"Breasting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one brief inquiry he was in the water. We called out to him that the current was frightfully strong—we knew a man's life ought not to be perilled; but he just smiled, took up the great pole that lay near, and waded in. I cannot describe the horror of seeing him breasting that stream, expecting, as we did, to see him borne down by it into the wheel. The miller shouted to him that it was madness, but he kept his footing like a rock. He reached the place where the poor dog was, and the fury of the stream was a little broken ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the neighborhood. The eggs have a light clay-colored ground, marked with obscure blotches of lavender and darker lines, dots, and blotches of purplish brown. The Longspur is a strong flier, and seems to delight in breasting the strongest gales, when all the other birds appear to move with difficulty, and to keep themselves concealed among the grass. While the colors of adult males are very different in the Longspur family, the females have a decided resemblance. The markings of the male are ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... plainly coming towards them, and they could now distinguish the wolves following upon his heels, strung out over the prairie like a pack of hounds. When first started, the buck was a full half-mile distant, but in less than a minute's time he came breasting forward until the boys could see his sparkling eyes and the play of his proud flanks. He was a noble animal to look at. His horns were full grown, but still "in the velvet," and as he ran with his snout thrown forward, his antlers lay along both sides ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the Guard—(that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had not yet taken place); it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles; it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as, leaping down the hill, they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... spot was on another occasion the scene of a superb effort of courageous tenacity. I met a large hare steadily breasting the hill. Turning neither to the right nor left it was soon out of sight over the crest. Five or more minutes later there appeared in view, on the hare's trail, a very tired little fox terrier not much more than half the size of the hare. He also turned aside neither ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... twain, Pan's eyes are bright! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! See, yon stakes Gape and grin like fangs of snakes; Not snakes nor hounds are mouthing thus; Pan himself is watching us. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Now The god is breasting the hill-brow. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan is near: Joy runs trembling back to fear. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All my blood Knocks through the heart whose every thud Chokes me, blinds me, drains my madness. As one half-drowned, I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... have seen, or seen as others did, the slight spare boy above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight, with his earnest eyes, and breasting the window of his solitary cage when birds flew by, as if he would have emulated them, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... mount were breasting the first slight rise of the northern slope of Indian Ridge—which ridge marks with its long, broad-backed bulk the southern boundary of the flats south of Farewell and forces the Marysville trail to travel five miles to go two—a rider emerged from a small ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... soon be morning." He glanced up at the open sky, for he was breasting the surface of a small lake. "Good!" The pirogue slipped into another bayou at the upper end of the lagoon. The shadows here seemed thicker than ever after ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... guns; that Fleetwood Hill was at one time in the hands of the enemy, was due not to Stuart's negligence, but to the numbers and excellent soldiership of General Gregg, who made the flank and rear attack while Stuart was breasting that ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... ran nimbly behind the thick screen of bushes for about a hundred and fifty yards below the spot where the hippo was unconsciously basking, with his ugly head above the surface. Plunging into the rapid torrent, the veteran hunter was carried some distance down the stream, but breasting the powerful current, he landed upon the rocks on the opposite side, and retiring to some distance from the river, he quickly advanced towards the spot beneath which the hippopotamus was lying. I had a fine view of the scene, as I was lying concealed exactly ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... and traversed the road along the margin of the Yaupaae, and were now just entering the lane that runs down to the house. The storm was raging with unabated fury, and the constable, with clenched teeth, and bent head, and half-shut eyes, was breasting the driving flakes, and congratulating himself with the idea that his exposure would soon be over, and he by the side of a warm stove in one of the stores, the hero of the evening, recounting the adventures of the day and comfortably taking ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... He was breasting the rise of what he believed to be the last of the ridges he would have to cross, when the laboured breathing of his horse told him it was almost done. Leaning forward in his saddle, he patted it on the neck and spoke to it as a man ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... sea! O spare in thy fury, smite not angrily Hearts true and brave, Breasting thy wave, Who love as they ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... of March 16, Dr. High telephoned me that Sir Thomas O'Hara was seriously ill, and asked me to come at once. It took but a few minutes to have Jerry at the door, and, breasting a cold, thin rain at a sharp gallop, I was at my friend's door before the clock struck eight. Dr. High met me with a ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... her mantle of green And dragon-ships breasting the waves are seen But Fridthjof, pondering, Is at the moon gazing or in ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... who had told no more than the truth in calling himself a good swimmer, was breasting the waves manfully. But he soon found the difference between attempting a long swim when quite fresh and vigorous, and doing the same thing after a hard night's work, on short allowance of food, and with limbs stiffened by wet and cold. Moreover, the sea, although much quieter than it ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... open resistance; his enemies, already sufficiently numerous, are daily increasing and becoming more formidable. Mazarine trembles for his power, and looks around him for men of head and action, to aid him in breasting the storm and carrying out his schemes. He hears tell of the four guardsmen, whose fidelity and devotion had once saved the reputation of Anne of Austria, and baffled the most powerful minister France ever saw; these four men he resolves to make his own, and D'Artagnan is dispatched ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... against one of the wooden piers of a wharf. He was desperate now. Shipping both oars he pulled madly out into the stream, but in a few moments he was swept against the port-bow of a large vessel, against the stem of which the water was curling as if the ship had been breasting the Atlantic waves before a stiff breeze. One effort Gorman made to avoid the collision, then he leaped up, and just as the boat struck, sprang at the fore-chains. He caught them and held on, but his hold was not firm; the next moment he was rolling along the vessel's side, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought it very brave of him to say that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he had a wife and children sick. In half a minute the church was empty, and the street below it full of people, striving and struggling against the blast, and breasting it at an incline like swimmers, but beaten back ever and anon and hurled against one another, with tattered umbrellas, hats gone, and bonnets hanging. And among them, like gulls before the wind, blew dollops of spray and ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... merchantmen that could sail creeping on with three reefs in their mainsail; and the Dutchmen lying to and breasting it, like ducks in a pond, and with no more ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... earth; my heart was with my eyes, and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and resisting. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... having seen nothing of any hounds, but with instinctive knowledge that they were men likely to be right in a hunting-field. "If that ain't Nappie's horse, I'll eat him," said one of the leading men to the other, as all the three were breasting the hill together. Frank only knew that he had been carried over water and timber without a mistake, and felt a glow of gratitude towards Mr. MacFarlane. Up the hill they went, and, not waiting to inquire into the circumstances of a little gate, jumped a four-foot wall and were ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... will be drowned," one of the horsemen said, spurring his horse up the valley; but in another minute the lad was seen breasting the calmer water ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... God's cold— And they could not and fell to the deck (Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled With the sea-romp over the wreck. Night roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble, The woman's wailing, the crying of child without check— Till a lioness arose breasting the babble, A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... naught but a hunted beast. With elbows pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to ward off the boughs, with bursting lungs and crimson face, he plunged through the tangle, now slipping downwards, now leaping upwards, now all but prostrate, now breasting a mass of thorns. On and on he ran, until he came to the verge of the wood, saw before him an open meadow devoid of shelter or hiding- place, and with a groan of despair cast himself flat. He listened. How far were ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... water lapped, but they continued in one stay like so many churches established by law. You might have trepanned every one of their innocent heads, and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line below their skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breasting up mountain torrents with a salmon rod; but I do dearly love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever and a day, by still and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little sense of calamity came with them—at first. So graceful they were. So fitted—like waterfowl—to every mood of air and tide; their wings all furled, their neat bodies breasting the angry flood by the quiet power of their own steam and silent submerged wheels. So like to the numberless crafts which in kinder days, under friendly tow, had come up this same green and tawny reach and passed on to the queenly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Quickly breasting the wave, Eager the prize to win, First of us all the brave Monongahela went in Under full head of steam— Twice she struck him abeam, Till her stem was a sorry work, (She might have run on a crag!) The Lackawanna hit fair, He flung her aside like cork, ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping winds, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, Breasting ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... there is no prospect of recognition from the Powers, while order is far from being restored in the provinces. Our fate hangs upon a hair; the slightest negligence may forfeit all. I, who bear this arduous responsibility, feel it my bounden duty to stand at the helm in the hope of successfully breasting the wild waves. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the stream has returned to its regular channel, they plunge their horses into it, breasting a current that almost sweeps them off their feet. But the Texan horses are strong, as their riders are skilful; the obstacle is surmounted, and the Rangers at length escape from ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... cried the gipsy; and in a few moments the banks were illumined with many a brand from the fire, which the rain however almost instantly extinguished; yet, by that momentary light, they saw the noble animal breasting the waters, and perceived that Godolphin, discovering by the depth his mistake, had already turned the horse's head in the direction of the ford: they could see no more, but they shouted to Godolphin to turn back to the place from which he had plunged; and, in ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... clans I cannot tell, Because our warning was not wide.— Be this our folks hae taen the fell, And planted down palliones[146] there to bide. We looked down the other side, And saw come breasting ower the brae, Wi' Sir John Forster for their guyde, Full fifteen hundred men ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... of a smart-looking schooner, that under a heavy weight of canvas was manfully breasting the breeze, almost conscious, one might fancy, that it was steering ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... day long, and the night, unresting! Ah! I believe thy every breath Means that Life's Best comes ever breasting Peril and pain ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... to wait. In another minute or two, the Mistress and the Master came out from breakfast; and got into the front seat. Then the car was breasting the winding slope of the drive, in first speed; the faint jar of the engine sending undulations over the mahogany-and-white coat of the stowaway dog. And, in a minute more, they were out on the smooth highway, headed for ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the spirit—a symbol, not a memory—for if I could remember, I could return again at will and be free of the unknown land. But in slumber I was free. I sped forth like an arrow. I followed a secret hope, breasting the currents of life flowing all about me. I tracked these streams winding in secretness far away. I said, "I am going to myself. I will bathe in the Fountain of Life;" and so on and on I sped northwards, with dark waters flowing ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... for industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come to much if a feeble frame is unable to respond to the desire. No life is wasted unless it ends in sloth, dishonesty, or cowardice. No success is worthy of the name unless it is won by honest industry and brave breasting of ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... across the ocean was boisterous, and the clumsy caravels had a hard time breasting the waves. The ships were soon separated by alternate storms and fog so that all three did not meet at their appointed rendezvous in the Straits of Belle Isle until the last week in July. Then moving westward along the north, shore of the Gulf, they passed Anticosti, crossed to the Gaspe shore, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... in the lagoon) and of standing away for this ship lest peradventure she miss the island. Full of this dreadful possibility I took to running like any madman, staying for nothing, leaping, scrambling, slipping and stumbling down sheer declivities, breasting precipitous cliffs until I reached and began to ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... load and fire the captured cannon; while Warner and Herrick, fit men to second the efforts of such a chief, were constantly storming, like raging lions, in the smoke and fire of the hottest of the fight; here breasting, with their brave and unflinching regiments, the desperate assault, and there, in turn, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... it was still a chance, and to my mind the only one. I glanced behind; a dim figure or two dotted the white sand, and my heart lifted a silent prayer to God for guidance. A second later I was beyond my depth, breasting the unknown waters, swimming steadily toward the place where that mysterious spark had glimmered. Once again it flashed, the barest glimpse of light through the intense gloom; and I pressed on with new vigor, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... on for the opening in the reef, and the old whaleman came along breasting the swell with her bluff bows, and entered the lagoon. There was no leadsman in her chains. She just came in as if she knew all the soundings by heart—as probably she did—for these whalemen know every hole and ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... A white object sprang with a bound over the brig's quarter, dipping below the surface of the calm sea, and when it came up, two great flippers, with a large black head between them, struck out like the paws of an alligator, breasting the water with a speed that soon brought him within a few fathoms of the schooner's low counter. Then, seizing hold of the slack of the main sheet, which was thrown to him, he came up, hand over hand, as if he ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Sponge to the first whip, who came galloping up as Hercules was breasting his way ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... thought, that Abbot Aldam should have no opportunity to question his men as to their destination of yesterday. When they reached the banks of Aire, he ordered a short halt; then swinging again into saddle, they splashed through the clear waters and breasting the opposite bank resumed the march at a rapid walk. Presently a body of horsemen hove in sight and, as they approached, De Lacy eyed them carefully. They were less than a dozen in number, and though they displayed no banner, yet the sun gleamed from steel head-pieces and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... and promise, more, That all their kingdom shall her dower become. Lo! as a vessel's sharpen'd prow quick cleaves The waves, by strenuous sweating arms impell'd, The monster comes! his mighty bosom wide The waters sideway breasting; distant now, Not more than what the Balearic sling Could with the bullet gain, when high in air, The sod repelling, upward springs the youth. Soon as the main reflected Perseus' form, The ocean-savage rag'd: as Jove's swift bird When in the open fields a snake he spies Basking, his ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... wind; her gauze scarf billowed behind her as if it were wings or sails and the wind filled it. She was like the Victory of Samothrace; she was like a guardian and avenging angel; she was like a ship in full sail breasting a sea. Up to her eyes she was everything that was ever ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... going from a warm into a cold atmosphere, in breasting the wave of low temperature, no one can harm by starting forth thoroughly warm. But in returning from the cold into the warm the act should always be accomplished gradually. This important rule may readily be carried in mind by connecting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... revealing the form of the snow crystal. One man is watching the movements of the heavenly bodies as they file by his telescope, while another writes a proclamation that makes free a race of people. Another man is leading an army into battle, while some Doctor MacClure is breasting the storm in the darkness as he goes forth on his ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... with the confidence essential to the unfaltering touch. As Burns beheld the process pass the point of greatest danger and approach conclusion, he felt somewhat as a man may who, unable to help, watches a swimmer breasting tremendous seas, and sees him win past the last smother of breakers and make his way into calmer waters. He was conscious that he himself had been breathing shallowly as he watched, and now drew ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... this was best, and soon, in the fast gathering dusk, the Gem was swung about and was breasting the rather ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... had answered all her questions, and had told her over and over again every detail of Mary's flight, and had assured her that the princess was, at that hour, breasting the waves with Brandon, on their high road to paradise, I thought it time to start myself in the same direction and to say a word in my own behalf. So I spoke very freely and told Jane what I ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... natural selection ceased to concern itself with locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at her tedious methods and his own superiority in the hastening of affairs. Thenceforth he must depend upon himself, and faster-swimming or faster-running men ceased to be bred. The one, half-amphibian, breasting the water with muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered wildly ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... was added to the case against Mayer, and breasting the hills, the young men talked it over, Crowder leaping to quick conclusions, impulsive, imagination running riot, Mark more judicial, confining himself to what facts they had, warning against hasty judgments. The talk finally veered to the Alston's and Mark had a question to ask that ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... conception of real speed if the gait he struck was not "too fast." They were through New Westminster and rolling across the Fraser bridge before she was well settled in the seat, breasting the road with a lurch and a swing at the curves, a noise under that long hood like giant bees ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... from dryest Champagne or soundest claret—when he fled, fast as Cinderella, from the pleasantest company at the stroke of the midnight chimes? Of course he feels deeply injured, and would have forgiven the absentee far more easily if the latter had beaten him fairly, on his merits, breasting the handkerchief first ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... in him seldom broods over real trouble—not at first, at least. By this test may often be known the real from the fanciful woe. Caius, knew, or his instincts knew, that his only chance of breasting the current was, not to think of its strength, but to keep on swimming. He took his horse's bits and the harness that had been given him for his little sleigh, cleaning and burnishing everything with the utmost care, ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... of the window sapped the color from her cheek, for she saw the stage breasting the hill scarce two hundred yards from the house. She hurried downstairs, pinning her belt as she ran, and flashed into the store, where ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the third time for the gravelly shallow, and travelled as he had never travelled before in all his life. Streams are made to swim against—every brook trout knows that—and the faster they run, the greater is the joy of breasting them. The higher the water-fall, the prouder do you feel when you find you can leap it. And our friend was in a mood for swimming, and for swimming with all his might. Never had he felt so strong and vigorous and so full of life and energy, and he made his fins and ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... morning in February we were breasting at a walk the slippery incline of Chestnut Hill, when Darthea, who had been ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... turbulent water, bearing his prisoner with him despite the wounded arm, as easily as if towing him at the stern of a pirogue. True, his course was down stream for a considerable distance, but even when presently he struck out boldly for the other bank, breasting a current in which few swimmers could have lived, much less made headway, he still swung forward rapidly, splitting the waves and scarcely giving Beverley freedom enough so that he could help in the progress. It was a long, cold struggle, and when at last they touched the sloping low bank on the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... heavens, was as the roar of a dissolving universe. Amid all this, the rain fell like a deluge. But the rum-seller's guides paused not, and he kept steadily onwards after them, shrinking now into the shelter of the houses, and now breasting the fierce storm with a ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... been due to some romantic incident, or, in other cases, to some occurrence partaking almost of the ludicrous. At the famed Carlsbad, for instance, a princely hunter pursues his stag into the lake where it has sought refuge, whereupon the unusual cries of his hounds, too eagerly breasting the waters, speedily reveal to him the strongly thermal nature of the spring which feeds the lake, and the discovery has benefited the thousands who annually frequent that health-giving resort from almost every land. On the other hand, in the case of our own Bath, although well known ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... feel the difference between his faint abstractions and the Platonism of a powerful nature fitted alike for the withdrawal of ideal contemplation and for breasting the storms of life,—would any one know how wide a depth divides a noble friendship based on sympathy of pursuit and aspiration, on that mutual help which souls capable of self-sustainment are the readiest to give or to take, and a simulated passion, true neither to the spiritual nor the sensual ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... ran steeply up the rocky slope, twisting in zigzags to reach the house. Jumping down from his box the man tried the gates, expecting to find them locked, but they yielded to a stout push, and a moment later he drove in. The horses, tired from breasting the wind on many hills, went up the incline slowly, the wheels grating over small stones on the ill-kept drive. Mary thought the noise of hoofs and wheels so sharp and unmistakable that she looked to see some eye of light suddenly open in ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of it slept in their rigid bodies, their grave, forward-looking faces, their behavior, so excessively correct. Somebody whispered the word, and on a sudden they let themselves go; they started. Young Tyser, breasting the wind of his own speed, his head uplifted and thrown backward, led the men, and she with the questing face and wide-pointing breasts of Artemis led the girls; and he had young Ransome on his heels and she Winny; and behind them the fourfold serried ranks thinned ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... the house of Whittier, the Whig farmer, where Saxon got into his war harness. We found our horses ready saddled and bridled, for my father had at the first alarm sent a message across that we should need them. By two in the morning we were breasting Portsdown Hill, armed, mounted, and fairly started on our ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had taen the fell And planted pallions there to bide; We looked down the other side, And saw them breasting ower the brae Wi' Sir John Forster as their guide, Full fifteen ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... Ogowe here is simply forested with high rocks, looking, as they stand with their grim forms above the foam, like a regiment of strange strong creatures breasting it, with their straight faces up river, and their more flowing curves down, as though they had on black mantles which were swept backwards. Across on the other bank rose the black-forested spurs of Lomba-njaku. Our channel was free until we had to fight round the upper end of our bay into a long ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... bottom they cluntered over the wooden bridge and by Overton steeple—a dim outline on the left—and cantering up Avebury hill eased their horses through Little Kennet. Gathering speed again they swept through Beckhampton village, where the Bath road falls off to the left, and breasting the high downs towards Yatesbury, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... o'clock we had walked close upon twelve miles, and were compelled to call a halt for a few minutes to recover our breath, for the last mile or two we had been breasting the long, wearying slope of ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the New England Congregationalists, to whom this has ever been a favorite field of activity. But special honor must be paid to the wise and courageous and nobly successful enterprise of large-minded and large-hearted men among the Baptists, who as early as 1764, boldly breasting a current of unworthy prejudice in their own denomination, began the work of Brown University at Providence, which, carried forward by a notable succession of great educators, has been set in the front rank of existing American ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... raced, the smoke growing heavier and more pungent as they neared the flames. They could hear the deep toned muttering of the conflagration. And all the way along the road they were breasting a tide of forest dwellers, deer, rabbit, bears, and a host of smaller animals, all scurrying away from the roaring ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... this point steadily thinner as they progressed, until at length they were able to catch occasional glimpses of the summit for which they were aiming. Finally they emerged from the bush altogether, to find themselves breasting a steep slope, the soil of which was composed ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... turned inwards still, Beholding but the narrow sphere of self, And trampling under foot the weak who stand Betwixt them and the goal of their desire. Blessed the few who unto fellow men Turn with the fervent grasp of Brotherhood, Breasting the surges of tempestuous fate, With souls fulfilled with kindliness and Faith— Raising the ensign of prophetic Hope Like the clear rainbow on the thunder-cloud; And 'mid the darkness of impending care, Pouring the cheerful ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... presently peering from the southward window in Mrs. Archer's room. Two dim figures could be seen crossing the flat from the direction of the ford, coming straight for the low point of the mesa whereon stood the quarters of the commanding officer. Then they began breasting the slope, but exchanging no word. As they reached the top Mrs. Archer caught Lilian's hand. "It's an Indian—a runner, I believe. See, that's the corporal of the guard with him! It's ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... the room beyond, and Judith, snatching up the candle, went in to the children. All three of them were sleeping cross-ways in one bed, their small, round arms and legs striking out through the land of dreams as swimmers breasting the waves. She gave a little cry of delight and appreciation, and called Peter to look. Little Jim, who had cried in some passing fear, sat up sleepily. He stretched out his small arms to Peter, whom he had never seen before. Peter took him, and again he settled ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... It seems good to have a home after so many years of fifth-rate boarding houses. And the best of it is, my good aunt, who has had a hard time breasting the world, enjoys it even ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... foam, shouting and yelling at the top of their voices. The chief took us off in his canoe to see the fun. When the breaker had spent itself the swimmers were left in smooth water, on which all turned again towards the sea, breasting the smaller waves, and quietly sinking down again as the larger and stronger ones passed over, or ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... ride along a road which wound in serpentine twinings high above the sea, now breasting ridges bare of all save rock and spurge, and now dipping into valleys shaded by flowering trees and cloyed with the scent of blooms. It meandered past farms, in haphazard fashion, past vineyards and gardens and groves of mandarin, lime, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... was no waiting on the part of the defenders, who began firing as soon as the advance commenced, with the result that several Indians dropped, to encumber the way and unsettle the serried band of plunging steeds, while the rest, on breasting the rocks, recoiled, and in a state of panic turned, regardless of yells and blows, to gallop back after the fashion of their kind, crowding together till they reached their fellows once again, to stand shivering, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... that prevented him from crossing to the hard desert of sand beyond—far out upon which lay an upturned gabion. Within this locked and stranded box lay two dead bodies. Crabs fought their way eagerly through the cracks of the water-sprung door, and over it, breasting the salt breeze, slowly circled a cormorant—curious and amazed at so strange a thing ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... was breasting the water manfully, making for a small cove nearer to where the boat was sunk than the one in which Francisco had landed with Clara and the wounded men, and divided from the other by a ridge of rocks which separated the sandy beach, and extended ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... of the East, Gray with the coming of night, This may we know at least— After the night comes light! Over the mariners' graves, Grim in the depths below, Buoyantly breasting the waves, Into ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... wrist glow with a strange, unaccustomed warmth. It was as if it had just been unclasped from the arm of a yohng woman full of red blood and tingling all over with swift nerve-currents. Life had never looked to her as it did that evening. It was the swan's first breasting the water,—bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river, and strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length afloat upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if she had for the first time found her destiny. It was to please, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the evening he reached Alfredston. Here he pawned his waistcoat, and having gone out of the town a mile or two, slept under a rick that night. At dawn he rose, shook off the hayseeds and stems from his clothes, and started again, breasting the long white road up the hill to the downs, which had been visible to him a long way off, and passing the milestone at the top, whereon he had carved his hopes ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Helen and Lowell had stood, Jim made a detour as he approached the reservation line and avoided the Greek Letter Ranch. He swung into the road well above the ranch, and, breasting the hill where the murder had taken place on the Dollar Sign, he galloped down ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... evening sunlight playing high up on one side of the gorge. At length the passage became so straitened that only three fathoms' space was left between the confining walls. When Hesdad Brook is at all full one can make his way through only with great difficulty and by boldly breasting its waters. Therefore it is that very few people have ever seen the gate of Torda Gap. Just above this narrow gateway is situated the natural excavation in the mountainside, called from its ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... Come along." And they plunged into Cheapside again, he breasting the stream, making a passage for her. They found a favourite confectioner's in St. Paul's Churchyard, where they had sometimes gone before. He noticed that she took her seat ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... bank from under a great buttonwood. It hung prone over the water, and one dipping fork seized and held the fainting swimmer. The dog was close, but had entered the current too far down and was breasting it while he bayed in protest to his master's horn. Now, as Euonymus struggled along the tree the brute struck for the bank, and the two gained it together. Euonymus ran, but on a bit of open grass ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... Breasting the hill fifty yards below him came the heaving throng of rioters, few of them, luckily, with fire-arms, but all bent on vengeance. Darting downhill to Shiner came the old and the new of the regiment he had known for years and swore ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... Hyne, one of the most beautiful spots in Ireland. Some miles to the westward lies the pretty island of Sherkin, which with Tullough to the east, makes the charming little bay of Baltimore completely landlocked. Out in front of all, like a giant sentinel, stands the island of Cape Clear, breasting with its defiant strength that vast ocean whose waves foam around it, lashing its shores, and rushing up its crannied bluffs, still and for ever to be flung back in shattered spray by those bold and rocky headlands. The town of Skibbereen consists chiefly of one ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... along the shore in the face of the wind, meeting, breasting, overcoming it, though with the exertion of determined strength and energy. The gale was rather fierce. It was a sight to see, the rush of that tide of waters, mighty, sweeping, rolling and tumbling in from the great sea, restless, endless. Diana did not stop to draw comparisons, yet I think ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Koom [D] is one of the pleasantest recollections I retain of the ride between the capital and Ispahan. It was about two o'clock on the afternoon of the 6th of February that, breasting a chain of low sandy hills, the huge golden dome of the Tomb of Fatima became visible. We were then still four miles off; but, even with our jaded steeds, the ride became what it had not yet been—a pleasure. The green sunlit plains of wheat and ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... intently gazing at the cross, passed into such a stupor or ecstasy that he had no knowledge of the flight of time. He only knew that, after a certain dreamy interval, the door of his house yielded to a living man, and, nearly naked with breasting the surf and fighting for life, young Abraham staggered into the hut ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... weeks, far in the Western waters: breasting through the Bay of Biscay, a greasy dingy little Merchantship, with Scotch skipper; under hatches whereof sit, disconsolate,—the last forlorn nucleus of Girondism, the Deputies from Quimper! Several have dissipated ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... medley of sounds blended by distance turned heads towards the east; and presently, breasting the mustard field that lay level and yellow to the hills, came Jose's squad of vaqueros, with Jose himself leading the group at a pace that was recklessly headlong, his crimson sash floating like a pennant in the breeze he stirred to life as ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... to her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful peril in the passage of the flames—peril to his eyes and face and clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was the means of saving him, in part, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... fell forward on the current. As the canoemen held on with their paddles and shot by through spume and rain, every soul in the boat exulted except the woman who lay flat on its keel. The rapids gave a voyager the illusion that they were running uphill to meet him, that they were breasting and opposing him instead of carrying him forward. There was scarcely a breath between riding the edge of the bottomless pit and shooting out on clear water. The rapids were past, and they paddled for the ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... feebleness of his moral resistance and the nature of his environment, that instead of being an athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift where he should have steered, to float with the current instead of nobly breasting the tide. He conducted his plantation with as much lenity as it was possible to infuse into a system darkened with the ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... the breeze that runs before the daybreak was dancing through the grass. The Boy turned to the left, following along one of the sheep-trails that crossed the high, sloping pastures. Then he bore to the right, breasting the long ridge, and passed the summit, running lightly to the eastward until he came to a rounded, rocky knoll. There he sat down among the little bushes ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... succeeds is the intuition of genius, decided to fall on them at a moment when no sane person could rationally expect an attack; and Caesar could not restrain his astonishment when he saw the enemy pouring down the steep side of the ravine, and breasting the ascent on which he stood. It was like the battle of Maubeuge over again, with the difference that he had here to deal with Asiatics, and not with the Nervii. There was some confusion while the legions were exchanging their digging tools for their ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... them, and take an active interest in shaping the future of their country. There were many failures, but the practical sense of the people surmounted them, and pushed on. All were awake to the value of their heritage, and contributed their share to extend its influence; and so we have gone on breasting manfully political, commercial and other difficulties, but always advancing; and whatever may be said about the growth of other parts of America, figures will show that Canada is to the front. At the Provincial Exhibition in Ottawa, in 1879, the Governor of Vermont, in his address, stated (what ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... getting up for. They are magnificent creatures; but, unlike many professional beauties, they're as clever as they are handsome. For generations they and their ancestors have been trained to ring a bell when they breakfast; and to see the whole family, mother, babies, and cousins, breasting the clear, lilied water, and waiting in a dignified, not too eager, row while father pulls a bell in the old palace wall, tweaking the string impatiently with his beak, is better than any theatrical performance of ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of liquor—the mountain ravine—the wild retreat among the rocks—the woe-begone party at ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... mystery attaches to the people to whom such a thing does happen. Moreover I had never really understood the Fynes; he with his solemnity which extended to the very eating of bread and butter; she with that air of detachment and resolution in breasting the common-place current of their unexciting life, in which the cutting of bread and butter appeared to me, by a long way, the most dangerous episode. Sometimes I amused myself by supposing that to their minds this world of ours must be wearing a perfectly overwhelming ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... children of different sizes. The appearance of the old man was really patriarchal, and there was a placidity in his countenance which gave a very favourable impression. For a short time they continued breasting the hill on the pathway: when about one-third up, the old man crossed the road to us, as our horse was walking up, and taking off his hat, said, "Gentlemen, if not too great a liberty, may I ask how far it is ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... hair, the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and the knotted veins of the hands—were the symptoms of moral poison, they prowl about the quays with an underhand air of gloating over the broken spirit of noble captives. They want more fenders, more breasting- ropes; they want more springs, more shackles, more fetters; they want to make ships with volatile souls as motionless as square blocks of stone. They stand on the mud of pavements, these degraded sea-dogs, with long lines of railway-trucks clanking their couplings ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... command. The cable was slipped from the mooring buoy. Ports were darkened and the Plymouth slipped out. A bit inside the protection of the submarine nets, but just outside the channel, she lay to, breasting the flood tide. There she lay for ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... otherwise stayed him. So on he went, and though the boughs were close enough overhead, and the sun came through but in flecks, he judged that it was growing towards noon, and he wotted well that he was growing aweary. For he had been long afoot, and the more part of the time on a rough way, or breasting a slope which was at ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... for the seed," as army men would put it. When this fierce "spraying" was well under way no doubt the order that had been awaited so long and impatiently by the concealed French soldiers was to be given; when they would start toward the bank of the river and strike into the shallow water, breasting their way across ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... his wisdom by sending a dashing shower, but he cared not at all for a wetting. He knew how to turn his crimson suit into the most perfect of water-proof coats; so he flattened his crest, sleeked his feathers, and breasting the April downpour, kept on calling for rain. He knew he would appear brighter when it was past, and he seemed to know, too, that every day of sunshine and shower would bring nearer ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... routes, which bifurcate at the Waschbank. At 8.30 a.m. the advance guard was at and over Sunday's river, seven miles further on, the rearguard crossing by the steep drift at noon, and here the column rested. At 1 p.m. it was on the move again, breasting the gentler ascent which swells upwards from the southern bank of the stream, and after covering some four and a half miles, was again halted at 3.45 p.m. upon the summit of a high ridge due north of Kankana Mountain. Here preparations were made to pass the night; the piquets went out, rations ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... when the press was landed. The next evening, it was not thought necessary to summon more than half that number; among these was Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, sir, the police of the city resisting rioters—civil government breasting itself to ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... upon the ground, And the thunders deeper sound! The loftier Muse, with awful mien, 300 Upon a lonely rock is seen: Full is the eye that speaks the dauntless soul; She seems to hear the gathering tempest roll Beneath her feet; she bids an eagle fly, Breasting the whirlwind, through the dark-red sky; Or, with elated look, lifts high the spear, As sounds of distant battles roll more near. Now deep-hushed in holy trance, She sees the powers of Heaven advance, And wheels, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... later Huck found Nigger Jim, but quite often in the evening they swam across to it, and when they had frolicked for an hour or more on the sandbar at the head of the island, they would swim back in the dusk, breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or dread. They could swim all day, those little scamps, and seemed to have no fear. Once, during his boyhood, Sam Clemens swam across to the Illinois side, then turned and swam back again without landing, a distance of at least two ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... hence it signifies an ascent, a steep; in the Dat. case, preceded by h, after the Prep. ri: ri h-uchd, in ascending, breasting, encountering, assailing. ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart |
