"Hurdles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... things to the climax, as in a policeman picture it whirls past blossoming gardens and front lawns till the tramp is arrested. The difficulties are commented on by the people in the audience as rah-rah boys on the side lines comment on hurdles cleared or knocked over by the men running in college field-day. The sudden cut-backs into side branches of the story are but hurdles also, not plot complications in the stage sense. This is as it should be. The pursuit progresses without ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... creeper, while no shop front obtrudes derogatory suggestion of retail trade. The local authorities, moreover, some ten years back girdled the Green with healthy young balsam-poplar and plane trees and enclosed the grass with iron hurdles—to rescue it from trampling into unsightly pathways—thus doing a well-intentioned, if somewhat unimaginative, best to safeguard the theatre of long ago Trimmer's beneficence or infamy ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... mud, are cracked, sunken, holed in all their circuit, and extensively broken through above. The night we got here—until the morning—we plugged as well as we could the openings within reach, by inserting leafy branches and hurdles. But the higher holes, and those in the roof, still gaped and always. When dawn hovers there, weakling and early, the wind for contrast rushes in and blows round every side with all its strength, and the squad endures the hustling of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... gates and walls; at once, that the houses of the city might be let and occupied together with the land, also through fear, lest the excessive luxury of the city should enervate his troops as it had those of Hannibal. Now many of these were formed of hurdles or boards, others of reeds interwoven, all being covered with straw, as if combustable materials had been employed on purpose. A hundred and seventy Campanians, headed by the Blosii who were fathers, had formed a conspiracy to set fire to all these at a late ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... youth keeps its head it will be the better for the successive hurdles which obstructive age, or even middle-age, puts in its path. A few stumbles will teach it care in approaching the ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... Lady Luck's smile, the Wildcat cleared the hurdles of financial ruin and rambled into the stretch soggy with a cloudburst of hard luck. He staked his last pair of ten dollar bills on a throw whose momentum ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... were secured to the hurdles, Briant and Sherwin on the one, Campion on the other, all lying on their backs, with their feet towards the horse's heels. The word to start was given by Sir Owen Hopton who rode with Charke, the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... still held out. Edward's troops thronged the margin of the ditch, and shot arrows so incessantly at the battlements that the garrison could scarcely show themselves for an instant on the walls. Finally, they made hurdles and floats of various kinds, by means of which large numbers succeeded, half by swimming and half by floating, to get across the ditch, and then began to dig in under the wall, while the garrison attempted to stop their work by throwing down big ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... only some iron hurdles between Aunt Betsy's orchard and the lawn before Aunt Betsy's drawing-room. The house was characteristic of the lady. It was a long red-brick cottage, solid, substantial, roomy, eschewing ornament, but beautified in the eyes of most people by an air of supreme comfort, cleanliness, and general ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... I'm giving Christabel another jumping lesson to-morrow. I've put some hurdles up. Will you come? She's getting on very well. I'll ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... is used for a second purpose. We make canisses of it, that is to say, hurdles, which, in spring, serve for the rearing of Silkworms and, in autumn, for the drying of figs. At the end of April and during May, which is the time when the Osmiae work, the canisses are indoors, in the Silkworm nurseries, where the Bee cannot take possession of them; ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... answered, gorgeous in pink coat and riding breeches. "My old horse may not be fast, but he can go the course, and I'm none too certain of the others. Some of those hurdles'll take ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shields and a thick hedge of pikes. Each man wore light but adequate armour, and, besides the pike, bore an axe at his side for work at close quarters. Pits were dug before the Scots lines, and covered over with hurdles so light that they would not bear the weight of a mail-clad warrior and his horse. Save for a small cavalry force kept in reserve in the rear, the men-at-arms were ordered to dismount and take their place in the dense array, lest, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... different situations some will always be dry; six boxes or old tea-chests, let into the bank will do very well. If the ground be very light, the outside circle should have a wall built round it, or some stakes driven into the ground, and boards or hurdles nailed to them, within a foot of the bottom, to prevent the bank from falling in. The entrance must either be by a board to turn occasionally across the ditch, or by a ladder. The turf being settled, and the grass beginning ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... when the Weather set in rainy or cold towards the End of the Campaigns, and the Army was in a fixed Position, his Serene Highness Prince Ferdinand constantly ordered the Army to Hutt; which was done either by thatching their Tents, or building Hurdles, or digging Pitts, and covering and thatching them over. The Officers either built Hutts with Fire Places, or had Chimnies ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... and big lithe jumpers. In the middle of the jumping competition he left his box and went into the ring, and spent some time there chatting with judges and competitors, and watching the horses take the hurdles and gates ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. When questioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaper advertisements of respectable men and women going about in their underwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions, that he simply couldn't stand it any longer, and had to try it for himself. "The newspapers did it," he ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... dashed against the bridge, so much the closer were its parts held fastened together. These beams were bound together by timber laid over them in the direction of the length of the bridge, and were [then] covered with laths and hurdles; and, in addition to this, piles were driven into the water obliquely, at the lower side of the bridge, and these serving as buttresses, and being connected with every portion of the work, sustained the force of the stream; and there were others also above the bridge, at a moderate ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... feeling must have smote heavily on many a heart that had passed there. We were now in a large court-yard, where several doors led off, each guarded by a sentinel, whose ragged clothes and rusty accoutrements proclaimed a true soldier of the republic. One of the large hurdles used for carrying the prisoners to the "Place" stood in one corner, and two or three workmen were busied in repairing it for the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... other obstructions are placed in the path of the runner. These hurdles vary in height, but if you want to learn, start in with one or two about as high as your knee. Of course, you could take them standing, and it is not a bad exercise, but learn to take them at a moderate run. When you can do this with ease, increase the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... approving the measure, some hundreds of hurdles covered with leather[85] were prepared expeditiously for the troops to cross. Cauzi Serauje, with seven of his friends disguised as holy mendicants, proceeded to the roy's camp, and repaired to the quarter where the dancing-girls resided.[86] Here ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... their spears of keenest temper, With their tongues of evil magic; Help me drive these Lapland wizards To the deepest depths of ocean, There to wrestle with Wellamo." Then the reckless Lemminkainen Whistled loudly for his stallion, Called the racer from the hurdles, Called his brown steed from the pasture, Threw the harness on the courser, Hitched the fleet-foot to the snow-sledge, Leaped upon the highest cross-bench, Cracked his whip above the racer, And the steed flies onward swiftly, Bounds the sleigh upon its journey, And ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... this jockey would have been the happiest mortal in the world if such things as steeple-chases had never existed. In the first place, he judged, with no little reason, that it was dangerous to leap hurdles on such an animal as Pompier; and, secondly, nothing irritated him so much as to be obliged to promenade with his three employers in turn. But how could he refuse, since he knew that if these young men hired him, it was chiefly, or only in view of, displaying themselves in his company. It afforded ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... gentleman, it will be remembered, who is in want of a fag. Wraysford is one of the best "all-round men" in the Fifth, or indeed in the school. He is certain to be in the School Eleven against the County, certain to win the mile race and the "hurdles" at the Athletic Sports, and is not at all unlikely to carry off the Nightingale Scholarship next autumn, even though one of the Sixth is in for it too. Indeed, it is said he would be quite certain of this honour, were it not that his friend and rival Oliver Greenfield, who is standing ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... men had to do this and suffer, for fascines and bricks, besides sandbags, were only just beginning to make their appearance in December; and floor-boards and gratings and gravel and trench stores and wire-netting, and revetments and planks and iron sheeting and trestles and hurdles of all sorts, did not really materialize in anything like ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... him and his mother, if we happened to be in the neighbourhood. So as we might as well happen to be there as anywhere else, we sent him a postcard and went. This would be in June or early in July. All day we walked across a plain of vines, past hurdles of wattled cannes and great wind-screens of velvety cypresses, sixty feet high, all white with dust on the north side of 'em, for the mistral was having its three-days' revel, and it whistled and roared through the cannes till ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... bonds to tie up faggots, and split for the shepherds' hurdles. In winter sometimes a store of nuts and acorns may be seen fallen in a stream down the side of a bank, scratched out from a mouse's hole, as they say, by Reynard, who devours the little provident creature without regard for its wisdom. So that man and wild animals derive pleasure or ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... before; the keeper had stopped up a gap in it the day before, at the place where it came down to the water, with some old hurdles and dry thorns. He drew himself up behind his alder, looking out from behind it cautiously towards the point from which the sound came. He could just make out the hedge through the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... twice that distance in crossing it. His statement proved literally true. The old trace, passing down the creek bottom, had run at right angles to the direction of the storm; and, of course, the trees had fallen perpendicularly across the path—where they still lay, thick as hurdles set for a donkey-race. Some of them could be stepped over by a horse, and a few might be "jumped," but there were others that rose breast high; and a flying-leap over a five-barred gate would have been an easy exploit, compared with clearing one of these monstrous barriers. I might ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... powder!" was our constant cry. Oh! had we but had plenty of that 'noisy kill-seed', as the Scotchmen call it, not one of those tall ships would ever have revisited Neptune's green dominion. They must inevitably have struck, or laid their vast hulks along-side the fort, as hurdles for the snail-loving 'sheep's heads'. Indeed, small as our stock of ammunition was, we made several of their ships look like sieves, and smell like slaughter pens. The commodore's ship, the Bristol, had fifty men killed, and upwards ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... towers were constructed about ninety feet in height, and with a wide face. They were put together beyond the range of the missiles of the defenders; and were to be advanced, upon wheels, up the bank until they neared the wall. As the three banks approached the wall, hurdles covered with hides were erected to protect the workers; and on each side javelin men and archers were posted, together with the war engines ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... and two stiles they came to the farm buildings, where, spread out on hurdles, were a number of large sacks, mercifully clean. An individual in charge, wearing a faded blue suit and a two days' growth of stubbly beard, told them briefly to help themselves, and then take their sacks to the barn and fill them with ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... consolation but menaces; and bending over the bed, as if to keep back the Angel of Death, he had repeated the words of the terrible decree which provided that in case of the death of a Huguenot without conversion, his memory should be persecuted, and his body, denied Christian burial, should be drawn on hurdles out of the city, and cast on ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... play football. His heart leaped as he saw himself running, running, faster than any of the other boys. At the end of the Easter term there were the sports, and he would be able to go in for the races; he rather fancied himself over the hurdles. It would be splendid to be like everyone else, not to be stared at curiously by new boys who did not know about his deformity, nor at the baths in summer to need incredible precautions, while he was undressing, before he could hide his foot ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... ridge tops. Geese and cranes, chicory, mildew, thistles, cleavers, caltrops, darnel and shade are farmer's enemies. Scare off the birds, harrow up the weeds, cut down all that shades the crop. Ploughs, waggons, threshing-sledges, harrows, baskets, hurdles, winnowing-fans are the farmer's implements. The plough consists of several parts made of seasoned wood. The threshing-floor must be smooth and rammed hard to leave no crevices for weeds and small ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... many cows. He pictured to himself a vineyard on the coast, a little white dwelling with an arbor under whose shade he could smoke his pipe while all his family, children and grandchildren, were spreading out the harvest of raisins on the frame-hurdles. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was only natural he should do so after the recent conversation; and he saw that worthy gentleman come stealing across the waste ground, with his usual cautious step. Although not given to exchanging courtesies with his neighbour, the clerk walked briskly towards him now, and waited at the hurdles which divided the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... date, beside that reverse touchdown that won for the Sophomores, consisted of scoring a home-run with the bases congested, on a strike-out; of smashing hurdles and cross-bars on the track; endangering his heedless career with the shot and hammer; and making a ridiculous farce of every event he entered, to the vast hilarity of the students, who, with the exception of Butch Brewster, had no idea his ridiculous ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... steeplechase, with brush hurdles. Then, after a couple of minor events, a four-mile point-to-point race for hunters ridden by gentlemen in hunt uniform. This was as stiff a race for both horses and riders as I have ever seen, and it was very picturesque to watch the pink coats careering up hill and down dale, now over ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... ashamed of thus openly flouting that boyhood heart of his upon his sleeve. He could not have explained what strange lapse had overpowered him to thus unbosom long forgotten things. He looked away from her toward the entrance. Men were bringing tall hurdles outward to place them in the arena. The ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... houses they have sometimes a scaena or high stage, raised like a scaffold, or small spelts, reeds, or dried osiers covered with mats which gives a shadow and is a shelter ... where on a loft of hurdles they lay forth their ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... drier parts of the bog that a depth of three or four feet could be reached. The surface-ground between the drains, containing the intertwined roots of heather and long grass, was left untouched, and upon this was spread branches of trees and hedge-cuttings. In the softest places, rude gates or hurdles, some 8 or 9 feet long by 4 feet wide, interwoven with heather, were laid in double thicknesses, their ends overlapping each other; and upon this floating bed was spread a thin layer of gravel, on which the sleepers, chairs, and rails ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... and I hold the balance, and ye shall be well satisfied. Ye have been fruitful in counsel, ye have been long knitting a knot never tied, ye shall have comfort soon. But know ye beyond peradventure that I have bided my time with good reason. If our loom be framed with rotten hurdles, when our web is well-ny done, our work is yet to begin. Against mischance and dark discoveries my mind, with knowledge hidden from you, hath been firmly arrayed. If it be in your thought that I am set against a marriage which shall ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a rain of arrows was poured into them, but covering themselves with their shields and with large mantlets formed of hurdles covered with hides they pressed forward to the dam. Here those who had brought with them picks and mattocks set to work upon the dam, the men with mantlets shielding them from the storm of arrows, while numbers of archers opened fire upon the defenders. Very many were killed ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty |
