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More "Topmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unworthy incarnations. That these laws were actual and not formal only was proved by the instance that within the hundred years before the birth of Elissa, a lady Baaltis had been executed for some such offence, having been hurled indeed from the topmost pinnacle of the fortress above the temple to the foot of ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... possessed of immense strength, it is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to escape along the topmost branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the highest attainable point of the tree, and emits a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at length deepen into a low roar, not unlike that of a panther. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... crew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed roomily, rose the enormous trunk full forty feet in girth, towering like some tall lighthouse, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with boughs, each of which was a stately tree, whose topmost twigs were full two hundred and fifty feet from the ground. And yet it was easy for the sailors to ascend; so many natural ropes had kind Nature lowered for their use, in the smooth lianes which hung to the very earth, often without a knot or leaf. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... they entered the path leading through the wood. No one spoke now, and they trod cautiously, lest there should be any noise from their footsteps. The tall black fir-trees towered above them to an unusual height; and through all the topmost branches there ran a low, mournful sound, as if every tree was whispering about them, and lamenting over them. Even the little brook, which in the sunshine rippled so merrily along the borders of the wood, seemed to be sobbing like ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... you are actually walking on the old ramparts of the city; and on the wall you may read the number of strokes rung to mark disaster in each portion of the town, two for St. Sever, six for St. Gervais, one for Mont Riboudet, and so forth. From the topmost gallery look out at the many towers and spires which even now rise in such profusion above the roofs of Rouen—St. Pierre du Chastel, St. Eloi, the front of the Palais de Justice with the Tour St. Laurent beyond, St. Ouen looking (to my mind) far finer from that point of vantage than the Cathedral, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... star and cradle and 'gain he speak his thought. He say: "What is cradle, Sensei? I know 'bout star. Every night at my honorable home I open shoji to see old priest strike bell and make him sing. Then I see big star hang out light over topmost of mountain." One more time he say, like thinking to himself: "Cradle. Maybe him shrine for ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... brilliant, they are grand, doubtless; but—shall I say it to you?—such vague projects for the perfecting of corrupt societies seem to me to crawl far below the devotion of love. When the whole soul vibrates with that one thought, it has no room for the nice calculation of general interests; the topmost heights of ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... ago, hidden behind the shelter of its venerable walls, and half smothered under masses of wisteria and Virginia creeper. On the wall, in summer time, grow countless soft green mosses, and brown, waving grasses. Thick masses of yellow stonecrop and tufts of snapdragon crown its summit, whilst the topmost branches of the long row of lime-trees within come nodding sweet-scented greetings to the passers-by along ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... cast down, bowed without replying, while an imperceptible shudder ran from the tip of her satin shoe to the topmost bit of orange-blossom in her crown. But honest Risler saw nothing. The excitement, the dancing, the music, the flowers, the lights made him drunk, made him mad. He believed that every one breathed the same atmosphere of bliss beyond compare which enveloped him. He had no perception of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... water rose over the topmost letter and a moist silence prevailed till a sudden jerk fished up the bag, and before the dolls could recover their wits they were spread out on the floor of a mail car to dry, while several busy men sorted and saved such papers and letters as ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn From every orchard close At eve comes flooding rich and silvery; The daisies in great meadows swing and shine; And with the wind a sound as of the sea Roars in the maples and the topmost pine. ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring? Did ever one of the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal consumption by rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the topmost garret, and rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable destruction? The writer says no. A woman was rescued from the top of a burning house; but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it was Pearce, not Percy, who ran up the burning stairs. Did ever one of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... outside a door on the topmost landing. From some mysterious recess in her apparel ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... his muzzle. As he did so, a sidelong hint of the man standing below with the raised gun smote him; he sprung round furiously, and, seizing his prey, was about to leap into some unknown airy den of the topmost branches now waving to the slow dawn. The late moon had rounded through the sky so that her gleam at last fell full upon the bough with fairy frosting; the wintry morning light did not yet penetrate the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... In my vague mental condition, the impression of her came slowly. First it was as though I saw three cubes, one above the other, the largest in the middle. Then these took on clothing, blue calico with large polka dots, and the topmost one crowned itself with thin wisps of hair, parted in the middle and plastered down at the side. So, little by little, John Shadrack's widow grew on me, till I saw her a square little old woman, with a wrinkled, brown face, a perpetual smile and a pipe that snuffled in a ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... her delighted passengers and proud officers, however, there were any more enthusiastic about the great vessel than two lads who were seated in the wireless operators' cabin on the topmost deck. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... command. Dicky Esse and I accompanied the Second-Lieutenant. Our orders were to board the prows, and if they offered any resistance, to destroy them. The water was smooth and beautifully blue, while the rising sun tipped the topmost heights of the lofty hills, which rose, as it were, out of the ocean, feathered almost from their summits to the water's edge with graceful trees. There lay the brig, while the prows were clustered like so many ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... but all covered by the sea. He would not take it upon him to be positive; but this he could tell Daisy; there was never a stick or a leaf to be found in those old rocks that ever lived and grew on dry ground, though there were plenty that grew in the sea, until in the very topmost or latest of those rocks some few bits of ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... took a hot and cold shower; hobgoblins fled, although he felt no inclination to sing! He called down for his breakfast and opened his hall door. A pile of letters lay on his newspapers, and the topmost one, in a large envelope, addressed in a flowing meticulously fine hand, he knew, without speculation, to be ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the King's dominions stood the palace, perfect in beauty, from its dazzling foundations to its topmost flaming turret. Brightness unquenchable shone from its walls, warmth and the spirit of friendliness streamed from its windows and wide-flung golden doors. Beyond it, in the garden of the Princess, the exquisite flame-roses and stately fire-lilies ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... understand just what the girl that Miss Havisham gives is after, and she gives her so abundantly that there's no more doubt of the why than there is of the how. Sometimes I used to think the house couldn't follow Miss Pettrell in her subtle touches, but the house, to the topmost tier of the gallery, will ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... moon, and withheld the comfort of her radiance; and it was not until the whimper of the torrent had quickened about me to a plunging roar, and my foot was on the striding bridge that took its waters at a step, that her light broke through a topmost cleft in the hills, and made glory of the leaping thunder that crashed beneath ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the largest of this kind.[K] These mounds are the remains of peculiar constructions, called ZIGGURATS, composed of several platforms piled one on the other, each square in shape and somewhat smaller than the preceding one; the topmost platform supported a temple or sanctuary, which by these means was raised far above the dwellings of men, a constant reminder not less eloquent than the exhortation in some of our religious services: ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... kneel beside the topmost step, and see the Reverend Mother pass; she would look up at that serene face which had melted into tenderness; would see the firm line of those ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... in size, they make ample amends in height. Heedless, and bankrupt in all curiosity, must he be who can journey on without stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its topmost branch, when naked with age or dried by accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his life ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... the yellow turned to a deeper glow that shot forth in long streamers, the rosy fingers of the dawn, from the horizon to the zenith. Cold and ghostly lay the snows on the mighty cone; till at last there came upon their topmost slope, six thousand feet above us, a sudden blush of pink. Swiftly it floated down the eastern face, and touched and kindled the rocks just above us. Then the sun flamed out, and in a moment the Araxes valley and all the hollows of the savage ridges we were crossing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the Prince, loth to quit the view, turned and refilled his eyes with Sancta Sophia, of which, from his position, the wall at the water's edge, the lesser churches of the Virgin Hodegetria and St. Irene, and the topmost sections far extending of the palaces of Bucoleon seemed but foundations. The edifice, as he saw it then, depended on itself for effect, the Turk having not yet, in sign of Mohammedan conversion, broken the line of its marvellous dome with minarets. At length ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... with gingerbread cakes, sword-swallowers, and waffles piping hot. As the evening falls, colored lamps and Chinese lanterns are lighted around the venerable oak which stands in the middle of the fairground, and boys climb about among its topmost branches with maroons and ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... the cabbage is taken from its stretcher and borne to the topmost peak of the house or barn. Whether it be a chimney, a gable, or a dove-cote that crowns the roof, the burden must, at any risk, be carried to the very highest point of the building. The "infidel" accompanies it as far as this, sets it down securely, and waters it with a great pitcher of wine, while ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... think at times you hear the distant call of a ship. But what would that be? Something in the mind. It happened long ago. You, too, are a ghost left by the vanished past. There is a man above at a high loophole, the topmost cave of a warehouse which you can see has been exposed to commerce and the elements for ages; he pulls in a bale pendulous from the cable of a derrick. Below him one of the horses of a van tosses its nose-bag. There is no other movement. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... So the princess returned to the palace wondering whether she should ever find the courage to pluck a primrose. Ever since she had been a small child she had thought how delightful it must be to fly through the air; to rest on the topmost branch of a tree in the sunshine and sing and sing ...
— The Bountiful Lady - or, How Mary was changed from a very Miserable Little Girl - to a very Happy One • Thomas Cobb
... pair of wood-pigeons took to housekeeping in his topmost branches. The Prince was glad to welcome them, for though denied human speech, he understood the language of trees and birds. On Midsummer Eve, the pigeons said to him, "To-night the King of the Trees comes ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... the owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... a series of swings, one trapeze fixed higher than another, like a line of gigantic steps, to the very pinnacle of the tent. 'The Signor' announced that he was going to swing himself up upon these hanging bars until he reached the topmost, and from that he would leap through the air down, down into the lighted abyss below, and catch a rope that was stretched at the foot ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough, A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,— Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... an opportune stumble and a noisy effort to recover himself, at the same instant aiming a stealthy kick at the topmost round of the ladder, and scrambling ostentatiously over the edge of the trap. The ladder went down thirty or forty feet with a racket, clattering and banging against the walls of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... pocket, he detached his latch-key softly, and as softly inserted it in the lock. The door opened noiselessly, showing a light down the stairway from the hall above. He could now hear some one moving, probably on the topmost floor, with an opening and shutting of doors that might have been those of closets, followed by a swishing sound like that of the folding or packing of clothes. He entered and closed the door with a ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... when they stood at the foot of the high stair— six stories high—and Captain Bruce, they learned, was inhabiting the topmost flat. Malcolm looked ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... complete than that at Nimes; it has suffered even more the assaults of time and of the children of time, and it has been less repaired. The seats are almost wholly wanting; but the external walls, minus the topmost tier of arches, are massively, ruggedly complete; and the vaulted corridors seem as solid as the day they were built. The whole thing is superbly vast, and as monumental, for a place of light amusement—what is ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... beseem them not All the worst half of women. Thus we stoop To pick up hectic apples from the ground, Pierc'd by the canker or the unseen worm, And tasting deem none other grow but they, Whilst on the topmost branches of life's tree Hangs fruitage worthy of the virgin choir Of bright Hesperides. Soft! Who comes here? Surely my rascal is not yet return'd— The times are full of plotting. I ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... gives. Of all kinds a single pair, And the members safely there Of his house he doth embark, Then at once he shuts the ark; Everything therein has pass'd, There he keeps them safe and fast. O'er the mountain's topmost peak Now the raging waters break. Till full twenty days are o'er, 'Midst the elemental roar, Up and down the ark forlorn, Like some evil thing is borne: O what grief it is to see Swimming on the enormous sea Human corses pale and white, More, alas! than I can write: ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... were no nightingales there, but the thrushes sang in the dawning, and the little birds whose voices were sweet and thin chirruped about it in crowds, while the larks, trilling out the ardour of mating time, sometimes rose from their nests in the grass and soared over its topmost ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gradually; but, instead of drifting directly for the timber, it was borne by the current in a direction that would carry it at least twenty yards from the trees. The squirrels had gathered upon that side; and now, instead of running up and down the trunks, as before, they all stood upon the topmost branches apparently watching the motions of ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Once there he would face the next difficulty. One was enough at a time. And then, when he had made the rope fast to one of the marble pillars and slid down it, it proved too short. He swung with his feet just touching the topmost branch of a blossoming peach tree. There was nothing for it but to let go, snatch at the branches as he fell and trust to chance for safety. He found it; and dropped to the ground amid a perfect ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... were fastened, and that when he passed again a little before six o'clock, he noticed that the hall-door was closed. Another witness testified that about five o'clock, a man in a laborer's dress, carrying a dinner-pail, ascended the steps of the Nathan mansion, picked up a paper from the topmost step, and passed on down the street. The introduction of this man in the laborer's dress but deepened the mystery and increased the labors of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... different nature, seldom seen except on the topmost peaks, is the rosy-headed finch. While on the summit of Pyramid Peak, we saw two of them, and one of them favored us with his (or her) ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... topmost sheet, she shook it open. Then the next and the next till she reached the bottom of the box. Nothing of a criminating nature came to light. The box as well as its contents was without mystery of any kind. This was not an unexpected result of course, but the smile with ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... most enthusiastic criticisms of her concerts, calling her "the wonder-child," and "the first German artist," one who "already stands on the topmost peak of our time." He even printed verses upon her genius. In a letter to Wieck, in 1833, he says, "It is easy to write to you, but I do not feel equal to write to Clara." She was still, however, the child to him; ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... absorb herself so utterly in the outpouring of the spire that her gaze seemed to leap upwards with it; her lips at the same time curving in a friendly smile for the worn old stones of which the setting sun now illumined no more than the topmost pinnacles, which, at the point where they entered that zone of sunlight and were softened and sweetened by it, seemed to have mounted suddenly far higher, to have become truly remote, like a song whose singer breaks into falsetto, an ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... this all; along with the pelicans prodigious numbers of other water-birds had selected this for their dwelling-place, and covered the trees in thousands, standing on the topmost branches; tall flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and other waders. We had disturbed them thus early, before their habitual hour for betaking themselves to their fishing-fields. By degrees, as the light increased, we saw them beginning to move upon the trees; they looked around ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there— When the stars twinkle through the loops of Time, And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,[pa] Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head—[512] When the light shines serene ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... behold thee scarred?' To such vain quest he cared not to reply, But, heaving from his breast a deep-drawn sigh, 'Fly, Goddess-born! and get thee from the fire! The foes,' he said, 'are on the ramparts. Fly! All Troy is tumbling from her topmost spire. No more can Priam's land, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... he stood trying the topmost stone, with his torch held aloft, the glare of the light shone upon the sides of the chimney and disclosed that very opening which Russell had already discovered. At first he thought that it might be a side flue, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... curtain which extends upwards to the next storey, surrounding a deep lunette in which there is a Madonna between two Saints. Here the monument should have ended, but it is surmounted by an ogival arch, flanked by two trumpeting children and with a central medallion of God the Father. This topmost tier may have been a subsequent addition. It overweights the whole monument, introduces a discordant architectural motive, and is decorated by inferior sculpture. The Madonna in the lunette is also poor, and the curtain looks as if it were made of lead. But the lower portion of the tomb compensates ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... built on the river Marne, and, having seen two vast hydraulic machines, we enter a lift with the intelligent foreman deputed to act as guide, and ascend to the topmost top of the many storied, enormous building in which the cocoa berry is metamorphosed into the delicious compound known as Chocolate Menier. This is a curious experience, and the reverse of most ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... with no less success in Gluck's operas of "Orphee" and "Alceste" than in the first, and rose again to the topmost wave of court favor. When "Orphee" was at rehearsal at the opera-house, it became the fashion of the great court dignitaries and the young chevaliers of the period to attend. Gluck instantly, when he entered the theatre, threw off his coat and wig, and conducted in shirt-sleeves ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... is no base weed—no planted tree, Nor a seedling of last Autumn; Nor a sapling planted at Beltain; [7] Wide, wide around were spread its lofty branches— But the topmost bough is lowly laid! Thou hast forsaken us ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... stationary and exterior to the field. It consists of a laminated ring with slots on its inner surface and supported by a massive external cast-iron frame. The armature, as has been noted, comprises seven segments, the topmost segment being in the form of a small keystone. This may be removed readily, affording access to any field coil, which in this way may be easily removed and replaced. The armature winding consists of U-shaped copper bars in partially closed slots. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... upward-rushing storm and cloud Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all, Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm, In blood-red armor sallying, howl'd to the King, "The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!— Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world— The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! Slain ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the very topmost course of all, the gallery dwindles into such insignificant dimensions that not even a dwarf (as one would naturally understand that term) could creep along it. Scott cannot have meant this very extremity. With regard ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... you'll find that here await you Four companies of most pugnacious women Armed cap-a-pie from the topmost louring curl To the lowest ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... all was clear for my escape. But I had forgotten this strange city in which I was. Every house is an island. As I flung open the door, ready to bound out into the street, the light of the hall shone upon the deep, still, black water which lay flush with the topmost step. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... interesting study in the composition of lines. Starting from the topmost point of the turban, draw a line on the right, coming across the shoulder along the outer edge of the drapery to the toe. On the left, let the line connecting the same two points follow the outer curve of the scroll, along the slanting edge of the mantle, and we get a beautiful pointed ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... shoe. For, like the sin, the punishment is awful; he shall carry about for ages the phantom-body of the girl, knowing that her soul is away, sitting with the soul of his brother, down in the deep ravine, or scaling with him the topmost crags of the towering mountain peaks. There are some who, from time to time, see the doomed man careering along the face of the mountain, with the lady hanging across the steed; and they say it always betokens a storm, such as this which is ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... and secretly, it was said, by smuggling. The chateau was built on a cliff, which it completely occupied. This cliff was formed of several terraces that rose in a stair one above another. On the topmost one sat the chateau, like an eagle in its nest. It had four dentilated turrets, with great casements and immense galleries, that gave it the grandest possible aspect. On the second terrace you found ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... had sought out quiet nooks To tell the tale that all the past has told And coming times will tell, stand mute and gaze. The home-stretch soon is reached, and Channa's three By word and lash urged to their topmost speed, The foaming Babylonians left behind, While Devadatta and Timour draw near, A whole round gained, Timour a length ahead. But Devadatta loosens now his reins, Chides his fleet pets, with lash swung high in air Wounds their proud spirits, not their tender ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... sorrow. He nodded from time to time as she spoke, and walked up and down with his hands behind, him. When she stopped, he asked her to tell him further facts. Then the light waned under the sycamore trees and only a red fire still touched their topmost boughs. ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... sprightfulness; And he ought to let Scripture alone—'tis self-slaughter, For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid, Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid, His wit running up as Canary ran down,— The topmost bright bubble on the wave of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... with nothin' but her character an' that bell to encumber her, goes fa'rly flyin' light. But go as fast an' as far as she pleases, them long-y'eared locoed worshippers of her's won't let her outen their raptured sight. The last one of 'em, panniers, freight an' all, would go surgin' to the topmost pinnacle of the Rockies if ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Brown-Thrasher. Though he belonged to the Pleasant Valley Singing Society, he sang so well that he usually preferred to sing by himself, instead of attending a singing party. Each morning and each evening he would seat himself in the topmost branches of a tree near the thicket where he lived; and there he would sing his favorite song over and ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... accepted must be broken—God save the mark!—as Terence Reardon remarked after seeing one passed as broken, following five minutes of furious pitching and squealing—Cappy Ricks was one of the first at the corral and the last to leave. Perched on the topmost, rail, he piped encouragement to the lank, flat-bellied border busters who, a dozen times a day, risked life and limb at five ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... saw his trim dark head and his bright blue waistcoat among the branches, and his heart gave a guilty throb of relief. But soon he noted that Charlotte had not her basket, and the conviction seized him that Thomas had it and was filling it with the very choicest cherries from the topmost branches, as was ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the conversation ripples on, a quiet undertone of perfect confidence, freedom without reserve as to another self, suddenly discovered in the working identity of a fellow-creature. It ripples on just thus, all the distance of the walk along the topmost down, in the evening sunlight, and then comes a pause to negotiate the descent to their handy little forest below. Then a sense that they are coming back into a sane, dry world, and must be a lady and a gentleman ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... people. He built this pagoda and was immensely proud of it He delighted to deck it with gold and precious stones. She says that once the whole of the exterior was covered with plates of solid gold, and the Hti, the umbrella, that is the topmost stage of the pagoda, was hung with thousands of golden and silver bells, and decked with huge rubies and other precious stones. Most of these didn't belong to him. For he had a habit of marching upon neighbouring ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... he exclaimed that the gods would avenge their own wrongs. Taking advantage of this tacit consent, fifty soldiers rushed up the stairway of the temple, and dragging the great wooden idols from their places in the topmost tower, they rolled them down the steps of the pyramid amid the groans of the natives and the triumphant shouts of their comrades, and then burnt them to ashes. The Totonacs, finding that their gods were unable to prevent or even punish this ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... part Andrea leant over her to read the programme which she held open in her hands, and in so doing pressed against her arm, inhaling the perfume of her violets, and sending a wild thrill of ecstasy through her. The Adagio rose with so exultant a song, soared with so jubilant a strain to the topmost summits of rapture, and flowed wide into the Infinite, that it seemed like the voice of some celestial being pouring out the joy of a deathless victory. The spirits of the audience were borne along on that irresistible ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia from every quarter gravitates—there to enter the Public Service, to shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But the real starting-point of Tientietnikov's ambition was the moment when his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... done," suggested Amy, and Lucy brought from the other side of the raspberry bushes a large-sized milk-pail so heaping full that the topmost berries looked as if they were contemplating escape. The ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Ah, would that way were also mine! O noble poet! thou whose heart Is like a nest of singing birds Rocked on the topmost bough of life, Wilt thou, too, from our sky depart, And in the clangor of the strife Mingle ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... such an offer from such a suitor as Lord Hampstead. But in truth the glory of the thing was not very much to her. It was something, no doubt. It must be something to a girl to find that her own personal charms have sufficed to lure down from his lofty perch the topmost bird of them all. That Marion was open to some such weakness may be acknowledged of her. But of the coronet, of the diamonds, of the lofty title, and high seats, of the castle, and the parks, and well-arranged equipages, of the rich dresses, of the obsequious servants, and fawning ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... sheer down to invisible depths, from whence came the rumbling echo of falling water. In this almost perpendicular wall of rock were a few ledges, like the precarious rungs of a broken ladder, and down these he prepared to go. Clinging at first to the topmost edge of the precipice, he let himself down warily inch by inch till his figure entirely disappeared, sunken, as it were in darkness. As he vanished there was a sudden cry—a rush as of wings—and a woman sprang ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... earth and stone, cleft by deep embrasures, from which the great guns grin across the rich gardens, studded with standard fruit-trees, which close the glacis to its topmost edge. And there, below him, lie the vineyards: every rock-ledge and narrow path of soil tossing its golden tendrils to the sun, grey with ripening clusters, rich with noble wine; but what is that wall which ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... made their escape and went sailing serenely down the stream. The balm of Gilead trees exuded their healing perfume on the cool breeze that blew ceaselessly up the broad valley; a golden-brown chipmunk raced up a tree and scolded at them from the topmost branches; overhead, in the clear blue of the mid-heaven, a flock of wild geese, with flashing white wings, honked away to the Brandon Hills, en route for that northern lake that no man knows; while a flock of goldfinches, like a shower ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... of these under each arm, he made his way to the wooden steps which led down to the water's edge, and the men in the boat heard the shuffling and scraping of his feet, as he felt with his boot for the topmost step; his hands being fully ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... now precede the rest. The literature, songs, esthetics, &c., of a country are of importance principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand effective ways.[27] As the topmost claim of a strong consolidating of the nationality of these States, is, that only by such powerful compaction can the separate States secure that full and free swing within their spheres, which is becoming to them, each after its kind, so will individuality, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... roses of summer were bursting their topmost buds into full bloom on the lawn of the Doctor's bungalow. The martins that built each year in the little boxes he had set on poles around his garden were circling and chattering far up in the sapphire skies of a late September day. Their leaders ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... thy hunger." Such the words I heard From Virgil's lip; and never greeting heard So pleasant as the sounds. Within me straight Desire so grew upon desire to mount, Thenceforward at each step I felt the wings Increasing for my flight. When we had run O'er all the ladder to its topmost round, As there we stood, on me the Mantuan fix'd His eyes, and thus he spake: "Both fires, my son, The temporal and eternal, thou hast seen, And art arriv'd, where of itself my ken No further reaches. I with skill and art Thus far have drawn thee. Now thy ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the windows. The clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out to have been trodden on too. Dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it some broken shoots, and a little bit of wadding. On the topmost burrs, some fine threads of dark ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... soul's emotion is not only the life of the root of this "tree of knowledge"; it is also the life of the sap of the uttermost branches; it is the force that makes the fragrance of each topmost leaf mingle with that of all the rest, in that unified breath of the whole tree which loses itself ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about halfway up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by anyone but a single native woman, who, as the Chaldaeans, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... the world. Alas, in me is no such unfathomable mystery. I but trick myself. Yet I have my moments. These stones that I carry on the mountain, what of them? On what windy ridge do I build my castle? It is shrill and bleak, they say, on the topmost peaks of the Delectable Mountains, so lower down I have reared its walls. There is no storm in these upland valleys and the sun sits pleasantly on their southern slopes. But even if there be unfolded no broad ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... stands majestic on its hills, with its long lines of palaces and convents terraced around the rocky slope, and on the height the soaring steeples of a swarm of churches piercing the blue, and the huge cube of the Alcazar crowning the topmost crest, and domineering the scene. The magnificent zigzag road which leads up the steep hillside from the bridge of Alcantara gives an indefinable impression, as of the lordly ramp of some ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Theodora was curled up in a fork of one of the topmost branches of her tree. The apples were beginning to ripen, and she had eaten until even her hearty young appetite was satisfied. Then she crossed her feet, coiled one arm around the branch beside her, and fell to planning, as she had so often done before, how she could fulfil ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... fires, and that sleepy folk will here lie snugly a-bed on frosty mornings. But still the brazen fellow is not content. A ladder leads horribly to the roof. For myself I will climb until the tip of my nose juts out upon the world—until it sprouts forth to the air from the topmost timbers: But I will go no farther. But if your companion sees a scaffold around a chimney, he must perch on it. For him, a dizzy plank is a pleasant belvedere from which to view ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... possible—if she could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live together—what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and he knew that across the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... had hung over the city from early morning seemed to lie like a roof over the topmost circle of the amphitheatre, and as night came on the pit below grew dark and chill. Then torches were lit and put in prominent places—long pitch sticks covered with rags or brown paper. The people were patient and good-humoured, but to beguile ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... time came when we thought it safe to start toward Albany and with grateful words of thanks to the carpenter and his wife, we set forth upon our travels. Our courage was again at topmost gauge. My success with the saw had given me confidence. I was no longer afraid of towns, and in a glow of high resolution and with thirty dollars in my pocket, I planned to invade New York which was to me the wickedest and the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... sparkling lake under canvas, till the overhanging hills of the opposite side robbed them of their aerial wings, and the sail being struck, the boatmen bent to their oars. As they passed under a promontory, clothed from the water's edge to its topmost ridge with the most luxuriant vegetation, it was pointed out to the lady ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... looped on to the topmost thread, between the two bars, and with this, knots are made over all the 14 threads that come from the ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... to the hard bricks. No bones, fortunately, were broken, but he sustained such a shock that he was confined to his bed for some weeks. But a more remarkable escape occurred at a later date. Visiting the castle, a dozen or more yeans ago, while the writer was looking down to the basement from the topmost gallery, close to the foot of the small staircase which leads to the flat roof of the south-eastern turret, the son of a farmer in the parish came up to him and said, in the most unconcerned manner, “Sir, my brother fell from here to the bottom yesterday.” ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Knocked at the door behind, and he was gone, A darker pillar of darkness in the dark. Straightway one opened and I gave the scroll. He read, then thrust it in his lanthorn flame Till it was ashes; 'Follow' and no more Whisper'd, went up the giddy spiring way, I after, till we reached the topmost door. Then took a key, opened, and crying 'Delia, Delia my sweetheart, I am come, I am come,' I darted forward and he locked us in. Two figures; one rose up and ran to me Along the ladder of moonlight on the floor, Fell on my neck. Long time we ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... sky, and behold, dangling from one of the topmost branches of a famous big sour apple-tree, a pair of sturdy boy's legs! And there was Sandy, lying on the ground ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... worship of Legba consisted of propitiating his or her characteristics by unctions of palm oil, and near every native door stood a clay Legba-pot of cooked maize and palm oil, which got eaten by the turkey-buzzard or vulture. This loathsome fowl, perched upon the topmost stick of a blasted calabash tree, struck Burton as the most appropriate emblem of rotten and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... children and put them to bed. It seemed to him a long time before she was ready to sit down with her sewing at the table, upon which the soft, pleasant light of their shaded lamp was falling. At last she came, with her small work-basket in her mind. Topmost of all its contents was a French novel. When Ellis saw this, there came doubts and misgivings ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... dirt. And when moral horror had been blunted by custom and drink, physical horror had remained acute. For, human nature being a development upward through the physical to the spiritual, when a process of degeneration sets in, the topmost layers, the spiritual, wear away first—then those in which the spiritual is a larger ingredient than the material—then those in which the material is the larger—and last of all those that are ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... bigs his nest For the mate he lo'es to see, And on the topmost bough, O, a happy bird is he; Where he pours his melting ditty, And love is a' the theme, And he 'll woo his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... moorland burn; And waked at dawn, to feel the rain Fall on my face, as on the fern That drooped about my heather-bed; And how by noon the wind had blown The last grey shred from out the sky, And blew my homespun jacket dry, As I stood on the topmost stone That crowns the cairn on Hawkshaw Head, And caught a gleam of far-off sea; And heard the wind sing in the bent Like those far waters calling me: When, my heart answering to the call, I followed down the seaward stream, By silent ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... in affluence, and always prosperous, clombe without the difficulty and various disappointments that all human beings seem destined to encounter, to the very topmost pinacle of happiness: Around him was sunshine, and clouds whose shapes of beauty made the prospect divine concealed from him the barren reality which lay hidden below them. From this dizzy point he was dashed ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... dubious clause as to the weather?" asked Helen, looking at the golden shafts of sunlight on the topmost crags of Corvatsch and the Piz della Margna. Those far off summits were so startlingly vivid in outline that they seemed to be more accessible than the mist shrouded ravines cleaving their dun sides. It needed an effort of the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... faith arrayed, We these foundations laid In war's dark day. Oppression's reign o'erthrown, Sweet peace once more our own, Do Thou the topmost stone ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Barracombe was the most punctual of men. He entered his office in Mincing Lane precisely at ten o'clock on Thursday morning. His letters had already been sorted and arranged in two neat piles on his desk. Topmost on one of them was a cablegram from Toronto: "Meet me home eleven p.m. Smith." He never admitted that anything would surprise him, and in fact he showed no sign of excitement, but looked through his correspondence methodically, distributing the papers among ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... ask where we are going. Ask that question of the sparrow that sits on the house-top—ask where it is going, and what is the aim of its journey. It will reply, the next bush, the nearest tree, the topmost bough of a weeping willow, which stands on a lonely grave; the mast of a ship, sailing on the wide sea; or the branch of a noble beech, waving before the window of a beautiful maiden. I am as incapable of telling you the exact aim and end ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... tracts that surround it bear the names of Adventurers, Princes and Editors, and the very topmost tip, out of compliment to a well-known pianist and politician, has been ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... at the top of a hill—the topmost of an ascending range of hills—and to some minds that alone is rapture. To inhale the fresh night air was to drink deeply of an ethereal beverage. I had never experienced so delicious a sensation since I had stood on the grassy battlements of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... warmer-hearted blue 5 Stoops softly to that topmost swell; Its thread-like windings seem a clew To gracious climes where ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... adjective which certainly was more descriptive of his appearance. Of his riding on Mr. Pretty's back when he, in pursuit of his duty, must crawl on all fours under the counter; his clinging to his legs when duty again called him to mount the steps for the topmost shelf. Nothing was too absurd, no tiny record too trivial to be precious ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... guest. By the rapt light in his eyes, the Maccabee knew that the boy was once more journeying over the stones of the streets of the Holy City, or standing awed on the polished pavements of its lordly interiors, or on the topmost point of her hills with the broad-winged wind from the ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... of the pass. And after that the poet cared no more for them, but went on his way with a bold heart, until he had left behind and below him the clouds and mists of the ravines among the hills, and stood on the topmost expanse of dazzling snow, and beheld once more the golden gate of the Land that lies beyond the Sun. But of his meeting with the Princess, and of the gladness and splendour of their espousals, and of all the joy that he had, is not for ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... meet him in single combat, and Percy promptly accepted. In the duel Percy was unhorsed, and Douglas captured his pennon and his gauntlet gloves, embroidered with the Percy lion in pearls. This trophy Douglas vowed he would carry off to Scotland with him, and set it in the topmost tower of his castle of Dalkeith, that it might be seen from afar. "By heaven! that you never shall," replied Percy; "you shall not carry it out of Northumberland." "Come and take it, then," was Douglas' ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... surrounding each separate yard were much too lofty for men to climb up and look over, yet the inmates, though bereft of their liberty, were not bereft of their wits, as we shall see in more striking ways as the story proceeds; and some of them, from the topmost berths on the sides of their immensely high dormitories, had taken off the tiles, and from thence saw ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... graces is completed by Hope. Without her fair presence something is wanting to the completeness of her elder sisters. The great Campanile at Florence, though it be inlaid with glowing marbles, and fair sculptures, and perfect in its beauty, wants the gilded, skyward-pointing pinnacle of its topmost pyramid; and so it stands incomplete. And thus faith and love need for their crowning and completion the topmost grace that looks up to the sky, and is sure of a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... at the door and looked up into the branches. They were very much forked, and upon every difficult branch Hugh had nailed steps and made a railing. In some of the forks he had inserted wooden seats, others he had left to nature. The topmost seat was almost at the summit of the tree, and behind it was firmly lashed a flagpole, with a Union Jack hanging limply in the still air, and a lantern with green and red glass on two of its sides. Near the door of the little house there hung from a stout branch ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... wonderful diversity of external characters, considering that all seem equally adapted to a purely arboreal life. In the howlers we have a specially developed voice organ, which is altogether peculiar; in the spider monkeys we find the adaptation to active motion among the topmost branches of the forest trees carried to an extreme point of development; while the singular nocturnal monkeys, the active squirrel monkeys, and the exquisite little marmosets, show how distinct are the forms under which the same general type, may be exhibited, and in how many varied ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... the road, nor watching us from behind this bush or that hillock. Turkey never left me till he saw me safe up the ladder; nay, after I was in bed, I spied his face peeping in at the window from the topmost round of it. By this time the east had begun to begin to glow, as Allister, who was painfully exact, would have said; but I was fairly tired now, and, falling asleep at once, never woke until Mrs. Mitchell ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... itself in vocal rustling. And to thee, Pontic Amastris, and to box-screened Cytorus, the pinnace vows that this was alway and yet is of common knowledge most notorious; states that from its primal being it stood upon thy topmost peak, dipped its oars in thy waters, and bore its master thence through surly seas of number frequent, whether the wind whistled 'gainst the starboard quarter or the lee or whether Jove propitious fell on both ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... associations must be formed to take the new work that will come before us, for when the ballot is given to woman then the great work will begin. Then comes the tug of war. For the obtaining of the ballot by woman is but stepping up the first round of the ladder, whose topmost ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... for a few seconds, a sound of rustling and scrambling, and, immediately after, a shout, whereupon they would uncover their eyes and gaze upwards; and lo! there was their father—who but an instant before, as it seemed, had been beside them—swaying and soaring high aloft on the topmost branches, a delightful mystery and miracle. And then down would rattle showers of ripe nuts, which the children would diligently pick up, and stuff into their capacious bags. It was all a splendid holiday; and they cannot remember when their father ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... the story during those later days of the great cardinal's life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity. One of the most striking portions of the story is that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; the method of conducting criminal cases, and the political trickery resorted to by royal favorites, affording a better insight ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... with men climbing long ladders, and boys in the topmost branches looking in the distance like huge squirrels, were pleasant objects to the mountain ramblers. Huskers could be discerned in the nearer cornfields, and the great yellow ears glistened momentarily in the light, as they were tossed into golden heaps. There was no hum of industry ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... course changed. The yacht was around behind Walden. The whole planet lay between it and its intended prey. The course of the small ship curved, now. It would pass almost close enough to clip the topmost tips of Walden's atmosphere. There was nothing for Hoddan to do but think ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... fired as at Paris, and that the fleets should be decorated. A beautiful evening favored the special rejoicings at the capital where the houses were voluntarily illuminated. Those who seek to ascertain by external appearances the real feelings of a people amid events of this kind, remarked that the topmost stories of houses in the faubourgs were as well lighted as the most magnificent hotels and finest houses of the capital. Public buildings, which under other circumstances are remarkable from the darkness of the surrounding houses, were scarcely seen amid this profusion of lights with which ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... impromptu rivulets, could glimpse the broad river billowing and raging, the cattle huddling terrified in the pastures, the woods swaying and writhing in deathlike grapple. The wind hurled by them in a thousand moods and tones, all angry; a fine, high shrieking on its topmost note—a hoarse snarl—a lull, as though the straining monster were pausing to catch its breath—then a roaring, sweeping onrush as if bent on irresistible destruction. And on top of this glare, ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... worse than ever. Tidings of the godsend were of course carried instantly to the castle; for the Baron was a very great man; and if a dun cow had flown across his property unannounced by the warder, the Baron would have pecked him, the said warder, from the topmost battlement into the bottommost ditch,—a descent of peril, and one which "Ludwig the Leaper," or the illustrious Trenck himself, might well ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... guardian was baby Gurwood, and a strong resemblance it bore to the old baby in the matters of health, strength, fatness, and self-will. Miss Stocks was one of those human evergreens which years appear to make no impression on at all. From her shoe-latchet to her topmost hair-pin she was unalterably the same as she had been in days gone by. She treated the new baby, too, as she had treated the old—choked it with sweetmeats and kisses, and acted the part of buffer to its feet ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... and seemed more than full, for it would not close. Taking the topmost one out, I perceived that it was in my father's writing and of some length. The words on which first my eyes fell, at once made me eager to learn what it contained. I carried it to the library, sat down in one of the western ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... "I can show you something," and he unlocked the door of a cabin. There appeared to be nothing in it but a huge piece of tarpaulin, which depended, bulging, from the topmost bunk. He pulled it up. The lower bunk had been removed, and in its place was the ugly body ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... came—and on a sudden, in one movement, as it were, he ran up the stairs and crouched down on the topmost one so that any bullet aimed at him as he appeared might perhaps ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... stamped around to keep warm, Whopper mounted to the topmost branches of the silver maple. From this position he could overlook a wide expanse of country. He gazed first to, the northward and ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... decided him: covering his face with his hands, he exclaimed that the gods would avenge their own wrongs. Taking advantage of this tacit consent, fifty soldiers rushed up the stairway of the temple, and dragging the great wooden idols from their places in the topmost tower, they rolled them down the steps of the pyramid amid the groans of the natives and the triumphant shouts of their comrades, and then burnt them to ashes. The Totonacs, finding that their gods were unable to ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... leaves thinned around me, and I was aware, from the wind upon my face, that I had topped all the trees of the forest. I was determined, however, not to look about me before I had reached the very highest point, so I scrambled on until I had got so far that the topmost branch was bending beneath my weight. There I settled into a convenient fork, and, balancing myself securely, I found myself looking down at a most wonderful panorama of this strange country in ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... narrated all the steps by which he had reached his present position, and showed her how from it he might rise to the topmost heights of all. She did not look at him, and did not answer him, but once when he paused, thinking that he had talked enough about himself, she said, "Go on; tell ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... ancestors limited education, and very wisely, to the three R's; that is all that is necessary for the great mass of mankind: whereas the pick of them, with those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, will win their way to the topmost ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... neck protects it from the fervid rays of the Chaco sun. It is a costume imposing and picturesque; while the caparison of his horse is in keeping with it. The saddle, called recado, is furnished with several coverings, one upon another, the topmost, coronilla, being of bright-coloured cloth elaborately quilted; while the bridle of plaited horse-hair is studded with silver joints, from which depend rings and tassels, the same ornamenting the breast-piece ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... of their works ever went beyond their own boundaries; and those few rarely sent back a record. Exceptions there were, however, who pressed Mr. Simms hard for his position on the topmost peak; and most of these adventurous climbers were ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the top of the crag heavily festooned with feathery snow. Those long creeping lines on which the crystals sparkle are only brambles, and that big rosette of rusty red and fluffy white is the New Jersey tea. Those spreading, pointed fingers of coral with a background of dazzling white are the topmost twigs of the red osier dogwood. The strip of shrubs with graceful spray, now bowed in beauty by the river's brink, is a group of young red birches, and this bunch of downy brown twigs, two feet above ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... Vanamee's extraordinary life and character. But, as he descended the hill, he was startled by a prolonged and raucous cry, discordant, very harsh, thrice repeated at exact intervals, and, looking up, he saw one of Father Sarria's peacocks balancing himself upon the topmost wire of the fence, his long tail trailing, his neck outstretched, filling the air with his stupid outcry, for no reason than the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... stations of robbers. Some two years since, a band of six mounted banditti remained there three days, and plundered whomsoever approached from either quarter: their horses, saddled and bridled, stood picqueted at the foot of the trees, and two scouts, one for each eminence, continually sat in the topmost branches and gave notice of the approach of travellers: when at a proper distance the robbers below sprang upon their horses, and putting them to full gallop, made at their prey, shouting Rendete, Picaro! Rendete, Picaro! (Surrender, scoundrel, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Varambille. Squeezed in his funereal frock-coat and wearing his hat of ceremony, Bidault-Coquille invoked the sentimental mathematics on behalf of Colomban and Colonel Hastaing. Maniflore shone smiling and resplendent on the topmost step, anxious, like Leaena, to deserve a glorious monument, or to be given, like Epicharis, the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... threat, on that Bruenig pass, so craggy, so surrounded with abysses. And the hero, by one of those flashes of horror which reveal the depths of danger, beheld himself stretched on the rocks of a ravine, or swinging from the topmost branches of an oak. Fly! yes, but where, how? The vehicles had started in file at the sound of a trumpet, a crowd of little ragamuffins were clambering at the doors with bunches of edelweiss. Tartarin, maddened, had a mind to begin the attack by cleaving the head of the Cossack beside him with ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... in our country's roll Midst her saints and sages, Lincoln's name upon the scroll— Standing at the topmost goal On the nation's pages? Hero! Hero! Sent from God! Leader ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... reflected I, will not only keep me alive, but restore some of my spent strength; and labouring constantly for ten days, I should be almost certain to reach the topmost tier of the cargo. Perhaps in less time? If less, all the better; but certainly in ten days I might get through them all, even though there should be ten tiers of boxes between me and ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... when they entered the path leading through the wood. No one spoke now, and they trod cautiously, lest there should be any noise from their footsteps. The tall black fir-trees towered above them to an unusual height; and through all the topmost branches there ran a low, mournful sound, as if every tree was whispering about them, and lamenting over them. Even the little brook, which in the sunshine rippled so merrily along the borders of the wood, seemed to be sobbing like a grieved and tired child in the night-time. Strange ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... from the mountain, now across Sonoma from the sea; very quiet, very idle, very silent but for the breezes and the cattle bells afield. And there was something satisfactory in the sight of that great mountain that enclosed us to the north; whether it stood, robed in sunshine, quaking to its topmost pinnacle with the heat and brightness of the day; or whether it set itself to weaving vapours, wisp after wisp growing, trembling, fleeting, and fading ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a thrush," said the old man. "Do I not know the note of one bird from another? I tell you that pine-tree by my cottage has a legend of its own, and the topmost branch is haunted. Must all legends be about the loves and sorrows ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... starting from one thing to another, like a real bird already. When you can't answer one thing, off to another, and, from your new perch on the hawthorn, talk as if you were still on the topmost branch of ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... followed them; a weary distance it was—through narrow and dirty streets and back alleys—until at last they stopped at the door of a miserable tenement-house. They entered, and like a shadow I crept noiselessly behind them. Up, up they went; floor after floor, until the topmost garret was reached. Christina gave a glad shout; a door flew open; she entered a room that seemed to be bursting with children; and I could hear the broader voice of a man, mingled with ejaculations of childish delight, as Christina threw down her ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... he remained till November, 1828, again picking up a good deal of information that cannot perhaps be regarded as strictly legal, but such as he was afterwards able to turn to admirable account. He would seem to have studied the profession exhaustively in all its branches, from the topmost Tulkinghorns and Perkers, to the lowest pettifoggers like Pell and Brass, and also to have given particular attention to the parasites of the law—the Guppys and Chucksters; and altogether to have stored his mind, as he had done at school, with a series of invaluable notes ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... reproachfully for more; but Chad shook his head and the dog started out, with both eyes open, to look for his own food. The sun was high enough now to make the drenched world flash like an emerald and its warmth felt good, as Chad tramped the topmost edge of Pine Mountain, where the brush was not thick and where, indeed, he often found a path running a short way and turning into some ravine—the trail of cattle and sheep and the pathway between one little valley settlement and another. He must have made ten miles and more by noon—for ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... proposal to enter the Press Gallery. I remember we were not far off Northumberland Street when the subject was broached, and might easily have walked there. But Walter could never embark upon enterprises of this kind unless he went in a cab, the driver being incited to go at topmost speed. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of the same thing: three days ago, their meeting had seemed infinitely far off, a thing dreamed of and hoped for—and now they were standing alone upon the topmost turret of Giovanni's house, familiar with each other by a long day's conversation, feeling as though they had never been parted, feeling also that most certainly they would not be ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... 1875, the citizens of Cambridge celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of Washington's assuming the command of the army. The old tree was the central figure of the occasion. The American flag floated above the topmost branches, and a profusion of smaller flags waved amid the foliage. Never tree received a more ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... have not seen a Persian walnut tree in full foliage, have something to live for. Imagine a tree, that was a nut in the spring of 1877, its branches now spreading full fifty feet, its topmost bough fully that far from the ground, its trunk measuring seventy-six inches ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... away to a farther station. It seems to throw its head back, like a laughing senior when children struggle up for kissings. The party of five had come through the vines from Stresa and from Baveno. The mountain was strange to them, and they had already reckoned twice on having the topmost eminence in view, when reaching it they found themselves on a fresh plateau, traversed by wild water-courses, and browsed by Alpine herds; and again the green dome was distant. They came to the highest chalet, where a hearty wiry young ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wound along the road and brought them under the wall of the cataract, the rainbow diadem that pinned the topmost folds of the veil glittered against the noonday sun; and in the lacy woof of moving water, lovely kaleidoscopic patterns played with constant interchange of flowery designs. Invisible fingers wove the bridal lace, beading ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... long, lean fingers had ripped open the package marked four hundred, and were extracting the contents,—a sheet of official paper with figures and memoranda, and then a flat package, apparently, of currency. Topmost was a five dollar treasury note; bottom-most another of the same denomination. Between them, deftly cut, trimmed and sized, were blank slips of paper to the number of perhaps thirty and the value of not one cent. With paling faces the officers watched ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... went up and up, till at last they reached the topmost gallery, where the wall was pierced with loopholes and overhanging platforms, whence stones and other missiles could be hurled upon an attacking force. Miriam looked out eagerly, walking round the gallery from aperture ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to its publishers. Huck Finn would yield fifty thousand dollars more. The sales of his other books had considerably increased. Certainly, at fifty, Mark Twain's fortunes were at flood-tide; buoyant and jubilant, he was floating on the topmost wave. If there were undercurrents and undertow they were down somewhere out of sight. If there were breakers ahead, they were too far distant to be heard. So sure was he of the triumphant consummation ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... infinite:- Which is so strong, my strongest throes And the rough world's besieging blows Not break it, and so weak withal, Death ebbs and flows in its loose wall As the green sea in fishers' nets, And tops its topmost parapets:- Which is so wholly mine that I Can wield its whole artillery, And mine so little, that my soul Dwells in perpetual control, And I but think and speak and do As my dead fathers move me to:- If this born body of my bones The beggared soul so barely ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... incarnations. That these laws were actual and not formal only was proved by the instance that within the hundred years before the birth of Elissa, a lady Baaltis had been executed for some such offence, having been hurled indeed from the topmost pinnacle of the fortress above the temple to the foot of the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... throats and white breasts. They were darting hither and thither, so rapidly that the eye could hardly follow them, catching the many-winged insects as they flew by. Then they would suddenly dart off to the topmost gables of the old mansion, where their compact mud nests could be plainly seen against the ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... freed, she had opened the door of Sarah's bedroom. Sarah was unquestionably very ill. Sarah had been quite right in telegraphing so peremptorily to Hilda; and if she had not so telegraphed she would have been quite wrong. On the previous day she had been sitting on the cold new oilcloth of the topmost stairs, minutely instructing a maid in the craft of polishing banisters. And the next morning an attack of acute sciatica had supervened. For a trifling indiscretion Sarah was thus condemned to extreme physical torture. Hilda had found her rigid on the bed. She suffered the severest ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... when all the stars, great and golden, leaned out of heaven to meet him, and all ripe perfumes, wafted by their own principle of motion, floated in the rich dusk and laden air about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have showered their fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed through plains of rice, where all the broad reaches whitening to harvest filled him with intense and bitterest loneliness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... also to publish most enthusiastic criticisms of her concerts, calling her "the wonder-child," and "the first German artist," one who "already stands on the topmost peak of our time." He even printed verses upon her genius. In a letter to Wieck, in 1833, he says, "It is easy to write to you, but I do not feel equal to write to Clara." She was still, however, the child to him; the child whom he used to frighten with ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... who proposed a surrender he is said to have slain with his own hand. Hernando prepared to carry the place by escalade. Ladders were planted against the walls, but no sooner did a Spaniard gain the topmost round, than he was hurled to the ground by the strong arm of the Indian warrior. His activity was equal to his strength; and he seemed to be at every point the moment that his ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... awaking,—then, as if he would have yet more of the enchantment, stirred her slightly with his muzzle. As he did so, a sidelong hint of the man standing below with the raised gun smote him; he sprung round furiously, and, seizing his prey, was about to leap into some unknown airy den of the topmost branches now waving to the slow dawn. The late moon had rounded through the sky so that her gleam at last fell full upon the bough with fairy frosting; the wintry morning light did not yet penetrate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... he passed again a little before six o'clock, he noticed that the hall-door was closed. Another witness testified that about five o'clock, a man in a laborer's dress, carrying a dinner-pail, ascended the steps of the Nathan mansion, picked up a paper from the topmost step, and passed on down the street. The introduction of this man in the laborer's dress but deepened the mystery and increased the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... warn the belated traveller to hasten on his way. May the fallows be broken for the seed-time, while the cicala, watching the shepherds as they toil in the sun, in the shade of the trees doth sing on the topmost sprays. May spiders weave their delicate webs over martial gear, may none any more so much as name the cry ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... point of a penknife she pulled out the little leaden shot. The young man remained still, holding his breath, as a child does when he is putting the topmost story on a house of cards. He had never heard so soft a voice, never gazed on so perfectly lovely a face. In the meantime Diana had torn up her handkerchief and bandaged the wound. "Now that is over," exclaimed she, with a light laugh, as she extended her ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... said than done. Both of them, Nathanael and Clara, went up the tower; their mother, however, went on with the servant-girl to her new home, and Lothair, not feeling inclined to climb up all the many steps, waited below. There the two lovers stood arm-in-arm on the topmost gallery of the tower, and gazed out into the sweet-scented wooded landscape, beyond which the blue hills rose up like a ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... huntsman came along with four hounds. The cat sprang trembling into a tree, and crept stealthily up to the topmost branch, where she was entirely ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Babylon could with difficulty repress a start as he saw this bold and unscrupulous ex-waiter moving with such an air of assurance and determination about the precious cellar. Jules went directly to a small bin which was numbered 17, and took there from the topmost bottle. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... pair of military eyes that I had beside me a day or two ago, as I stood upon the topmost roofs of a high tower, in a certain little town in northern Italy, where much history has been made of late; and, since the owner of the eyes was likewise the possessor of a very well-ordered mind and a gift of lucid exposition, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the steerage, by Wolf Larsen's bunk. I looked at him, the man who had been hurled down from the topmost pitch of life to be buried alive and be worse than dead. There seemed a relaxation of his expressionless face which was new. Maud looked ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... took courage, and opened the door. The night-air floating in puffed out the candle. There was a thicket of holly and underwood, as dense as a jungle, close about the door. I should have been in pitch-darkness, were it not that through the topmost leaves there twinkled, here and ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had elapsed, and a waning moon was clearing the topmost crags of Pacific Peak when he came out on the high embankment opposite the Rosemary, having traversed the entire length of the lateral loop and inspected the trestle at the gulch head by the light of ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are, like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life penetrates even to the topmost flat. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... could wing their way unharmed, such a vapour streamed from the dark gorge and rose into the overarching sky. Here the priestess first arrays four black-bodied bullocks and pours wine upon their forehead; and plucking the topmost hairs from between the horns, lays them on the sacred fire for first-offering, calling aloud on Hecate, mistress of heaven and hell. Others lay knives beneath, and catch the warm blood in cups. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... as by lightning, or torn in half, as with your hands you could tear apart a loaf of bread. Through some, solid shell had passed, leaving clean holes. Others looked as though drunken woodsmen with axes from roots to topmost branches had slashed them in crazy fury. Some shells had broken the trunks in half as ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... seized the two iron rings that hung from ropes. Lifting her own weight by the strength in her slender wrists, she flung her legs upward and hooked her knees into the rings. Then hanging head downward she swung back and forth; flung herself upright again, sat and swung; climbed to the topmost bar of the trapeze and hung down again. Her partner ran on and repeated her monkeylike manoeuvres. Then Florette held his hands while he swung upside down, he held Florette while she swung upside down. They turned ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... of this square contains two or three elms of immemorial age, besides many thrifty trees of a later planting. The wooden barrier by which it is enclosed was once adorned with a coat of white paint, now nearly worn off. The topmost rails and post-heads of this fence have been so notched and gnawed by the jackknives of whittling idlers and the teeth of cribbing horses, that their original size and shape are matters concerning which the present generation are informed only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... forage in the village. By and bye I discovered that, by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss in the wood, he would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be seen, but high up among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my binocular, I had the wild thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting himself to me, inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as he flirted wings and tail, lifted and lowered his crest, glancing ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... and wise command, I foresee that the regimenting of Pauper Banditti into Soldiers of Industry is but the beginning of this blessed process, which will extend to the topmost heights of our Society; and, in the course of generations, make us all once more a Governed Commonwealth, and Civitas Dei, if it please God! Waste-land Industrials succeeding, other kinds of Industry, as cloth-making, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... weather was cold they were in the habit of nestling in my pockets in order to keep warm, and remained there perfectly still. Sometimes I used to have the doors of my City of Rats thrown open, and, after having ascended to the topmost story of my house, I whistled in a way very familiar to my pets. Then the rats, which find it difficult to ascend steps, climbed up the balusters, got on to the rail, and proceeding in Indian file while keeping their equilibrium like acrobats, ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... returned to the play box and drew out between thumb and finger the topmost toy. It happened to be a wooden box, with a wire hasp for fastening the cover. Half unconsciously she pressed the spring, and a hideous Jack-in-the-box sprang out to confront her with a squeak, a leering smile, and a red nose. Miss Terry eyed him ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... atmosphere and incessant rain. Lichens of every colour and shape abounded, and clothed the trunks gracefully, contrasting with the tender spring tints of the leaves, while the long hairy tillandsia, like an old man's beard, three or four feet long, hung down from the topmost branches. The ground was carpeted with moss, interspersed with a few early spring flowers, and the whole scene, though utterly unlike that presented by any English forest, had a strange weird beauty of its own. Not a sound could be heard; not a bird, beast, or insect was to be seen. The larger trees ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... announced itself in vocal rustling. And to thee, Pontic Amastris, and to box-screened Cytorus, the pinnace vows that this was alway and yet is of common knowledge most notorious; states that from its primal being it stood upon thy topmost peak, dipped its oars in thy waters, and bore its master thence through surly seas of number frequent, whether the wind whistled 'gainst the starboard quarter or the lee or whether Jove propitious fell on both the sheets at once; nor ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... one of the topmost benches, sat Citizen Lenoir, the stage-manager of this palpitating drama. He looked down, with obvious satisfaction, at the scene which he himself had suggested last night to the members of the Jacobin Club. Merlin's sharp ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... but a little applied ornament judiciously distributed; a moulding in the arches; a florid canopy and statue amid the buttresses; a few grinning monsters leaning out of unexpected nooks; a leafy budding of the topmost pinnacles; a piercing here and there of some little gallery, parapet, or turret into lacework against the sky — and the building became a poem, an inexhaustible emotion. Add some passing cloud casting its moving shadow ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... perspiration, yet walked for a mile or two at his topmost speed. Then a consuming thirst drove him into the nearest place where drink was sold. At six o'clock he remembered that he had not eaten since breakfast; he dined extravagantly, and afterwards fell asleep in the smoking-room of the restaurant. A waiter with difficulty aroused ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... and curious woodcuts decorate the title-page of one exemplar, which was certainly printed at Basil, apud Andream Cratandrum. The topmost woodcut, dated 1519, is here misplaced; for it should be at the bottom of the page, in which position it appears when employed to grace the title of the facetious Responsio of Simon Hess to Luther. The second ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... the mountain violet, Blend their rich odours with the fragrant trees, And sweeten the soft air. Above us spreads The purple sky, bright with the unseen sun The hills yet screen, although the golden beam Touches the topmost boughs, and tints with light The grey and sparkling crags. The breath of morn Still lingers in the valley; but the bee With restless passion hovers on the wing, Waiting the opening flower, of whose embrace ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... the pasture; the clearing up of fields where vegetation struggled with difficulty against the prevailing stones; the climbing of lofty trees and the swaying back and forth in the wind on their topmost boughs; the hunting of woodchucks; the nutting excursions of November days, culminating in the glories of Thanksgiving; the romance of school life, over which vacations, far from being welcomed with delight, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Eve at early nightfall, when the colored candles are ablaze over the entire tree, and the great red ball of light shines from its topmost branches, the children are admitted to the room amidst a babel of shouts and screams of delight, which are increased upon the arrival of a veritable Santa Claus bestrewn with wool-snow and laden with baskets of gifts. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... opposite the Sentinel are the Three Brothers, an immense mountain mass with three gables fronting the Valley, one above another, the topmost gable nearly 4000 feet high. They were named for three brothers, sons of old Tenaya, the Yosemite chief, captured here during the Indian War, at the time of the discovery of the Valley ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... if it did no more, gave wings to our most sombre hours, and put a point on the imagination. As for the superstition of the tales of ceilidh and buaile-mhart I have little to say. Perhaps the dullest among us scarce credited the giant and dwarf; but the Little Folks are yet on our topmost hills. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... second kite, which he let run up until eight hundred feet more of the line was out. The wind was now stronger, registering twenty-two miles an hour. The three lower kites were run in tandem, about two hundred feet of line apart. When the last of the five kites was still on the ground, the topmost one was out of sight, and the kites were carrying only a fraction of the weight of wire that ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... sing in the dark, for I am growing.'—'Sing on, Thorn,' said she, 'and grow if you will.' But in the morning when she awoke, her window was darkened, for the Thorn had grown to be a mighty tree, and its topmost shoots were black against the sky. She wondered whether this uncouth plant would bear anything but music. ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... narrow streets and small stifling rooms. There had been no rain for a long time; many people were sick and dying, and the world looked very dark to some of them. Mrs. Holmes lived high up in the topmost rooms of a tall block of buildings. Her rooms were small and hot, for the sun shone into her windows and upon the roof all the long day. She was a seamstress and a widow with ...
— Sunshine Factory • Pansy
... sitting on the topmost ridges of Olympus and confessing failure to Minerva. "I see, my dear," he said, "that there is no use in trying to make people very happy or very miserable for long together. Pain, if it does not soon ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying twigs. I hear too a quail piping from the meadow fence, and another trilling his answering whistle from the hills. Nearer by, a tyrant king-bird is poised on the topmost branch of a veteran pear-tree, and now and then dashes down, assassin-like, upon some homebound, honey-laden bee, and then with a smack of his bill resumes his ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... volcanic energy that nothing can resist; and at its lowest, the energy is the energy of robust health and a keen appetite. That energy carried him far beyond the modest goal he thought of, exceeding his fellows. He won the topmost heights within the reach of man. The old polyphonists he never tried to rival, but in the style of music he wrote no composer has gone or can go higher than he. A wiseacre has said that he left a sterile monument. It may be that monuments ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... the topmost sheet, she shook it open. Then the next and the next till she reached the bottom of the box. Nothing of a criminating nature came to light. The box as well as its contents was without mystery of any kind. This was not an unexpected result of course, but the ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... his and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live together—what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... all the rest were powerless to cross the river it alone stemmed the roaring eddy without weariness. This rapid comes down in so swift and sheer a volume that animals often lose all power of swimming in it, and perish. For, trickling from the topmost crests of the hills, it comes down the steep sides, catches on the rocks, and is shattered, falling into the deep valleys with a manifold clamour of waters; but, being straightway rebuffed by the rocks that bar the way, it keeps the speed of its current ever at the same even pace. And so, along ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... than they who have gone before, and what has come to others in like conditions must come to thee. God himself can not stay it; it is so written in the stars. Power to lead men! Pray that thy prayer shall ne'er be granted—'t is to be carried to the topmost pinnacle of Fame's temple tower, and there cast headlong upon the stones ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... presented him to the peer, and an engagement was made. In those days the patronage of a powerful peer was a ready road to preferment. Young Moore gave satisfaction to his noble patron, and was pushed up the ecclesiastical tree until he reached its topmost branch, being created in 1783 archbishop of Canterbury. In 1770 he formed a very judicious marriage with Miss Eden. This lady was sister of Sir Robert Eden, governor of Maryland in 1776 (who married the sister and co-heir of the last Lord Baltimore), and of the first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... of the garden. He came to his afternoon meal with glee, and directly it was over, took his wife away to see what he had been doing. The shed had two floors, with a trap-door in the middle. To the topmost corner of the upper story he had fixed a pole which descended obliquely through a hole in the floor. This was the axis, and the floor was the horizon. He had also, by the help of some stoutish wire and some of his withies, fairly improvised a few meridians, so that when Miriam put her ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... great majority of them lie more or less towards the south. This is not the direction of the prevalent winds, but many of the tallest trees lean towards the south, owing to the increased growth of their topmost branches towards the sun. They are then acted upon by violent gales, which loosen their roots, and whatever the direction of the wind that finally overthrows them, they fall in the direction of the over-balancing top weight. The young trees grow spiry and perfectly upright, ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... indefinable seasons past fifty. In my vague mental condition, the impression of her came slowly. First it was as though I saw three cubes, one above the other, the largest in the middle. Then these took on clothing, blue calico with large polka dots, and the topmost one crowned itself with thin wisps of hair, parted in the middle and plastered down at the side. So, little by little, John Shadrack's widow grew on me, till I saw her a square little old woman, with a wrinkled, brown ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... channel in the midst the late sun streamed toward us, a soft wash of gold. Behind all this the sky, pale to whiteness immediately overhead, deepened to the splendid orange of the sunset. Each tree cast his shadow upon his neighbour, so that only the topmost branches burned in the light. Over and above us floated the drowsy hum of the insect world; rarely we heard the moaning of a wood-dove, more rarely still the stirring of deer hidden in the thicket shade. This was a magical evening, primed with wonders, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... enough to possess a watch, I could not tell how time was passing, except by observing the slowly lengthening shadows from the window; which presented a side view, including a corner of the park, a clump of trees whose topmost branches had been colonized by an innumerable company of noisy rooks, and a high wall with a massive wooden gate: no doubt communicating with the stable-yard, as a broad carriage-road swept up to it from the park. The shadow of this wall ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... with tall fern, over a breadth of white ashes and charcoal where the newly-won land lay waiting for the plough, in and out amidst the chaos of trunks that lay piled athwart each other all round the clearing, and stopped close by three men who were making an onslaught on a majestic tree. Its topmost sprays towered two hundred feet above them, and the great trunk ran a stupendous column to the vault of dusky green above. It was, however, the men who most attracted Deringham's attention, and he stood for a ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... agitation and unrest of my mind I climbed the hill that overshadows the gold-born city. The Dome they call it, and the face of it is vastly scarred, blanched as by a cosmic blow. There on its topmost height by a cairn of stone I ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of your bed, sir, when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your topmost drawer, sir—("I am a married man, sir," to the dean apologetically, "and I know the tag of a stay-lace, sir")—and so I took it out, sir; and knowing my duty to the college, sir, though I should be very sorry to bring you into trouble, Mr ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... at the very spot where he had intended to land, while at another time two sharks towed his vessel against a head wind with such speed that the sea fowl could hardly keep him in sight. Clearing his eye by a fast and prayer, he climbed to the topmost height of the Waianae Mountains and closely scanned the horizon. The earth was as brick, and the sky as brass, and the sea as silver, save in one quarter: a tiny blur on the universal glare could be seen, he fancied, over Maui. He would ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... admits in the "Note-Books." Who would not enjoy seeing a monarch come to so humble a contact with the bulwarks of his tower? Especially if he were royal enough not to take offense at one's mirth, as this one never did. Reaching the topmost heights of the stone pile, shaggy with yellow moss, we eagerly pressed to the battlements and drank in the view, finding all Florence spread out before us, far down from the breeze and light and prospect of our perch,—understanding ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... surface, but of the surrounding ocean. Mark now began to comprehend the character of the singular geological formation, into the midst of which the Rancocus had been led, as it might almost be by the hand of Providence itself. He was at that moment seated on the topmost pinnacle of a submarine mountain of volcanic origin—submarine as to all its elevations, heights and spaces, with the exception of the crater where he had just taken his stand, and the little bit of visible and venerable lava, by which it was surrounded. It is true that this lava rose ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the great market, by means of carts of four stages or stories, one above another, to carry the birds in, drawn by two horses, which by means of relays travelled night and day, and covered as much as 100 miles in two days and one night, the driver sitting on the topmost stage. ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... reached a summit, and from thence espied A town with many houses, large and rich; With nought to stop the way on any side, As neither compassed round by wall or ditch. A rock was in the middle, fortified With a tall tower, upon its topmost pitch. Fearlessly thither pricked the warriors, who Marganor's mansion in that ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... feels the musical tendency, and aspires to its expression, with the rest. Perched upon the topmost branch beside his mate or mates,—for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two or three demure little ladies in faded black beside him,—generally in the early part of the day, he seems literally to vomit up his notes. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... with which he nine times hailed her, as with nine parting salutations from the censer of his soul. His canticle died joyfully away in those last ejaculations of triumph: 'Queen of virgins, Queen of all saints. Queen conceived without sin!' She, ever before him, shone in splendour; and he, on the topmost step, only reached by Mary's intimates, remained there yet another moment, swooning amidst the subtle atmosphere around him; still too far away to kiss the edge of her azure robe, already feeling that he was about to fall, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... leave under an olive tree, Which by the reins two Sarrazins do lead; Those messengers have wrapped them in their weeds, To the palace they climb the topmost steep. When they're come in, the vaulted roof beneath, Marsilium with courtesy they greet: "May Mahumet, who all of us doth keep, And Tervagan, and our lord Apoline Preserve the, king and guard from harm the queen!" Says Bramimunde "Great foolishness I hear: Those gods of ours ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... ought to let Scripture alone—'tis self-slaughter, For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid, Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid, His wit running up as Canary ran down,— The topmost bright bubble on the wave ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... shall be. It was for the young, those who came fresh to life with the glories of England fresh in their memories, from Crecy to the Armada, from the Armada to Waterloo, to keep the banner of England flying over their topmost roofs. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of their creative genius. They have not only founded great houses, but they have laid deep and broad the foundations of a social system to whose strength and beauty every age has been adding something, and which now wants only one topmost stone ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascination that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that disappeared in the darkness above the open door in the loft. 'Come, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... their comely cheeks, Wind-play tossed their hair, Creeping things among the grass Stroked them here and there; Meggan piped a merry note, A fitful, wayward lay, While shrill as bird on topmost twig Piped merry ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... some pit or other, made such a scene of it as I can give you no idea of. My ladies were now on foot, of course; but we dragged them on as well as we could (they were thorough game, and didn't make the least complaint), until we got to the foot of that topmost hill I have drawn so beautifully. Here we all stopped; but the head guide, an English gentleman of the name of Le Gros—who has been here many years, and has been up the mountain a hundred times—and your humble servant, resolved (like jackasses) to ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Frankish army marched towards the Pyrenees, and, as evening fell, found themselves among the mountains, where Roland planted his banner on the topmost summit, clear against the sky, and the army encamped for the night; but the whole Saracen host had also marched and encamped in a wood not far from the Franks. Meanwhile, as Charlemagne slept he had dreams of evil omen. Ganelon, in his dreams, seized the imperial ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... of letters until he knew everything about them; and he was certain they told no story. When he was certain, he rearranged the letters, as Roy had done, in rows of five each. Then he laid down his pencil and began another careful search. He read the topmost line from left to right, and from right to left. It made no sense. He took the second and found no meaning in it. Another boy might have skipped the others, but not Willie. Each of the thirteen rows ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... low cry of joy, for the dark cloud ahead of them was a high mountainous land, whose topmost points were beginning to blush with the first touches of the sun that was ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... motionless works? His utmost endeavours could discover none. The clock was fully eight feet high, but with the help of a stool, which he put inside on the floor of the case, he was able to explore even the topmost corners. All to ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... at her door. She sprang out of bed, and stood listening. There was no doubt about it. Vernon had come back. After all what he had to say would not keep till morning. A wild idea of dressing and letting him in was sternly dismissed. For one thing, at topmost speed, it took twenty minutes to dress. He would not wait ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... any eye but an engineer's, in attempting to judge whether, upon the whole, the tendency were upwards or downwards. Possibly it was yet neither way; it is, indeed, probable, that Kate had been for some time travelling along a series of terraces, that traversed the whole breadth of the topmost area at that point of crossing the Cordilleras, and which perhaps, but not certainly, compensated any casual tendencies downwards by corresponding reascents. Then came the question—how long would ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... table as soon as Mr. Winthrop laid down his napkin, and was hastening from the room when I heard him move back his chair; and, swift as were my movements, he was in the hall before I had reached the topmost ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... of an hour was wasted. It must be confessed that the great scout's nerves were strung to the topmost tension. At any moment a shot might come which would end his life. It was ten times more trying than to stand up in line of battle, for the enemy could ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... corner in which to build their nest. The income of which she found herself possessed after settling up her husband's affairs, even when supplemented by the allowance made her by his family, so little permitted of extravagance that she chose the topmost story of the house in Borgo Pinti, with those long, long stairs that perhaps had contributed ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... figure was it, what bold bearing, what sprightly grace, what comeliness of feature, which of these things by itself, or what all together, could have made her fall in love with you? For indeed and in truth many a time I stop to look at your worship from the sole of your foot to the topmost hair of your head, and I see more to frighten one than to make one fall in love; moreover I have heard say that beauty is the first and main thing that excites love, and as your worship has none at all, I don't know what the poor ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the Old Man's sight. Fine 'aul this time if we 'ave luck. Swiggle me stiff, it'll set us up ashore for bleeding toffs! ... ye'll 'ear about it later.... Ay, that's the royal, lad—topmost spar—be shakin' that rag out afore long.... Ay, mate, and a proper fine mate she is, bless 'er bleeding little 'eart! Grew up at sea—proper shark for navigation—Old Man never 'ad 'er 'ead for figures.... ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... plays so prominent a part in the regalia of a Christian Monarch, also crowns the topmost height of many a Christian Temple including both St. Peter's at Rome and St. Paul's at London. And it is noteworthy that it bears a certain resemblance to the representation of the Apex, once worn by the Salian priests and afterwards by the ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... height may have begun to tell on the air, but not much, for when the forest was behind me, and when I had come to a bare heath sloping more gently upwards—a glacis in front of the topmost bulwark of the round mountain—- I was oppressed with thirst, and though it was not too hot to sing (for I sang, and two lonely carabinieri passed me singing, and we recognized as we saluted each other that the mountain was full of songs), yet I longed for a bench, a ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... countryside," such as took place when the English were reported to be over the border, when the beacon fires were thrown west from Criffel to Screel, from Screel to Cairnharrow, and then tossed northward by the three Cairnsmuirs and topmost Merrick far over the uplands of Kyle, till from the sullen brow of Brown Carrick the bale fire set the town drum of Ayr beating its alarming note. Still this muster was a day on which every Douglas vassal must ride in mail with all his spears ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... bowed the wild-haired hour, And touched his tongue with honey and with fire, And breathed between his lips the note of power That makes of all the winds of heaven a lyre Whose strings are stretched from topmost peaks that tower To softest springs of waters that suspire, With sounds too dim to shake the lowliest flower Breathless with hope and dauntless with desire: And bright before his face That Hour became a Grace, As in the light of ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of scarlet, Teasing, tantalizing, madcap varlet, Glooming, glinting through the boughs, Making, breaking lover's vows; Dashing leader of the choir, Standing on the topmost spire, Scintillating song and fire, Calls me: Come up—come ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... and after the Van Heemskirk incident. Look at him next Sunday, and then try and believe that he was the topmost leader in all the fashionable follies, until he went to the war. People say ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... and immersed branches create on each hand a continuous scroll of wavering ridges and eddies bordered with the living tints of the steadfast wall of leafage. The sun so burnishes the midstream ribbon that the boat seems to float on an invisible element. Though the topmost leaves of the mangroves fail to disclose any movement in the air, an unceasing and inharmonious hum tells of the sea idly ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Idaei, who are supposed to have been driven out with Saturn and become the ancestors of the Jewish people; or else because, of the seven constellations which govern the lives of men, the star of Saturn moves in the topmost orbit and exercises peculiar influence, and also because most of the heavenly bodies move round[478] their courses in multiples ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
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