"Harmlessly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked steadily into the priest's eyes. There was something lurking in his gaze which would have caused many a brave man to lower his eyes, But there was a vein of fine metal in this priest's composition; and the vicomte's glance broke harmlessly. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... ways of getting some message to the outside world; but nothing came of it. They could do nothing more than scribble notes on pages torn from the diary and throw them from the tops of the windows into the light-well, where they fell harmlessly into the rubbish heap that gathered unnoticed in the corners. The day wore monotonously along and was succeeded by another and another. Then a note was found shoved under the front ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... turned again, but Wolfe was behind and pressed him forward, and again the noble animal strained every nerve for the shore. Louis now shot his arrow, but it swerved from the mark. He was too eager; the arrow glanced harmlessly along the water. But the cool, unimpassioned hand of Hector sent another arrow between the eyes of the doe, stunning her with its force; and then another from Louis laid her on her side, dying, and staining the water ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... was embedded in the mud of the river bottom and the other end of which floated just beneath the surface where the prow of Malbihn's canoe ran upon it as he fired. The slight deviation of the boat's direction was sufficient to throw the muzzle of the rifle out of aim. The bullet whizzed harmlessly by Meriem's head and an instant later she had disappeared into ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... around took up the hue and cry. The shots multiplied, with much shouting and uproar, soon sounding on both sides and ahead and behind me, while the whistling language shrilled from every gully and hillside. Evidently drunken peons were harmlessly celebrating their Sunday holiday, but the shots sounded none the less weirdly out of the black night as I stumbled on over the rocky, tumbled country, for the only smooth way thereabouts was the Milky Way faintly seen overhead. Gradually ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... words were brought out so abruptly, that to the five pairs of ears strained to catch their import, it seemed as if the news had shot by harmlessly. But after a breathing space the dreadful "marry," and "your mother," came back to them, bringing the several owners of the ears out of their chairs ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... doorway, with only a glint of steel, as the muzzle was shoved around the jamb. The bullet crashed harmlessly into the wall behind him. Another try. The sharp, stifling odor of burned powder began to fill the room, stinging the nostrils of Sinclair. Cartwright was coughing in a stifled fashion on the far side of the room, as if he feared a loud noise would ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Confederates. Suddenly she heard the click of a musket lock just beneath her, and, looking down, saw Perkins levelling a piece at Scoville. Quick as light she drew off her slipper and dashed it into the man's face as he fired. By reason of his disconcerted aim the bullet flew harmlessly by the Union officer, who gave a quick, stern glance toward his assailant, recognized him, and ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... weight, and landed squarely across the left foot of the pursuer. Dalton let out a fearful yell, while his revolver fell to the floor. There was a flash and a crashing explosion in that confined space; the weapon had been harmlessly discharged. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... with his knife and fork, smilingly. An acute observer might have imagined that the passionate plaint was directed at him. If so it passed harmlessly over his broad shoulders. In his immaculate evening dress he looked strangely out of place there. Enid had escaped the prevailing dilapidation, but her gown of grey homespun was severe as the garb ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... display of tinsel banners and buffoonery, does not supply the most natural way of reviving the memory of departed genius. At the same time, they have their use, where they do not create their ridicule. On the Continent, life is idle; and the idlers are more harmlessly employed going to those pageants, than in the gin-shop. The finery and the foolery together also attract strangers, the idlers of other towns; it makes money, it makes conversation, it makes amusement, and it kills time. Can it have better recommendations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... realize that it was a man, for he seemed a weird jungle spirit, a goblin of the forest. Only Binu Charley was not perturbed. He flung his poisoned spear over the head of the captive at the flitting form. It was a mighty cast, well intended, but the shadow, leaping, received the spear harmlessly between the legs, and, tripping upon it, was flung sprawling. Before he could get away, Binu Charley was upon him, clutching him by his snow-white hair. He was only a young man, and a dandy at that, his face blackened with ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... conflicts in the whole history of Spain, famous not for the numbers engaged, but for the issue involved. The future of Spain dwelt in the hands of that group of patriots. The fight in the valley was sharp, but one-sided. The Moslem arrows rebounded harmlessly from the rocky sides of the cave, whose entrance could be reached only by a ladder, while the Christians, hurling their missiles from their point of vantage into the crowded mass below, punished them so severely that the advance was forced back upon those that crowded the defile in the rear. Al ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... round cheeks like the brasswork of a locomotive, his neck well wound and buttressed with thick comforter and collar, heedeth not, but goes on his round, now fast, now slow, always stolid and rubicund, the rain running harmlessly from him as if he were oiled. The conductor, perched like the showman's monkey behind, hops and twists, and turns now on one foot and now on the other as if the plate were red-hot; now holds on with one hand, and ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... the best and clearest light that your superstition can throw on it. What are you? You are a helpless instrument in the hands of Fate. You are doomed, beyond all human capacity of resistance, to bring misery and destruction blindfold on a man to whom you have harmlessly and gratefully united yourself in the bonds of a brother's love. All that is morally firmest in your will and morally purest in your aspirations avails nothing against the hereditary impulsion of you toward evil, caused ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Janet by force: but the President interfered, and said authoritatively to Lady Carse that she had better go: her time was not yet come. She must wait; and his advice was to wait patiently and harmlessly. ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... arrow again hit the centipede right in the middle of its head, but instead of glancing off harmlessly as before, it struck home to the creature's brain. Then with a convulsive shudder the serpentine body stopped moving, and the fiery light of its great eyes and hundred feet darkened to a dull glare like the sunset of a stormy day, and then went out in blackness. A great darkness ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... art of varying their games to make them pleasanter, without the least bit of constraint to transform them into work; for what games do they play in which I cannot find material for instruction for them? And even if I could not do so, so long as they are amusing themselves harmlessly and passing the time pleasantly, their progress in learning is not yet of such great importance. But if one must be teaching them this or that at every opportunity, it cannot be done without constraint, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... whistled, the Gunki came running from every direction; but it was the Echo who saved the Teacup's life. With great presence of mind she spread out her cerulean plumes so that the Teacup settled upon them harmlessly, instead of crashing down upon the hard emerald bottom and shattering to bits. Then, of course, Schlorge could very easily reach down and draw ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... annihilate and destroy, the ninety-four pound projectile passed overhead, sweeping half the corrugated-iron roof from the railway-official's late dwelling with a fiendish clatter and din, as it passed harmlessly over the Women's Laager, and, wrecking a sentry's shelter on the western line of defences, burst harmlessly upon the veld beyond, blotting out the low hills behind a curtain ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Escombe's threatened invocation of Britain's might and majesty seemed to discompose those obstinate Indians not at all; to use his own expression when talking of it afterwards, his threats glanced off them as harmlessly as water off a duck's back, and all that they seemed in the least concerned about was his welfare and comfort during the journey. With much solicitude Tiahuana enquired whether it would please him ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... hundred socialists made their way into Belgium, and used every effort to induce the people to join them, but in vain,—a few only, who like themselves, held extreme and impracticable views of democracy, made any insurrectionary movement; and the affair exploded as harmlessly as Smith O'Brien's abortive attempt at revolution in Ireland. Had any success, short of a complete revolution, attended the efforts of the French "sympathisers," the armed intervention of England might have been necessitated, and another ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... you apply that to everything," I said, "old friendships, old affections, old memories? They seem to me beautiful, and harmlessly beautiful." ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... below the mangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little children: a boy and a girl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turn at the mangle, it was alarming to see how it lunged itself at those two innocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlessly retiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and neat. It had a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce hanging below the chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top outside the window on which scarlet-beans ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... want to get this powder in a safe place. I'm a little nervous about it after that fire. You see if it had caught, when tightly packed in the boxes, there would have been a terrific explosion, though it does burn so harmlessly in the open air. Now let ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... then the soma was brought to him by an eagle. What these straits were is indicated in another hymn (IV. xxvii.), which tells us that he was imprisoned, and escaped on the back of the eagle, which he compelled to carry him; the watchman Krisanu shot an arrow at the bird, but it passed harmlessly through its feathers. Evidently in the story Indra had a hard struggle with rival gods. One poet says (RV. IV. xxx. 3): "Not even all the gods, O Indra, defeated thee, when thou didst lengthen days into ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... who was harmlessly negative and inoffensively polite; Roderick Colloden, who, after Macloud, was the most popular man in the set, a tall, red haired chap, who always seemed genuinely glad to meet anyone in any place, and whose handshake gave emphasis to it. He had not a particularly ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... young cavalier crouch at her feet. How this was to be contrived could only be guessed at by a woman, and we will not let the reader into all the secrets of Kate's sanctuary. Suffice it to say, that in so harmlessly attempting to beguile her prey into the snare, the lady fell over head and ears into it herself. In a word Kate was in love! And this was the more grievous, inasmuch as her lofty bearing hitherto would not allow her to whisper the matter even to her own bosom; and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... pro- [10] moters of health and happiness. All education should contribute to moral and physical strength and freedom. If a cold could get into the body without the assent of mind, nature would take it out as gently, or let it remain as harmlessly, as it takes the frost out of the ground or [15] puts it into the ice-cream to the satisfaction ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... but he moved an instant too late, for even as his fingers tightened on the trigger the steel heel-plate descended in the center of his face, and I felt something crunch in under it. He staggered sideways, there was a crash as the rifle exploded harmlessly, and before he could recover I had him by the neck and hurled him half-choked through the door. I had the sense to slam it and slip the bolt home; then, while I stood panting, the Colonel ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... fire-rafts. The squadron slipped their chains, the three larger vessels, by direction of the senior officer, retreating down the Southwest Pass to the sea; but in the attempt to cross, the Richmond and Vincennes grounded on the bar. The fire-rafts drifted harmlessly on to the western bank of the river, and then burned out. When day broke, the enemy's fleet, finding the head of the passes abandoned, followed down the river, and with rifled guns kept up a steady but ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... twisted paper end of a stick of dynamite and watch the dynamite burn like wax in your fingers; it MAY go off and set your friends to work retrieving portions of your body. More likely, it will do nothing but burn harmlessly. ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... the decent vegetation of the human soul. Cannot we get some great beneficent mechanic to invent some spiritual cement, some asphalt and gravel of nothingness, some thoroughly pneumatic intellectual balls, whereon, and also wherewith, we privileged creatures may harmlessly expend our waste ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... haste that the fist had missed the jaw for which it was aimed. Martin turned as he staggered, and saw the fist coming at him in a wild swing. Quite as a matter of course he ducked, and the fist flew harmlessly past, pivoting the man who had driven it. Martin hooked with his left, landing on the pivoting man with the weight of his body behind the blow. The man went to the ground sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin saw his passion-distorted face and wondered what could ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... stood at that moment. She was unwilling to let him see how the remembrance hurt her—that was all. A sad, sad story; but it must be told. In her mother's time she had been the sweetest, the most lovable of children. In later days, under the care of her mother's friend, her girlhood had passed so harmlessly and so happily—it seemed as if the sleeping passions might sleep forever! She had lived on to the prime of her womanhood—and then, when the treasure of her life was at its richest, in one fatal moment she had flung it away on the man in whose ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... struck at him. Hal dodged the blow and stepped back. He would have avoided a fight if possible. But the Frenchman stepped after him and struck again. Again Hal dodged and the blow passed harmlessly over his head. The lad struck out quickly with his right and caught the Frenchman a hard blow upon the side of the neck. Big man though he was, the Frenchman toppled over. Hal walked back to where he had left Chester, donned his coat and ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... Marchand, going at full speed, delivered her blow also at right angles on the port side, abreast the after end of the armored superstructure. As they swung round, both United States vessels fired such guns as would bear, but the shot glanced harmlessly from the armor; nor did the blow of the ships themselves produce any serious injury upon the enemy, although their own stems were crushed in for several feet above and below the water line. Upon them followed the Hartford, approaching, like the Lackawanna, on the port side; but ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... allowed the bullet that was discharged at that moment to pass harmlessly over his crown and bury itself in the bank beyond. The next instant the trapper dashed through the water, reaching the shore before the savage could reload. To his disappointment and chagrin, the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... spearmen crowded round, and struck him to the earth. The lances glanced harmlessly off his body, and never left so much ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... of the Monitors. This vessel, with her appendage, happened to be the first to receive the fire of Fort Sumter, and after a quarter of an hour Monitor and Devil got foul of one another, when both came to grief, and the latter floated harmlessly ashore. It seems to have been composed of double twenty-inch beams, forming a sort of platform or stage fifty feet long by twenty broad, from which depended chains with grappling irons to rake up hostile torpedoes. The machine was also provided ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... engrossed in their own trouble to be greatly impressed. One wing had barely escaped damage with the tilting of the machine, and the near-catastrophe chilled them both with the memory of a certain other forced landing which had not ended so harmlessly. They climbed down soberly ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... with all our saintly milksops on board the yacht. At six Blair and Tom were astir; soon afterwards came the ladies and the other men, and the company chatted harmlessly until the merry breakfast hour was over; their palates were pure; their thoughts were gentle, and, although a Cape buffalo may be counted as rather an unobtrusive vocalist in comparison with Mr. Lennard, yet, on the whole, the conversation was profitable, and generally refined. Tom's roars ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... reins, seized his whip and slashed it at Cranbourne's head. Cranbourne caught the whistling thong and tugged hard, with the result that the driver, who held on to the butt, lost his balance, pitched forward on to the flank of the nearside dray horse and rolled harmlessly on to the road. Cranbourne embraced the opportunity to get out, seized the bit rings of both horses and backed them away from the debris ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... shots after them in quick succession, but they fell harmlessly to port. The quick swinging of the Mariella out of her course had disconcerted ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... shouted; and I saw a shudder of terror run over Desiree's face as she, too, recognized the black form below. At the same instant the spear darted forward from the hand of the Child of the Sun, but it landed harmlessly against the rock several ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... speed every moment—they could get no nearer, try as they would. At length one of them bethought himself of the rifle, which he picked up and with some difficulty loaded; then, standing up unsteadily in the stern-sheets, he pointed and fired the piece, harmlessly so far as the fugitives were concerned, but not so for himself, for the recoil and his intoxicated condition together combined to upset his equilibrium so completely that as the piece exploded he staggered backwards and, amid the jeers ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... B.J. dropped face down on the ice, and the boat passed harmlessly over him, the runner ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... raised the spear, and darted it front him like an arrow. At that instant the buck turned, the long pole glanced by him, the iron striking against his horn, and buried itself harmlessly in ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... look out for himself. I sprang forward with an ejaculation of wrath, and with all my strength struck at him with the poker, which I still held in my hand. If he had been anything but a ghost, he would have been split vertically from top to toe; but as it was, the poker passed harmlessly through his misty make-up, and rent a great gash two feet long in Jarley's divan. The yellow sneer faded from his lips, and a maddening ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... shuddered, shot out their tons of high-explosive shell. But the pirate commander had known accurately the strength of the liner, and knew that her armament was impotent against the forces at his command. His screens were invulnerable, the giant shells were exploded harmlessly in mid-space, miles from their objective. And suddenly a frightened pencil of flame stabbed brilliantly from the black hulk of the enemy. Through the empty ether it tore, through the mighty defensive screens, through the tough ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... he answered. This was exactly in his accustomed manner, and as they went down-stairs together her heart felt lighter, though the long, black, shiny pin stuck harmlessly into the upholstery of the sofa was like a mile-stone, for afterward she remembered that her ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... impulse of rejuvenescence that has come to Biarritz. Bayonne has no potentialities. It will continue in its afternoon of peace, of easy, quiet thrift, contentedly aside from the main current of events, recounting its traditions, prodigiously and harmlessly proud of its local prestige; like a tribal chieftain of the homage of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... repeated and the number of times she came to confession. But when we came to look over her personal effects in the drawers and boxes of the shop, there could be no doubt but that she had been thoroughly though harmlessly insane. We found I should think about one hundred and fifty boxes: from tiny little ones of pasteboard to large square ones of deal, full of rows and rows of white quilled ribbon, similar to the piece I had seen her working at on that last night of her life ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... bullet fired in the direction whence the voice was heard. His shot was answered by a perfect volley from men who could just be discerned creeping through the grass about four hundred yards out. The bullets rattled harmlessly against wooden walls and iron shutters, or came with a thud against the mattress fortifications of the verandah. The firing was all directed against the front of ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... aimed at Harley's face, he blocked with his forearm; and, before the man could make a second kick, Jerry erupted on the scene. Nor did he need encouragement or direction from his love-master. He flashed at the man, sinking his teeth harmlessly into the slack of the man's trousers at the waist-band above the hip, but by his weight dragging him half down to ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... They were all here—four or five heat-ray hand projectors that could send a pencil-ray a hundred feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped back out of sight. The heat-beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the turret roof. Then across the turret window came a sheen of radiance—an electro-barrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face appeared. He ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... discharged, but harmlessly into the air, as both rookies tackled the corporal and bore ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... the backs of their ponies and gave them the spur. The shot they had expected rang out, passing harmlessly over them. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... of other little things in order, by the knowledge of them, to show off as scholars. Conceit and curiosity are closely related. Women therefore often attain information that might cause them to be listed as suspects if it could not be harmlessly explained by conceit. Conceit, however, has itself to be explained by the struggle for men, because woman knows instinctively that she can use knowledge in this struggle. And this struggle for the other sex frequently betrays woman's own crime, or ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... entering into battle and to restore self control and confidence. Besides, by getting into action, our artillery was now focusing the attention and drawing the fire of the Russian guns, for most of the latter's shells whined harmlessly above us, being aimed at the batteries in our rear. Considerably relieved by this diversion, we resumed our forward movement after about fifteen minutes of further rest, our goal being the little chain of hills which our advance guard ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... rage and pain, as his arm was forced upward, the prisoner's hand lost its grip on the weapon and it clattered harmlessly to the ground. ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... were within bow-shot, the enemy broke and ran in utter disorder; the infantry were spitted on each other's spears, and trampled by the cavalry who came scurrying on to them. The chariots, turning in like manner upon their own friends, whirled about among them by no means harmlessly; it was a Homeric scene of 'rumbling tumbling cars'; when once the horses shied at those formidable elephants, off went the drivers, and 'the lordless chariots rattled on,' their scythes maiming and carving any ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... fees for half the family." Peter wished she would turn the lightning upon Denzil, a conductor down whom it would run innocuously. He stooped down and picked up the pieces as carefully as if they were cuttings from the Koh-i-noor. Thus the lightning passed harmlessly over his ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... the world, even a bishop, would have sworn; would have sworn no doubt harmlessly and with an honest heartiness to which the most pious prude could not have taken exception. Agreed! But the ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... unchivalrous attack on him, throwing his arms round his body, and striving to hurl him from the saddle; but Edward sat firm as a rock, and, touching his horse with his spur, caused it to bound forward, dragging the Count to the ground, where he lay, encumbered with his heavy armor; and Edward, after harmlessly ringing on the steel with his sword, forced him to surrender to an archer, as one unworthy to be reckoned a knight. A fight had, in the meantime, taken place between the attendants on either side, and so many of the men of the French party were killed, that the fray was termed the Little ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sense of the sweetness of her lost friendship followed upon the antic notion. No; for once he could not go to Mrs. Bowen. He recollected now the many pleasant talks they had had together, confidential in virtue of their old acquaintance, and harmlessly intimate in many things. He recalled how, when he was feeling dull from the Florentine air, she had told him to take a little quinine, and he had found immediate advantage in it. These memories did strike him as grotesque or ludicrous; he only felt their pathos. He was ashamed even to seem ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... frightened outcry from the women; but Thayer swerved slightly to one side, and the glass crashed harmlessly against the mantel. There followed the tinkle of the falling pieces, then a stillness so profound that from one end to the other of the long room Lorimer's heavy breathing was distinctly audible. The impending crisis ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... intrude upon his land. As Torres paid no attention, the chief drew a line upon the sand, and defied the Spaniards to cross it. Torres immediately stepped over it, and the natives launched some arrows at him, which dropped harmlessly from his iron armour. Then the Spaniards fired their muskets, killing the chief and a number of the naked savages. The rest stood for a moment, stupefied at the noise and flash; then turned and ran for ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... and pretty women. Interesting men cared to talk to them: they told them things they would never tell a plain woman. Rodney did. He liked attractive women. Sometimes he made love to them, prettily and harmlessly. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike me?" But even as the words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward and a few eyes glanced backward, as if to see the invisible enemy. But there was no pause in the column; it flowed onward quietly, eagerly, and with business-like precision; it gave forth no sound but the trampling of feet and the muttering of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... is dilettantism in extremis. It is a movement which seems to rest on a false theory and basis. It should have limited itself to nugae literariae, to bagatelles, which no mortal sought to read, and which might be harmlessly printed on any material, of any latitude and longitude, in any type, or else to graphic works where the luxury would more comfortably and more suitably make itself manifest in illustrations varied and duplicated to whatever extent it pleased the issuer, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... wholly off his guard, for, in order not to make his manoeuvres too marked, he often rode ahead of the carriage, when, by turning in his saddle, he could look back and fling his ardent glances in our direction. They not only overshot me, but glanced as harmlessly off Mrs. Jimmie's arrow-proof armour of complete unconsciousness as if they had hurtled ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... The benches filled, and listeners sat on every hillock. The army had waxed strong and powerful. About many a fair cheek was tied the Salvation Army hat. Many a strong man wore the red shirt. There was peace and order in the crowd. Bad words did not venture to pass the lips. Oaths rumbled harmlessly behind teeth. And Matts Wik, the shoemaker, the terrible blasphemer, stood now as standard-bearer by the platform. He, too, was one of the believers. The red ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... been, in the slightest degree, hurt by the Norwegian bear. On the contrary, it is well known that these animals have met children in their track, and, though at the time much oppressed by thirst and famine, have passed them harmlessly by. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... spellbound, more than any poetry that is being written. The things that are hidden—the things that are spiritual and wondering—are the ones that appeal to him. The idle, foolish look of a magnet fascinates him. He gropes in his own body silently, harmlessly with the X-ray, and watches with awe the beating of his heart. He glories in inner essences, both in his life and in his art. He is the disciple of the X-ray, the defier of appearances. Why should a man who has seen the inside of matter care about appearances, either in little things ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of men in many respects, but we think in none more than a heroic probity towards their principles, which were, after all, of no extravagant character, as was testified by their being permitted to triumph harmlessly in 1831-2. These men anticipated by forty years changes which were ultimately patronised by the great majority of the nation. They all throve professionally, but purely by the force of their talents and high character. As there ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... explosion came. General Yozarro had aimed to sink the other boat, reckless of the lives he sacrificed. It may have been and it probably was because he took the best aim he could, that the ball missed the catboat by twenty feet and crashed harmlessly into the jungle beyond. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... blazed brilliantly for a few moments, and then waned. At the signal a fierce fire opened from the broken ground before one of the gateways of the southern face, the flashes indicating that the marksmen were plying their rifles within 200 yards of the enciente. The bullets sped harmlessly over the defenders sheltered behind the parapet, and in the dusk of the dawn reprisals were not attempted. But this outburst of powder-burning against the southern face was a mere incident; what men listened ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... the ranks of the enemy, flourishing a huge sword, but never once, to my belief, striking with it; conscientiously allowing his followers to do the killing work with their lances. He seemed to bear a charmed life, for, though in the thickest of the fight, the bullets whizzed harmlessly by him. ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... descending flame, felt the nozzle of the projector as it crashed upon his right shoulder and the green fire spat harmlessly beyond his back. That last spring had thrown him bodily against the red monster. They were both knocked off balance for a moment, then Rawson caught himself and swung with his left. He set himself in that fraction of a second, felt the first movement of that shining, ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... words left my mouth the green dragon saw us and raised itself in the air, and with gaping jaws launched itself at us. It took Jim only a moment to shoot the flyer up into space, and the charge passed harmlessly beneath us. The dragon checked its headway and turned again ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... Wolfgar, too, had seen the disc and he went into action quicker than I. The divan was beside him. He snatched up a pillow; flung it upward at the disc. The soft pillow struck the disc; together, entangled, they fell harmlessly to the floor. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... the bullet hurtling harmlessly overhead. But Harry didn't hear it. All he could hear, exploding in his own brain as he went down into darkness, was the sane, logical, calm, controlled ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... faster," was Aaron's reply as he caught up a second stone, smaller than the first, and sent it to overtake its fellow. But the fleeing form was too far down the hill to serve as a good target, and Aaron's stones bounded harmlessly by. ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... of Somerset Street Church, nearby and eastward of the State-House, but lower, has been seen to receive a disruptive discharge. Bunker Hill Monument, about a mile north-west and some twenty feet higher, has several times received powerful discharges, which a good conductor has always carried harmlessly away. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... brigandine had stood the test of steel, and the point of that assassin's dagger glanced harmlessly aside, doing no worse hurt than a rent in the silk surface of the garment. A second later the fellow found himself caught as in a bond of steel. The dagger was wrenched from his grasp, and the point ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... just before the Apostle came to the city; he is also shown turning sticks and stones into gold and jewels, which he did in illustration of a sermon preached against riches. In a third medallion the Saint drinks harmlessly from a chalice of poison which has just killed two malefactors dead at his feet; and in a fourth the other John, the Baptist, is painted with a rope round his neck, dragged by an executioner before Herod. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Moncada, the admiral of the galleasses, in the "San Lorenzo," collided with the galleon "San Juan de Sicilia," and the great galleass dismasted and with shattered oars drifted on a back eddy of the tide towards Calais bar. The fireships went aground here and there, and burned harmlessly to the water's edge. Medina-Sidonia, seeing the danger was over, fired a gun as a signal for the fleet to anchor, but most of the ships had cut their cables, and had no spare anchors available on deck, and they drifted along the coast, some of them as far as Dunkirk. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... of the savage rang out, as he leaped in the air and tumbled prostrate to the earth, killed by the shot that was unerring in its accuracy. The Indian himself was so near firing his gun, that his piece was also discharged, the ball whizzing harmlessly above the head of his pursuer. A couple of seconds delay on the part of Carson must have proved fatal to him, for the savage was a good marksman, and was standing still, with such a brief space intervening, that he could not have missed. It is hard ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... the young lady again, attempting no attraction, but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative negro after her. It would have been below me to pursue the subject, and I waited for others to re-open it; but I heard no more about her until I had been for more than a week at sea, and was able again to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... ignoble performance, no one knew it. There was something almost royal in his unconcern. The humor, the badinage, the open contempt, of which he was the public target, fell thick and fast upon him, but as harmlessly as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail. In truth, there was that in his great, lazy, gentle, good-humored bulk and bearing which made the gibes seem all but despicable. He shuffled from one foot to the other as though he found it a trial to stand up so long, but all the while looking ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... accidentally come in, and found no one there but Upton and Eric; they were standing very harmlessly by the window, with Upton's arm resting kindly on Eric's shoulder as they watched with admiration the net-work of rippled sunbeams that flashed over the sea. Upton had just been telling Eric the splendid phrase [Greek: anerithmon gelasma pontion], ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of the obstruction having been blown off by the dynamite, the center portion was not buoyant enough to support the weight of the Southern Cross, and went scraping and bumping beneath her to bob up harmlessly to the surface ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... milk, and honey-dew That from the hollow trunk distils; And I may sing thy consort's crown, New set in heaven, and Pentheus' hall With ruthless ruin thundering down, And proud Lycurgus' funeral. Thou turn'st the rivers, thou the sea; Thou, on far summits, moist with wine, Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly Dost knot with living serpent-twine. Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack, Were clambering up Jove's citadel, Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back, In tooth and claw a lion fell. Who knew thy feats in dance and play Deem'd thee belike for ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... sank back luxuriously on the soft cushions, and inhaled the warm smell of leather. They started, and soon the pelting rain beat harmlessly against the windows. Aristide looked out at the streaming streets, and, hugging himself comfortably, thanked Providence and Mr. Smith. But who was Mr. Smith? Tiens, thought he, there were two little Miss Smiths at the academy; he had pitied them because they had chilblains, freckles, and perpetual ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... to a height of about five hundred feet, and then with a sudden curve descends. At that point it is almost possible to calculate the exact whereabouts of its fall. Everyone watches it; the space is quickly cleared, and it falls and explodes harmlessly. Sometimes the explosion throws the earth up to a height of nearly ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... beings had been lifted and carried several rods through the air, then cast violently to earth again. Those who witnessed the course of the tornado said that it seemed to strike the ground, then go up in the air, passing harmlessly over a mile or two of country, then strike again, all the time whirling over and over, and occasionally casting out fragments of the spoils it had gathered up. After passing east to a point beyond the Mississippi ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... ship's sailing were concerned. It was especially pleasant when our quarter-watch lounged in the main-top, diverting ourselves in many agreeable ways. Removed from the immediate presence of the officers, we there harmlessly enjoyed ourselves, more than in any other part of the ship. By day, many of us were very industrious, making hats or mending our clothes. But by night we became ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... three-room Ford apartment on the 76th floor of Building 257, the television set had been left on. Once more the air was filled with the cries and grunts and crashes of the fray, coming harmlessly ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... a man of few words. No sooner was the bird pointed out to him than he took his aim and fired. The duck dove at the flash, as had been expected, and the bullet skipped harmlessly along the surface of the lake, first striking the water within a few inches of the spot where the bird had so lately swam. Deerslayer laughed, cordially and naturally, but at the same time he threw ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the roadside and aimed it at the slimy little body, but his throw erred, and the missile fell harmlessly into the wheat field beyond, startling a blackbird with scarlet marks, which soared suddenly above the bearded grain and vanished, with a tremulous cry and a flame of outstretched wings, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... called Senotes, that are to be found everywhere. These caves and senotes afford an outlet for the escape of the gases generated in the superficial strata of the earth. These, finding no resistance to their passage, follow, harmlessly, these vents without producing on the surface any of those terrible commotions that fill the heart of man and beast ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... irresponsibility of the vivacious young animal. It could not be possible that he was really touched with the placid frigidities of Miss Mannersley. I remembered his equally elastic gallantries with Miss Pinkey Smith, a blonde Western belle, from which both had harmlessly rebounded. As we walked on slowly I continued more persuasively: "Of course this is only your nonsense; but don't you see, Miss Mannersley thinks it all in earnest and really your nature?" I hesitated, for it suddenly struck me that it WAS really his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Chicken Little had stood about all she could that afternoon. Her face flamed with wrath, and, gathering up the struggling pig in her arms, she hurled it at Katy, as the only missile within reach. Piggy just missed Katy's head, tumbling harmlessly into the ooze. Chicken Little was instantly remorseful, not on Katy's account but ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... with himself. The fire-ships burnt harmlessly out. He had baffled the inventions of the endemoniada gente. He brought up a league outside the harbour, and supposed that the whole Armada had done the same. Unluckily for himself, he found it at daylight divided into two bodies. The San Martin with forty of the best appointed of the galleons ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... square amidships; and five minutes later the Lackawanna, going at full speed, delivered another heavy blow. Both the Union vessels fired such guns as would bear as they swung round, but the shots glanced harmlessly from the armor, and the blows of the ship produced no serious injury to the ram, although their own stems were crushed in several feet above and below the water line. The Hartford then struck the Tennessee, which met her bows on. The two antagonists scraped by, their port ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... jerk, he took the saloon-keeper off his feet and flung him face downward in the snow. In quick succession, seizing the men nearest him, he threw half a dozen more. Resistance was useless. They flew helter-skelter out of his grips, landing in all manner of attitudes, grotesquely and harmlessly, in the soft snow. It soon became difficult, in the dim starlight, to distinguish between those thrown and those waiting their turn, and he began feeling their backs and shoulders, determining their status by whether or not he ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Again and again we came upon these parties when we least expected them; and one day, in particular, I shall never forget how, as dawn was coming in, we were suddenly surrounded by five or six of these painted devils, uttering a very dreary sort of cry, and brandishing their hatchets. It passed off harmlessly, indeed, as did the rest of our encounters; for Chew was well known and highly valued among the different tribes. Indeed, he was a very gallant, respectable young man; but even with the advantage of his companionship, you must not think these ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been drawn to her father-in-law with an affection which his wife, for all her preoccupied kindness, had not inspired. She respected him for his calm strength, against which the boisterous moods of George reacted as harmlessly as the whims of a child, and she liked him for his unfailing courtesy, for his patience, for his gentleness, which made her feel that he was, in spite of the material nature of his occupation, the only member of the household who possessed even a glimmer of spirituality. All day ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... upon the footman a glance which would have shivered him like a thunderbolt if he had not been a man of stone. But being a man of stone, the thunderbolt harmlessly glanced off from him. With a peculiar smile, he assisted the enraged counsellor in putting on his cloak, handed him his hat with a polite bow, and then hastened to the door in order to open ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... he succeeded in drawing a revolver, but as he raised it to about the level of Hanson's breast that athlete kicked the hand that held it, and the gun flew upward, struck the ceiling, was discharged, and fell harmlessly to the floor, while the dislocated hand of the major dropped helplessly to his side. The other wrist was instantly handcuffed, and within a few minutes both landlord and clerk were helpless prisoners on their way to the police station. Arriving at that place, they were duly searched by an officer ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... to be readily impressed. If his father had received his uncertainty with kindliness and had answered his hunger's demand for enlightenment with arguments and reasoning, the crisis probably would have passed harmlessly. His father had seen fit not to use diplomacy, but to assert autocratically the power of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Bonbright's individuality had thought to lift its head; it had been stamped back into its ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... These arrows came as it were from an unknown foe, and when the Lancastrians shot their arrows away, they could not see that they were falling short of the enemy, who kept advancing and retreating, and who actually shot at the Lancastrians with their own arrows, which had fallen harmlessly on the ground in front of the Yorkists. When the Lancastrians had nearly emptied their quivers, their leaders hurried their men forward to fight the enemy, and, discarding their bows, they continued the battle with sword, pike, battle-axe, and bill. Thus for nearly the whole of that Sabbath ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... he had regained the clouds, and even then two or three more shells burst harmlessly somewhere ahead in the grey mist wall. He changed his direction sharply and roared along ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... elder lady needed her, she said. It was not altogether the companionship which fascinated Lois: the sunny drawing-room of the house the Forsythes had hired was filled with dainty things, and light, graceful furniture, and many harmlessly silly novels; there was a general air about it of belonging to a life she had never seen which made it a pleasure to come into it. The parlors in Ashurst had such heavy, serious chairs and tables, she said to herself, and the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... Jim, striking a futile blow that glanced harmlessly off the shoulder of his opponent, at which the little ring sent up its titter of laughter, ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... apparent. The Turks had neglected to take this precaution; the efficiency of their forecastle guns was therefore greatly impaired. Their prows were also much higher than the prows of their antagonists. While their shot passed harmlessly over the enemy, his balls struck their galleys close to water-mark with fatal precision. The fire of the Christians was the more murderous because many of the Turkish vessels were crowded with soldiers both ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... driving his steel spurs into its quivering side, he came again thundering down upon the other. Once more the terrible sword whirled in the air and fell, but this time the lance was snatched to one side and the blow fell harmlessly. The next instant, and with a twitch of the bridle-rein, the horse struck full and fair ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... Another timber—which fell harmlessly and crashed down into the gorge, and another volley—alike harmless to the defenders. High hopes rose in Renwick. They could do nothing. Opposite him Marishka, forgetting all her fears, had caught the contagion of successful resistance and crouched, her jaws set, eyes sparkling, her slender ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... passion which here have met to shake the foundations of society than the hazard of these consequences! * * * I appeal to Southern men,who contemplate a step so fraught with hazard and strife, to pause. Clouds are about us! There is lightning in their frown! Cannot we direct it harmlessly to the earth? The morning and evening prayer of the people I speak for in such weakness rises in strength to that Supreme Ruler who, in noticing the fall of a sparrow, cannot disregard the fall of a nation, that our States may continue to be as they have been—one; one in the unreserve ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... given it as much thought as did you when you risked coming to the manor with nothing but a walking-stick to battle with four thieves. One ought not stop to think of the risk when a danger is to be averted. This adventure may end as harmlessly as the other." ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... charge of a band of half dozen who now appeared. The situation looked desperate. Don Gaspar fired and missed. He was never anything of a marksman, and his first shot must have been a great piece of luck. Barry held his fire. The robbers each discharged his rifle, but harmlessly. Then just as they seemed about to charge in, they whirled their horses and made off ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... bolt of a rifle clicked clearly and the owner of the voice fired. The flash was clear against the night. From the right and left of the flash, and close to it, came other flashes. The bullets whined harmlessly above us. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Wolf was expecting it and a quick flirt of the head to one side let the mallet go harmlessly by, while the impetus of his own blow threw Hardynge forward several steps, and narrowly escaped carrying him off his feet altogether. With an exasperating taunt the chief landed a blow upon the face of his antagonist as he shot by, and, catching him about the shoulder before he could recover, ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... engineers could turn on the ring of generators which surrounded the city with a vertical film of disintegrator rays. Our explosive rockets could not penetrate this film, for it disintegrated them instantly and harmlessly, as it did all other material substance with the sole exception of "inertron," that synthetic element developed by the Americans from ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... ripped through the surface of Layroh's face, then glanced harmlessly aside as it struck metal underneath. Layroh never even staggered from the impact. The black ray from the projector caught Olsen before he could fire again. There was a searing flash of flame, then a swiftly melting cloud of blue-white radiance, and ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... was dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the exclamation, "Have I not sworn I would never write again?" Sir Austin had shut that safety-valve. The nonsense that was in the youth might have poured harmlessly out, and its urgency for ebullition was so great that he was repeatedly oblivious of his oath, and found himself seated under the lamp in the act of composition before pride could speak a word. Possibly the pride even of Richard ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... library unconsciously uttering the engaging items of self-portraiture which, as he well knows, are to be given to the public in next week's illustrated paper. The feathered end of his shaft titillates harmlessly enough, but too often the arrowhead is crusted with a poison worse than the Indian gets by mingling the wolf's gall with the rattlesnake's venom. No man is safe whose unguarded threshold the mischief-making questioner has crossed. The more unsuspecting, the more frank, the more courageous, the ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... victim already stiffening in death. The shot had been a fortunate one, for only an inch away from the hole the bullet had made his shoulders were regularly plated with thick horny scales, off which a revolver bullet would have glanced harmlessly, and he bore marks of having fought many and many a battle with younger rivals. His huge tusks were notched and broken, and he had evidently been driven out from among his fellows as a quarrelsome member of their society. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... angry water as they fluttered out to sea, unmindful of the leaden clouds banked up along the west, and all the symptoms of an approaching gale. The next morning it was upon us; but brought up as we were under the lea of a high rock, the tempest tore harmlessly over our heads, and left us at liberty to make the final ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... mortification than their own. Venomous utterances fell about Clement Hicks, but he neither heard nor heeded: his mind was far away with Chris, and the small shot of the Coomstocks and the thunder of the Chowns alike flew harmlessly past him. He saw his sweetheart's sorrow, and her grief, as yet unborn, was the only fact that much hurt him now. The gall in his own soul only began to sicken him when his eye rested on his mother. Then he rose and departed to his home, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... who, when dinner was at an end, smoked with the rest, their elbows on the table, revelling in the salacious anecdotes so relished by the master of the house. Luckily, childhood is protected by the resistant power of innocence, a polished surface over which all forms of pollution glide harmlessly. Felicia was noisy, uproarious, badly brought up, but was untainted by all that passed over her little mind because it ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... arrow-head, those underneath the water being long and ribbon-like, to bring the greatest possible area into contact with the air with which the water is charged. Broad leaves would be torn to shreds by the current through which grass-like blades glide harmlessly; but when this plant grows on shore, having no longer use for its lower ribbons, it loses them, and expands only broad arrow-shaped surfaces to the sunny air, leaves to be supplied with carbonic acid to assimilate, and ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... without some fierce after-gusts—and at last worked itself off harmlessly in song: as we returned to the ritual of the evening and took to the singing of noels—the Christmas canticles which are sung between the ending of the Great Supper and the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... floated slowly nearer, and at last struck heavily against the stockade-work. There, covered with tar, pitch, rosin, and gunpowder, they flamed, flared, and exploded, during a brief period, with much vigour, and then burned harmlessly out. One of the objects for which they had been sent—to set fire to the palisade—was not accomplished. The other was gained; for the enemy, expecting another volcanic shower of tombstones and plough-coulters, and remembering the recent fate of their comrades on the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointed lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive element may be drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often that the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new version of the Old ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a cavern, where they lived, and were for the most part quiescent, except at meal-times, when they came forth, and amicably climbed about the couch or shoulders of their master, who placidly bore the serpent's embrace. They often coiled tip in folds, equalling a large sized cartwheel in size, and harmlessly received their food. ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... despite his wetting, and he took his bow and his arrows and let fly one shaft after another at the worthy friar. But they rattled harmlessly off his steel buckler, while he laughed and minded them no more than if they had ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden |
