritual Being, but one who has already passed out of the passive condition of pure Spirit, and who by previous experience of matter in past ages has evolved intellect, the self-conscious mind. But this evolution by experience is far from being complete, even so far ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... kettle was to be filled, Dinah came in—my Dinah—her sleeves rowled up to the elbow an' her hair in a winkin' glory over her forehead, the big blue eyes beneath twinklin' like stars on a frosty night, an' the tread av her two feet lighter than wastepaper from the colonel's basket in ord'ly-room whin ut's emptied. Bein' but a shlip av a girl she went pink at seein' me, an' I twisted me moustache an' looked at a picture forninst the wall. Niver show a woman that ye care the snap av a finger for her, an' ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... her to be strong, even if slight, and abrim with health. When she walked away with that supple, feathered tread of hers, so firm and yet so light, the vitality of her physique ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... fetters that bound him to a far from enchanted East, and began to squirm with the first tickling sensations of an ambition that had never really made itself felt, even in the old days of successful achievement among men who were content to tread the beaten and commonplace highway toward riches. The spirit of the West gripped him in its great, enveloping hands, picked him out of the slough and set him down again, plump upon his two feet, high and dry, prodding him violently all the while with a spur that would not permit him ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... The gods these armies and this force employ, The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy. But lift thy eyes, and say, what Greek is he (Far as from hence these aged orbs can see) Around whose brow such martial graces shine, So tall, so awful, and almost divine! Though some of larger stature tread the green, None match his grandeur and exalted mien: He seems a monarch, and his country's pride." Thus ceased the king, and thus ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... was a quiverful of arrows. From a sheath hanging about his neck on a thong, projected the battered handle of a hunting knife. He was as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with almost a catlike tread. In marked contrast with his sunburned skin were his eyes—blue, deep blue, but keen and sharp as a pair of gimlets. They seemed to bore into aft about him in a way that was habitual. As he went along he smelled things, as well, his distended, quivering ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... that he shone like the summit of Meru. Himself shedding such effulgence, and bearing that circular bow in his hand, he looked like a second sun in autumn. That bull among men, possessing the shoulders and the tread and eyes of a bull, looked in the midst of thy troops, like a bull in a cow-pen. Thy warriors approached him from desire of slaughter like a tiger approaching the leader, with rent temples, of an elephant-herd, standing proudly in the midst of his herd, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the elder traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that of the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two shaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... away from this group Ted observed a man dressed in Indian garb, who yet did not act like the other Indians. An Indian has a peculiar, slouching walk, while this man strode about with the smarter, quicker, springier tread ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... tribune with slow and deliberate tread, he drew up his tall figure, and resting his left hand, which grasped a roll of papers, upon the marble slab, glanced around on the turbulent billows of upturned and excited faces, as if at a loss how to address them. Having read the bill, after the usual prefatory remarks, ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... of the blanquers,—instruments of barbarous sonority, so large that their weight forced the drummers to bow their necks. Flom! Rotoplom! they resounded, hoarse and menacing, with savage solemnity, as if they were still marking the tread of the revolutionary German regiments, sallying forth to the encounter with the emperor's young leader,—that Don Juan of Aragon, duke of Segorbe, who served Victor Hugo as the model for his romantic personage Hernani! Flom! Rotoplom! The people ran for good places ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... house belongs, Who with his soft Pipe, and smooth-dittied Song, Well knows to still the wilde winds when they roar, And hush the waving Woods, nor of lesse faith, And in this office of his Mountain watch, Likeliest, and neerest to the present ayd 90 Of this occasion. But I hear the tread Of hatefull steps, I must ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton |
