"Tumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... psychological and not in post-impressionist English, is fairly intelligible. But it does not touch the root of the matter. Miss Stein, the writer continues, uses "words that appeal to her as having the meaning they seem to have [that is, if "diuturnity" suggests a tumble downstairs, it means a tumble downstairs]. To present her impressions she chooses words for their inherent quality rather ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... you will appreciate my devotion; in a tumble-down old house, near the ramparts. But you, my prince, how did you get out of the Louvre? How was it that I found you on the road, with M. d'Aubigne ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... Totty said in a low voice, nodding to the bed. 'Just when I was going back to work, what did the child do but tumble head over heels half down stairs, running after me. It's a wonder she don't kill herself. I don't think there's no more harm done except a big bump on the back of the head, but Mrs. Ladds wasn't in, and I didn't like to go and leave the little thing; she cried herself to ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... mind recognized that one was a gentleman, and the other—well, "a fashionable young man," as she would phrase it. The one, as a friend, would shield her from every detracting breath; the other, if given a chance, would inevitably tumble into some slough of infamy himself, and drag her ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... been sitting outside a small tavern, opposite the Porte Montmartre, with a bottle of wine between them, their elbows resting on the grimy top of a rough wooden table. They had talked in whispers, for even the walls of the tumble-down cabaret might ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... left Winchester, I had three more years of school before me, having as yet endured nine. My father at this time having left my mother and sisters with my younger brother in America, took himself to live at a wretched tumble-down farmhouse on the second farm he had hired! And I was taken there with him. It was nearly three miles from Harrow, at Harrow Weald, but in the parish; and from this house I was again sent to that school as a day-boarder. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... me leaves a-glinting 'Midst gray dykes and hedges in the autumn sun! London water's wine, poured out for all unstinting— God! For the little brooks that tumble as they run! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... crowding elbow hard In their breeches brown, If one comrade takes a leap, Ten come bouncing down; When the crackle of a leaf Shakes one lad to laughter, Till he tumbles from his perch, Twenty tumble after. ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... skater. They exchanged remarks on the weather and she went on lacing her other boot in great trepidation. The moment was come. She did not recoil from the insult of being seized under her elbows by two men and carefully planted on her feet as though she were most likely to tumble down. So far as she knew, she was likely to. But, lo! no sooner was she up than muscles and nerves, recking nothing of the brain's blind denial, asserted their own acquaintance with the art of balance ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... Hohenzollerns in all or part of Germany by a Republic, then I am convinced that for republican Germany there would be not simply forgiveness, but a warm welcome back to the comity of nations. The French, British, Belgians and Italians, and every civilised force in Russia would tumble over one another in their eager greeting of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... few months of inactivity, which holders of speculative securities had spoken of as another healthy breathing spell, the tendency of prices had changed. Had not merely halted, but showed a radical tendency to shrink; even to tumble feverishly. Buyers were scarce, and the once accommodating banks displayed a heartless disposition to scrutinize collateral and to ask embarrassing questions in regard to commercial paper. Rates of ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... entered the cars in a long shed, where there were no officials in uniform as in England, and we found our way in as we could. "All aboard!" is the signal for taking places, but on this occasion a loud shout of "Tumble in for your lives!" greeted my amused ears, succeeded by "Go a-head!" and off we went, the engineer tolling a heavy bell to notify our approach to the passengers in the streets along which we passed. America has certainly flourished under her motto "Go a-head!" but the cautious "All right!" ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... so don't let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I'm sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I've learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... missy; you throw all de gredinents in togedder, an' tumble your flouah in all at once, an' you nebber get your cake ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... he would turn over backward and slide down head first to the bottom of the pole. Another time he would tumble forward and slide down the other way, turning somersaults on ...
— The Story of a Monkey on a Stick • Laura Lee Hope
... to see her unlock the closet door, and poor Mell tumble out, tear-stained, white, frightened almost out of her wits. She clutched her step-mother's dress ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... ranch horses have all been tagged with names. There's "Slip-Along" and "Water Light" and "Bronk" and "Patsy Crocker" and "Pick and Shovel" and "Tumble Weed," and others that I can't remember at the moment. And I find I'm picking up certain of Dinky-Dunk's little habits, and dropping into the trick of looking at things from his standpoint. I wonder if husbands and wives really do get to be alike? There are times when Dinky-Dunk seems ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... it flutters. Step, forsooth! If ever the angels concerned themselves for this atom in Creation's myriads, they hover round me now, they bear me up, they teach me how to fly! Deprived now of their human props, how the angry fragments leap and tumble and chase one another through the echoing abyss below! These reverberations seem freighted with elfin voices that jeer the insensate rocks for their baffled scheme ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... 'So! Tumble?' repeated Desprez. 'Probably healthful. I hazard the guess, Madame Tentaillon, that tumbling is a healthful way of life. And have you never done anything else ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rest, and when he awoke in the morning he felt that a bed at the Newsboys' Lodge was considerably better than a bale of cotton, or a hay-barge. At an early hour in the morning the boys were called, and began to tumble out in all directions, interchanging, as they performed their hasty toilet, a running fire of "chaff" and good-humored jesting, some of which consisted of personal allusions the reverse ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... three miles or so through orange groves and sandhills to the town, a wretched tumble-down-looking place, half choked up with sand. Here, as it was now dark, we took shelter in a house called an inn, but, except in the public hall, where the eating and drinking went on, not a room contained a particle of furniture, so that we had to lie down ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... pass under a succession of archways, for every house desiring more space has thrust forth a couple of storeys over the street, sustained by an arch. The exhalations from the dirt-heaps, the foulness of every house, the general condition of tumble-down, compose a something to make a sanitary officer's hair stand on end. But it is very wonderful. Carcassonne is marvellous, but this is Carcassonne seen through ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... silences, fits of profound lethargy, almost of stupefaction. He used to sit in the garden by the hour, with his head thrown back, his legs outstretched, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes fastened upon the blinding summer sky. He would gather a dozen books about him, tumble them out on the ground, take one into his lap, and leave it with the pages unturned. These moods would alternate with hours of extreme restlessness, during which he mysteriously absented himself. He bore the heat of the Italian summer like a salamander, and used to start off ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... They vowed and swore that a great gulf had opened all down the road, and that one step more would tumble them in headlong. They manifested the most affectionate solicitude for the monks, warning them, on their lives, not to step across the threshold, or they would be swallowed (as Martin, who was the maddest of the lot, phrased it) with Korah, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the dark clefts of the Black Forest, and we and our knapsack were wet through. We had been bicycling for six weeks with no more luggage than a rucksack could hold. We never saw such rain as fell that day we slithered and sloshed on the rugged slopes that tumble down to the Rhine at Basel. (The annual rainfall in Switzerland is——.) When we got to the little hotel at Basel we sat in the dining room with water running off us in trickles, until the head waiter glared. And so all we saw of Switzerland was the interior of the tobacconist's ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... go, but if I fall, Rome too shall fall: I'll shake this empire till it reel and crash On that ungrateful head; and if I fall, The builded world shall tumble ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... and squeak! Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week. Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, Stinking and savoury, smug and gruff, Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime Gives us the ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... to the other man, gruff-voice—otherwise Joey Eccles—struck a match. Carefully screening it from the draughts which swept through the rickety building, he led the way into a bare room in which was a tumble-down table and two boxes to serve as seats. A pack of greasy cards lay on the table-top, showing that Joey had been passing ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... We landed and found ourselves in the midst of a forsaken little frontier town. A shambling shack bore the legend, "Store," with the "S" looking backward—perhaps toward dead municipal hopes. A few tumble-down frame and log shanties sprawled up the desultory grass-grown main street, at one end of which dwelt a Mandan Indian family in the ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... roof being made fire-proof with green hides; and of a plan which was finally adopted, when it was found that the walls could not be beaten down by battering-rams, of undermining them with a view of making them tumble down by their own weight. In this case, the workmen who undermined the walls were protected at their work by sheds built over them, and, in order to prevent the walls from falling upon them while they were ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... dismounting. "Let's see?" And he examines the girths with a great show of concern. "A nasty tumble," says he, as if Hortense had been rolled on. "All sound, Mistress Hillary! Egad! You must not ride such a wild beast! I protest, such risks are too desperate!" And he casts up the whites of his eyes at Mistress Hortense, laying his hand on his heart. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... him dreamily. She was wishing, as she turned over the tumble of damaged jewels, that things so pretty might have been perfect. To find a perfect thing in this place would be too extraordinary to hope for. Yet, taking up the next, and the next, she found herself wishing it might be this one—this ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... hongry, nohow. An' w'edder de professor am right dat dese yer earthquakes ain't shockin', I kin tell yo' right now dat it shocked me! Nor I ain't gwine ter gib it no secon' chance ter tumble dat ruff ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... were in this wheatfield and the grain stood almost breast high. The Rebs had their slight protection, but we were in the open, without a thing better than a wheat straw to catch a Minnie bullet that weighed an ounce. Of course, our men began to tumble. They lay where they fell, or, if able, started for the rear. Near to me I saw a man named Daily go down, shot through the neck. I made a movement to get his gun, but at that moment I was struck in the shoulder. It did ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... they earned—Heaven knows how!—lodged where they best could, and were given a bonus whenever they had a child—a young slave to add to their owner's stock. It was a simple arrangement enough. On my return to the African coast, I was to tumble headlong into all the questions contingent on the slave system, the suppression of the slave trade, which still existed, and the whole ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;' Worse and worse; more blunders than words, and such a jumble! Whales spout, but never whistle; dolphins' backs are silver; and porpoises never roll, but tumble. 'It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, And like a cradled creature lies,' and squalls, He should have added; but to avoid brawls With the poet's friends I'll quote no more; but entre nous, Those who write correctly about the sea are exceeding few. Young DANA with us, and MARRYAT ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Capt. Mazard, barely saving himself from a tumble, "this is a devil of a funny place for a bear-hunt! No chance for rapid retreats! It will be fight ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... at this time was what is called rather a fine woman: a woman of large scale and full development; whose slatternly habit left her coarse black hair to tumble in snake-locks about her face and shoulders half the day; who, clad in half-hooked clothes, bore herself notoriously and unabashed in her fullness; and of whom ill things were said regarding the lodger. The gossips had their excuse. The lodger was an ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... soil; the Saprini,[4] of polished ebony which mirrors the sunlight, jog hastily off, deserting their workshop; the Dermestes, of whom one wears a fawn-coloured tippet flecked with white, seek to fly away, but, tipsy with the putrid nectar, tumble over and reveal the immaculate whiteness of their bellies, which forms a violent contrast with the gloom of the rest ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... miser selected was one called Dotheboys Hall, a long, cold-looking, tumble-down building, one story high, in a dreary part of the country. It belonged to a man named Squeers, a burly, ruffianly hypocrite, who pretended to the world to be a kind, fatherly master, but in fact treated his pupils with such cruelty that almost the only ones ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... I give you leave," answered Ben, sparring away derisively as the other tottered on his perch and was forced to hold tight lest he should tumble off. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... struggling through life as I best can, and, till I saw you, struggling often, no doubt, in very earthy ways. I am not a philosopher, nor an idealist, with expectations, like Delafield. This rough-and-tumble world is all I know. It's good enough for me—good enough to love a friend in, as—I vow to ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... company, but the first time as we can get an opportunity for a quiet talk I will tell it you. But don't you go away and think till then as I was a pirate from choice. I shouldn't like you to think that of me; there ain't never no saying at sea what may happen. I might tumble overboard tonight and get drowned, or one of the convoy might run foul of us and sink us, and tomorrow you might be alive and I might be dead, and I shouldn't like you to go on thinking all your life as that Sergeant Edwards had been a bloody pirate of his own free will. So you ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... small, many of them had very limited coal-carrying capacity, and some were nothing but sea-going tugs, with hardly any comforts or conveniences, and with no suitable accommodations for passengers. The correspondents who used these boats were, therefore, compelled to live a rough-and-tumble life, sometimes sleeping in their clothes on benches or on the floor in a small, stuffy cabin, and always suffering the hardships and privations necessarily involved in a long cruise on a small vessel in a tropical climate and on a turbulent sea. The Florida Strait ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... stopping without any warning. Aeroplane engines are far superior in horse-power to those fitted to motorcars, and consequently their structure is more intricate. But if an airman's engine suddenly stopped there would be no reason whatever why he should tumble down head first and break his neck. Strange to say, too, the higher he was flying ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... the gate the road narrowed, and at the corner where the little Rue Poiree strikes off between two rows of tumble-down houses to join the Rue St. Jacques there was somewhat of a block. I had fallen back behind the sumpter horses, and halted for a moment, when I felt a hand rest lightly on my stirrup. I looked down, and, as I live, it ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... "If England were all the world, it would still have been worth while for the Creator to have made it." The children were radiantly content with their lot; and it is on record that the little boy once remarked, "I don't remember when I came down from heaven; but I'm glad I happened to tumble into so good a family." The same individual, rolling on the floor in excess of mirth over some childish comicality, panted out, "Oh, mamma, my ball of jolly is so big I can't breathe!" The ball of jolly became a household word for years thereafter. It was well nourished ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... yards in length, according to the depth of water—is hauled in by means of a winch; and its great weight taxes the united strength of the crew, to get it level with the bulwark. When it is up, the net is hauled on board, the small end is opened, and the fish tumble on to the deck. They are then separated and packed in trunks—as the wooden cases, in which they are sent ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... was a local expressman, owner of a rickety wagon and a tumble-down mule. He was coffee-colored in complexion. His feet projected quaintly behind as well as in front. His lips projected also, as did his eyes, wide-rimmed and bulging. His trousers were too long for him, and his coat hung limp from his stooped shoulders. His speech was low and ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... at boats. The children seem to be children in size, and children in nothing else. They congregate together in sober little groups, and hold mysterious conversations, in a dialect which we cannot understand. If they ever do tumble down, soil their pinafores, throw stones, or make mud pies, they practise these juvenile vices in a midnight secrecy which no stranger's ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... word a la francaise, as everybody calls it "Revelee," why not drop it, as an affectation, and translate it the "Stir your Stumps," the "Peel your Eyes," the "Tumble Up," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... George Selwyn in a letter to Lord Carlisle, "and someone proposes a stroll to Betty's front shop; suddenly the cry is raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and we all tumble out to gaze ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... battered relics of Heilly on our way to the batteries. The rain and the tremendous traffic of the previous night had churned the streets into slush, but the feeling that we were on the eve of great events made me look more towards things of cheer. The sign-board, "—th Division Rest House," on a tumble-down dwelling ringed round with shell-holes, seemed over-optimistic, but the intention was good. At the little railway station a couple of straw-stuffed dummies, side by side on a platform seat as if waiting for a train, showed that a waggish ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... the Seraglio unfortunately paid the penalty of their too ardent desires to show themselves off to "a gallant and magnificent army," for "one of the elephants fell back upon him that was next, and he upon the next, and so on to the fifteenth, so that they did all tumble to the bottom of the precipice. It was the good fortune of those poor women, however, that there were but three or four of them killed; but the fifteen elephants remained upon the place." The historian rather ungallantly adds, "When these bulky masses do once fall under ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... be wounded," said he; "my shot caused him to tumble out of his saddle. You were perhaps more fortunate than I? I heard your piece speak—have you throwed ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... daintiness that no garbage would be left on the morrow. Moorish houses have no windows fronting the road—decency forbids, and though there might have been ample light within, the bare walls helped to darken the pathway, and it was wise to walk warily lest one should tumble over some beggar asleep ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... learns to balance one's self quite well on the saddle while asleep, and it does shorten the long hours of the night very considerably. Occasionally one wakes up abruptly with a jolt, and one fancies that one is just about to tumble over, but although I suppose I must have ridden in my life hundreds of miles while asleep on the saddle, I have never once had a fall in the natural course of affairs. The animals, too, are generally so intelligent ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... children able to go to Sunday-school, whither they went of their own free will and with the approval of their parents. The kraals were not all constructed on the same pattern—two were circular in form and the third was square. This was on the right hand at entering, and had at one time been a tumble-down shelter for a calf, who had many years before gone the way of all beef—into a butcher's shop. There were tiles on the low roof—in places—but plenty of openings were left for the rain to come in, and for the smoke from the fire ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... as if she had been a piece of straw. Loudly roared and howled the fierce blast, and on she drove helplessly before it. Every instant the sea rose higher and higher, and the schooner began to pitch, and toss, and tumble about, till I thought she would have been shaken ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... I didn't," said Ralph complacently. "And Sir Giles didn't get drunk as a lord and tumble about the ballroom, and yell comic—awfully comic—songs, till someone hauled him off to the refreshment-room and filled him up with whiskey till he could sing ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... such a lady"—Ferret intended no mere compliment; he was only giving utterance to the thoughts passing through his brain; but his client's mounting color warned him to change the topic, which he very adroitly did. "You intend, of course," said he, addressing me, "to proceed at law? No rumble—tumble through ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... the cataract, which gradually rises till the temporary glacier reaches nearly half way to the level of the higher river. Up this men climb—and ladies also, I am told—and then descend, with pleasant rapidity, on sledges of wood, sometimes not without an innocent tumble in the descent. As we were at Quebec in September, we did not experience the delights of ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the path, and Bub would pick it up and pull at it until it had cleared itself, when down would go the big piece from the other arm. Then he would bravely lift it again, his baby frock going up with it; and thus dropping his load and picking it up, with an occasional tumble, which he would not cry about, he reached the house, dragging his load in through the door, to the imminent danger of knocking over the old stove. He now rested from his labors to eat a cold potato and a piece of his mother's much-loved ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... do that," said Caroline, bringing her eyes back from the flying figures and looking at the ugly ridges Rose had made. "Somebody's apt to tumble over them ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... expecting to see a long barrel with the bottle and glass that broke their fall on him; but Stingaree had crept away unheard, and he pressed the lever just enough to let the glass and bottle tumble through. ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... South was in the open; the joys and the sports of the people were those of healthy rural communities. The well-to-do and even the poorer classes lived on horseback, bet on the races, and participated in the rough-and-tumble games of the court days. The wealthy did not refuse all relations with "the people" on such occasions. The planter knew and called familiarly by name every man in his part of the county, and the magistrates who made up the courts of the people exercised ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... natural, as several of our writers have remarked, than the injunctions of the Apostles to the primitive Christians to despise the world, and so forth, under the impression of that great mistake they had fallen into, that the world was about to tumble to ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the other youth squirmed, and in an instant there was a rough and tumble scuffle. Jack was pushed against the wall, and retaliated by forcing Brassy backward over a chair. Then the two spun around the room, upsetting a stand containing a number ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... to the Patch to-morrow morning. I'll find him through the operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I'll tell him that I'm a Freeman myself. I'll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for a price. You bet he'll tumble to it. I'll tell him the papers are at my house, and that it's as much as my life would be worth to let him come while folk were about. He'll see that that's horse sense. Let him come at ten o'clock at night, and he shall see everything. That ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... We all shuddered, but luckily the planks were not driven in this time. Would the boat, however, resist more shocks of this kind? We could not see the stems, and only knew that they were near by the heavier tumble of the waves. Several touched us, but no serious accident resulted. Meantime the current bore us along, and as our oars could make very little way against it to give us the necessary slant, I feared for ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... he was sure his view of the affair was the best, for, being nearest the bottom of the ladder when the tumble began, he was up and out of the way when they all came ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... watch was out the hurricane had sensibly decreased, showing that the master was right in his prognostication. The sea continued, however, to tumble the ship about terribly until the morning dawned, when the clouds began to disperse, and as the sun rose they appeared to fly before his burning rays. By noon the sky was perfectly clear, when, an observation having been taken, the commander determined to run under the lee of one of the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... summarily shut into the close black house; and the figure rustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, 'Come up, if you please; you can't tumble over anything.' They groped their way up-stairs towards a faint light, which proved to be the light of the street shining through a window; and the figure left them ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... at the companionway and a shadow appeared across the small patch of sunlight on the floor of the forecastle. "Tumble up here, you blasted loafers!" ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... understand. I have my own views in the matter.— Besides, there's something else. You have been exceedingly indelicate. You took advantage of my ignorance. You let me think you were a rose-beetle and yesterday the snail told me you are a tumble-bug. A considerable difference! He saw you engaged in—well, doing something I don't care to mention. I'm sure you will now admit that I must ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... very large fish which every moment appear on the surface of the water, where they tumble about. They pass with such prodigious rapidity, that they will swim round a ship, when it is going at the rate of nine ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... tumble my shirt-collars again in that way, I'll charge you for the washing. Just now, too, when I'm trying so hard to be trim and elegant, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... letters, observed, that the common cock makes a very respectable figure, even in the grand Parisian assembly of all the stuffed birds and beasts in the universe. It is a glorious thing to have a friend who will jump into a river, or down a precipice, to save one's life: but as I do not intend to tumble down precipices, or to throw myself into the water above half a dozen times, I would rather have for my friends persons who would not reserve their kindness wholly for these grand occasions, but who could condescend to make me happy every day, and all day ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Virgin, daughter of Locrine Sprung of old Anchises line, May thy brimmed waves for this Their full tribute never miss From a thousand petty rills, That tumble down the snowy hills: Summer drouth, or singed air Never scorch thy tresses fair, Nor wet Octobers torrent flood 930 Thy molten crystal fill with mudd, May thy billows rowl ashoar The beryl, and the golden ore, May thy lofty head be ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... rough-and-tumble sort of life, and every one knew perfectly well that hers had been a liberal education at the hands of her father. Yet even Mr. Lawrence would not have blurted out his tale to Jane Erskine, for instance, as he had just done to Kitty. But bless you! every one knew that old Lord ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... colours the perils that perpetually surrounded us. Though, to be sure, the initial mistake had been committed before that; and if I had not suffered myself to be drawn a little deep in confidences to the innocent Dolly, there need have been no tumble at the inn of Kirkby-Lonsdale. I took the lesson to heart, and promised myself in the future to be more reserved. It was none of my business to attend to broken chaises or shipwrecked travellers. I had my hands full of my ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... write this on my tour through a country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, which sparingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was Inverary—to-morrow night's stage Dumbarton. I ought sooner to have ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... before bedtime, and the best time is just after his morning nap. Do not toss him in the air to make him laugh or crow; he is too tender and delicate for that. When baby is older and in short clothes, place a thick quilt upon the floor and allow him to tumble as he will; a fence two feet high which surrounds a mattress, makes an excellent place, or a box for this young animal to exercise his arms and legs without danger of injury. Before you put baby to sleep at night give him a warm sponge bath with a fresh band and shirt ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... an entry? It's a tumble, a catastrophe, a cataclysm! Ye gods! A meteor, an aerolith, a bit of the moon falling on to the stage would be less horribly disastrous! I will take off my play! Chevalier, come in ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... that there are people, like myself, patriots, my friends, who carry on this traffic. But none have seen us, and therefore we are not likely to be disturbed. Now, on, messieurs, and have no fear, for there are no holes and gullies into which you can tumble, while, seeing that it has been dry weather, there is ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... before justices of the peace, both in the country, in villages, and in the city, and I had some professional triumphs, occasionally over a regular attorney, but more commonly meeting the "pettifogger," who was of a class once common, and not to be despised as "rough and tumble," ad captandum, advocates in justices' courts. They often knew some crude law, and they never knew enough to concede a point or ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... of heaven make wing in vain, To escape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead. Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain; The harvest-field becomes a river's bed; And torrents tumble from the hills around, Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drowned, And wailing voices, midst the tempest's sound, Rise, as the rushing ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... education, who lived on a hillside road, running some distance to the rear of the Langmore house. When the detective arrived there he found Carboy sitting under a tree smoking a short clay pipe. The farm was a neglected one, the house about ready to tumble down, and in the dooryard were half a dozen dirty and ragged children, who scampered out of sight on the ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... and had just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadventures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some story of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own, when he was catching wild horses in Texas with his brother Stephen, at a time when he must have been quite a boy. He told the story with a good deal of spirit,—so much so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... hideous galleries, and high pews like cattle-pens, it had a Norman doorway, some Early English carved work in the chancel, a good Perpendicular tower, and fine Decorated windows. These two well-meaning but ignorant men decided that a brand-new church would be a great improvement on this old tumble-down building. An architect was called in, or a local builder; the plan of a new church was speedily drawn, and ere long the hammers and axes were let loose on the old church and every vestige of antiquity destroyed. The ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... saved me and my horse from a tumble into that ditch last night," she said, with a laugh, as she greeted him. "Why I turned faint like that I can't imagine. I do sometimes when I'm tired. Well, now then—let us walk up ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bookshelves lined the rectangular portion of this strange study I divined, although that end of the place was dark as a catacomb. The walls were wood-paneled, and the ceiling was oaken beamed. A small bookshelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon either side of the table, and the celebrated American author and traveler lay propped up in a long split-cane chair. He wore smoked glasses, and had a clean-shaven, olive face, with a profusion of jet black hair. He was garbed in ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... had lain very contentedly asleep on the stool whereon he had placed it, and we prepared to take our departure. In leaving the hut, Jack stumbled heavily against the doorpost, which was so much decayed as to break across, and the whole fabric of the hut seemed ready to tumble about our ears. This put into our heads that we might as well pull it down, and so form a mound over the skeleton. Jack, therefore, with his axe, cut down the other doorpost, which, when it was done, brought the whole hut in ruins to ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... style of dress—seem to hold themselves together as if fearing that having once given their muscles free play, they would fall to pieces entirely. Rather than move easily forward, and for fear they might tumble to pieces, they shake their shoulders and hips from side to side, hold their arms perfectly rigid from the shoulders down, and instead of the easy, natural swing that the motion of walking would give the arms, they ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... Rabbit was afraid of work. The very sight of work scared old Mr. Rabbit. You see, he was so busy minding other people's business that he didn't have time to attend to his own. So his brown and gray coat always was rumpled and tumbled and dirty. His house was a tumble-down affair in which no one but Mr. Rabbit would ever have thought of living, and his garden—oh, dear me, such a garden you never did see! It was all weeds and brambles. They filled up the yard, and old Mr. Rabbit actually couldn't have gotten into his ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... be a sound... as the riving of wood... a sound as of thunder coming up from the ground. A cleft will run like a mouse across the floor. There will be a red light, and then no light at all, and in the darkness Thek shall tumble in. ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... "to tumble," or "to caper about," doubtless from the actions of the Lady's devotees. Pakil is a town ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... be the best place of all to take a tumble," mused the lad. He knew if he did fall here he would at least have a chance for his life. For he could kick the machine away from him, and dive into the water. And he felt that it was not too high a fall to take ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... to be allowed to tumble to pieces," said Betty. She added her next words with simple directness. She could only discover how any advancing steps would be taken by taking them. "Why do you allow them ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... yoursel'; it was the one thing you thought worth anybody's learning. You stood before her crowing the whole day. I said the now I wished you would go and leave her wi' me: but I wouldna dare to keep her; she's helpless without you; if you took your arm awa frae her now, she would tumble to the ground." ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... sometime to be alone. Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear. Dare to look in thy chest; for 'tis thine own; And tumble up and down what thou findst there. Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, He breaks up homes, turns out of ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... pleasantly, "if you breathe one line of that stuff on this journey I shall throw you into the river myself—cheerfully." She nodded vigorous approval of her own sentiments, and her contrary hair seized the opportunity to tumble down again in resentment of impatient fingers. "Oh, Robbie Belle, come and twist this up for me, won't you? We shall be late for the train. I don't believe we care ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... he shouted. "Up the hill." He was pointing to a tumble-down shed a few yards from the road ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... Winters and more have fled from the face of the Summer, Since here on the oak shaded shore of the dark winding swift Mississippi, Where his foaming floods tumble and roar, on the falls and white rolling rapids, In the fair, fabled center of Earth, sat the Indian town of Ka-tha-ga. [86] Far rolling away to the north, and the south, lay the emerald prairies, Alternate with woodlands and lakes, and above them the blue vast of ether. And here ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... refused to look at another "dividing ridge" that had neither path nor way, and henceforth I must keep to the open road or travel alone. Two hours' tramp brought us to an old clearing with some rude, tumble-down log buildings that many years before had been occupied by the bark and lumber men. The prospect for trout was so good in the stream hereabouts, and the scene so peaceful and inviting, shone upon by the dreamy August sun, that we concluded ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... tell his Colonel the trench could not be held. The communication trench by which he went was not quite finished, and he had to get out into the open and race across to where the unfinished trench began again. Poor child, running for his life! He was badly hit in the groin, but managed just to tumble into the next bit of the trench, where he found two men who carried him, pouring with blood, to his Colonel. He was hastily bound up and carried four miles on crossed rifles to the hospital at Ypres, where his wound was properly dressed, and after an hour he ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... stout as possible for the thickness, and this stoutness can only be obtained by interlacing the bricks. If they were simply laid on the top of each other, the wall would be no more than a row of disconnected piles of bricks liable to tumble down. When the whole is so adjusted that throughout the entire wall the joints in one course shall rest on solid bricks and shall be covered by solid bricks again—in short, when the whole shall break joint—then this wall is said to be properly bonded, and has as much stability given to it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... question, they kneel down and kiss the border of our coats, as in the days of the serf system. We are stationed here in Poland, about eight kilometers from the so-called road, in a so-called village far from all civilization. The village consists of a number of tumble-down cottages, with rooms which we should not consider fit for stables for our horses. The rain is streaming down unceasingly, as if Heaven wished to wash away all the sins of the world. Our horses sink into the mud ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... acknowledged by all who have been brought into contact with him, and it would be superfluous on my part to say anything about his literary reputation. But I have always felt that neither his fine gifts nor his peculiar temperament were suited for the rough and tumble of political warfare. I have felt this whether I have been, as has often happened, marching behind him in thorough unison with his opinions, or, as has also occurred at times, directly opposed to him and to his policy. He came to see me at Leeds ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... for that I'd do it, or it would, maybe, be done long ago; but I'm not sayin' I know where her son is. Do you think now, if I did, that it wouldn't gratify my heart to pull down that black villain—to tumble him down in the eyes of all the world with disgrace and shame, from the height he's sittin' on, and make him a world's ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... rigged up a sort of sloping wooden platform, running from the lip of the pool into the water, so that Bruce could crawl out easily, next time he should tumble in. Bruce watched the placing of this platform with much grave interest. The moment it was completed, he trotted down it on a tour of investigation. At its lower edge he slipped and rolled into the pool. There ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate: Death lays his icy hand on kings: Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... the cracks in the soil; the Saprini, of polished ebony which mirrors the sunlight, jog hastily off, deserting their workshop; the Dermestes, of whom one wears a fawn-coloured tippet, spotted with white, seek to fly away, but, tipsy with their putrid nectar, tumble over and reveal the immaculate whiteness of their bellies, which forms a violent contrast with the gloom of the rest ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... like a crazy thing, but he kept his footing, though every moment I expected him to tumble headlong. The men behind must have ridden more warily, for the sound of hoofs, though still audible, ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx |
