"Float" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fol-de-rols of the old game of war. Bands no longer play the forces into the fight— indeed I have seen no more bands afield with the dun-colored files of the Germans than I might count on the fingers of my two hands; and flags, except on rare show-off occasions, do not float above the heads of the columns; and officers dress as nearly as possible like common soldiers; and the courier's work is done with much less glamour but with in-, finitely greater dispatch and certainty by the telephone, and by the aeroplane man, and most of all by the air currents ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... She could not resist the temptation of enjoying a few sentences with one of her own race. From her I learned that there were twenty-seven Moorish women in her master's household; that there was a tank at Wazan large enough to float a ship; that her master had been married before, and had two sons and a lovely Mahometan child, a daughter, to whom the Shereefa was teaching English and the piano; "but remember, please," and here she grew important, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the emperor. "In all the Greeks," said Asan to his troops, "the same climate, and character, and education, will be productive of the same fruits. Behold my lance," continued the warrior, "and the long streamers that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they are formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor has the stripe that is stained in purple any superior price or value above its fellows." ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... two beautiful skiffs in a wooden boat-house, which were as beautifully finished as if they had been objects of luxury. They were moored side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining length, and excited the wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and evenings, along the bower-covered banks of the river, where the trees dipped their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually rustling in the breeze, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... present quickly adjusted to its head, Harry Frere taking up a hole or two here and there till a perfect adaptation was made, when as if proud of its new finery the noble charger tossed up its head, making the scarlet hanging plume float about in the glowing air, and then stood motionless with head erect. Once more there was a loud outburst from the chief's assembled followers, and he stood looking as proud as the horse. Then he walked round it, giving ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... bright water—what strange, deep, swaying, life so far below the ruffling of wind, and the shadows of the willow trees? Was love down there, too? Love between sentient things, where it was almost dark; or had all passion climbed up to rustle with the reeds, and float with the water-flowers in the sunlight? Was there colour? Or had colour been drowned? No scent and no music; but movement there would be, for all the dim groping things bending one way to the current—movement, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that when at rest they must be quite invisible. There are now in the aquarium of the Zoological Society some slender green pipe-fish which fasten themselves to any object at the bottom by their prehensile tails, and float about with the current, looking exactly like ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... will terminate in similar failure. Two years have not elapsed since the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter; and yet we are amazed and mortified that our forces have not overrun the whole South, that victory has not crowned our arms in every battle, and that our flag does not float triumphant over every acre of every State once called Confederate. Whether this most desirable result could have been accomplished, if this or that policy had been adopted at the outset, is one of those problems that will never be solved; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... a fool—you are very sharp, though you choose not to see. Why should not you have this as well as another?—oh, much better than another! I can't stand by and see it all float into alien channels, while you—it would not be doing my duty while you—— Oh, don't look at me with that blank face, as if it did not move you in the least! Would it be nothing to have it in your power to dress as you like, to do as you like, to go into the world, to have a handsome ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... account for this magnificent flight, beginning so laboriously, by supposing that the bubble space under the skin becomes inflated with an air lighter than atmospheric air, enabling a body so heavy with wings disproportionately short to float with such ease and evident enjoyment at the vast heights to which the bird ascends. The heavenward flight of a large bird is always a magnificent spectacle; that of the chakar is peculiarly fascinating on account of the resounding notes it sings while soaring, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... against the wind so as to reach Hispaniola, Columbus shaped his course for Jamaica, and there, in the harbour which he had named Santa Gloria on his former visit, his voyage was perforce brought to a conclusion. As his ships could not float any longer, he ran them on shore, side by side, and built huts upon the decks for housing the crews. Such a habitation, like the Swiss lake dwellings, afforded remarkable advantages of position in case of attack by a ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... hover over her head in the air, For she has only minutes. When she signed Her heart began to break. Hush, hush, I hear The brazen door of Hell move on its hinges, And the eternal revelry float hither ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... prairie, carpeted with velvet flowers; on the blue and dreamy sea—it is the same. I look around, and perceive men and women moving mechanically about me; I even take part in their proceedings, and seem to float along the tardy current upon which they swim, and become a part—an insignificant portion—of the dull and stagnant scene; and yet, often and often, in the busiest moment, when commonplace has its strongest hold upon me, and I feel ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... oily sewing-needle will float upon the surface of water, when it is carefully let down to the water. A little butter may be rubbed upon the previously-magnetized needle ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... shadows of the trees along the shore wave in fantastic undulations. When they reached the Cape Telly said, "You had better go around to the cove where father keeps his boats. It's nearer to the house, and there is a float there where you can pull ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Where the birds and the squirrels tirelessly call, Where in autumn the flowers of the gentian blue Look up with their eyes so dark and true, Up into the hazy sky, Dreaming away as the red leaves drop, And the acorn falls from its deep brown cup, And the yellow leaves float by; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... luminous—gently float, Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar To faint when twilight on her virginal throat Wears for a gem the ...
— Songs from the Southland • Various
... 7. The corpuscles float in a clear, almost colorless fluid which contains the digested food and other elements by which the ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... little town of Kilwaru, which appears to rise out of the sea like a rustic Venice. This place has really a most extraordinary appearance, as not a particle of land or vegetation can be seen, but a long way out at sea a large village seems to float upon the water. There is of course a small island of several acres in extent; but the houses are built so closely all round it upon piles in the water, that it is completely hidden. It is a place of great traffic, being the emporium for much of the produce of these Eastern seas, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... under the aspect of black dots at the junctions of two or more canals;[1006] and he, no less than the Lick astronomers and M. Perrotin at Nice,[1007] observed brilliant clouds projecting beyond the terminator, or above the limb, while carried round by the planet's rotation. They seemed to float at an altitude of at least twenty miles, or about four times the height of terrestrial cirrus; but this was not wonderful, considering the low power of gravity acting upon them. Great capital was made in the journalistic interest out of these ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... in his hammock, inhaling comfortably. The ocean glittered blue before him in the sun. There was a plume of smoke out at sea indicating an old-style coal-burner, its hull down below the horizon. Anything that would float was being used since the war began, though a coal-burning ship was almost a museum piece. A trim Diesel tramp was lazing northward well inshore. A pack of gulls were squabbling noisily over some unpleasantness ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... had tethered the horses and made ourselves tolerably comfortable we heard loud voices from the hills above us: the effect was fine for they really almost appeared to float in the air; and as the wild cries of the women, who knew not our exact position, came by upon the wind, I thought it was well worth a little trouble to hear these savage sounds under such circumstances. Our guides shouted in return, and gradually the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... called, after a little rest, and a sipping of what remained of the orangeade. But to no purpose did their appeals for aid float across across the stretch of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... and that they must go too; so they sauntered away down by the stream to the pretty summer-house. They were glad to get there, because of the shade, for the sun was hot, and they were tired with butter-making. So for some little time they sat resting, and making boats of the large leaves, to float down ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... river was successfully performed. The detachment, after passing all the establishments of lumberers, extended its explorations beyond the remotest Indian paths, and leaving its boats penetrated on foot several miles to the south of the highest point of the stream in which boats could float. In this progress through unexplored ground a lake wholly unknown was discovered. The results of this expedition were embodied in a map, which on examination by parties furnished with better means was ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... crude, but acute and original, speculations? As already remarked, existing cosmological conceptions played an important role, more especially that of the great primeval ocean on which the world was supposed to float. This cosmographical ocean and its accompanying myths will be considered in a subsequent chapter. But restricting our view at present to the physical aspects of water, it is not wholly impossible to recover, and sympathise with, his ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... down against the drum. A pinion working in this rack or wheel is connected with a pulley over which a flexible copper wire passes through the bottom of the case containing the gauge to a spherical copper float, 8 inches diameter, which rises and falls with the tide, so that every movement of the tide is reproduced moment by moment upon the chart as it revokes. The instrument is enclosed in an ebonized cabinet, having glazed doors in front and at both sides, giving convenient access to all ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,—Liberty and Union, now and for ever, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... disappeared, it was with the saddest drop to anxious, to gnawing uncertainty, that Jack turned back into the house. An echo of the fear that he had felt in Valerie seemed to float back to him. It was as if, in some strange way, he had handed her over to pain rather than to joy, to ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control! Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds' singing, 5 Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the ninth of September dawned upon our voyagers remarkably serene and beautiful. They hurried through breakfast to make an early start. The water was found so shallow, at the mouth of the river, that it would not float the boat. They were compelled to take off their clothes and wade through the soft mud for the distance of a mile, dragging the boat, when they came to deep water. The whole wide marshy expanse seemed ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... a prisoner for good, a hopeless invalid. This vague intermediate state, which is neither death nor life, has its sweetness, because if it implies renunciation, still it allows of thought. It is a reverie without pain, peaceful and meditative. Surrounded with affection and with books, I float down the stream of time, as once I glided over the Dutch canals, smoothly and noiselessly. It is as though I were once more on board the Treckschute. Scarcely can one hear even the soft ripple of the water ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but very awkwardly, and he saw plainly that she was tired. Instead of approaching the shore, the boat continued to float down the lake. ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... In the intervals between the beaune and the champagne, between the ragout of thrushes and the partridge with truffles, he fervently preached his new political creed. "The vessel of the revolution," he said, "can float into port only on waves of blood. We must begin with the members of the National Assembly and of the Legislative Assembly. That rubbish must ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dark spirit in the world of dreams! When Noon in golden armor, travel spent, Climbing the azure plains of Heaven, alone, Pitches upon its topmost steep his tent, And looks o'er Nature from his burning throne, I loose my little shallop from its quay, And down the winding rivers slowly float, And steer in many a shady cove and bay, Where birds are warbling with melodious note; I listen to the humming of the bees, The water's flow, the winds, the wavy trees, And take my lute and touch its silver chords, And set the Summer's melody to words; Sometimes I rove beside the lonely ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... may. The noon is sultry, Heated and clammy, I, Towards the live waves turning, slip my tunic, Then run in naked. Cooled and soothed by swimming, Both mind and heart from their late tumult tuned To placid acquiescent health, I float, suspended in the limpid water, Passive, rhythmically governed; So tranced worlds ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... these blocks of mineral had been natural. It is said that about one-half of all pipes now sold are made from artificial meerschaum. Meerschaum is one of the lightest of minerals and it is said that in Italy bricks have been made of it so light that they would float on the top of the water. Some pipes (doubtless owing to the quality of meerschaum) take on more color in a given time than others this is owing in a great measure however to ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Christian era. Logan watched him, and once when, something that interested him being said, the Father swept the table with his glance without raising his head, a memory for a fraction of a moment seemed to float towards the surface of Logan's consciousness. Even as when an angler, having hooked a salmon, a monster of the stream, long the fish bores down impetuous, seeking the sunken rocks, disdainful of the steel, and ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... empty barks on billows float, With Sandy ballast sailors trim the boat; So bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight Steers through the ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... whether solid or fluid or granular, remains the fundamental reality. The universe does not float IN an ocean of ether: it IS an ocean of ether. But countless myriads of minute disturbances are found in this ocean, and set it quivering with the various pulses which we classify as forces or energies. These points of disturbance cluster together in systems (atoms) of from 1000 to 250,000 ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... considered, and when it is borne in mind that a considerable percentage of the precious metal present in the ore is, in the ordinary process of extraction, lost through defective amalgamation—due to insufficient contact with the mercury or to a total absence of contact, as in the case of float gold—it is obvious that the introduction of any system obviating such loss is a matter of very great importance to those who are interested in the above mentioned industries. We expect shortly to hear ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... autumn skies The swallows float and play, His restless thoughts pass to and fro, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... sea-plants trembling float, As it were like a mermaid's locks, Waving in thread of ruby ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... patched me up last night so I'm near as good as new. After I drunk th' wrinkles smooth outta my belly an' had me some shut-eye, why, I'm as right as four aces in any man's hand! 'Course I sure could do with some coffee—'bout strong 'nough to float a hoss shoe gentle like. But we ain't bendin' lip over that this sunup. Lordy, this jerky sure gives a ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... in any event you cannot keep up two establishments. Break up the house at Scott at once, let her come out with my people and leave the Maloneys and Barnickel—and Scott behind. Let my Braska banker be yours for the present. A few mouths here will float you well ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... particular man out of the many. The one particular man was walking slowly up and down on the roadside opposite to the hotel by the Park railings. That he was walking up and down Dolores became conscious of through the fact that, having half unconsciously seen him once float into her ken, she noted him again, with some slight surprise, and was aware of him yet a third time with still greater surprise. The man paced slowly up and down on what appeared to be a lengthy beat, for Dolores mentally calculated that something like a minute must have elapsed ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... the lucent background float the ever-changeful forms, Sometimes glowing into glory, sometimes glooming ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of Cardigan's mill is tide-flat; he owns all the deep-water frontage for a mile south of Sequoia, and after that come more tide- flats. If you dump your logs on these tide-flats, they'll bog down in the mud, and there isn't water enough at high tide to float 'em off or let a tug go in ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... was rather difficult, for she kept continually bobbing up and down, like a boy's cork-float in a fish-pond." ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... storm and snow they grow fattest and fastest. I have marvelled greatly how it is possible for any hot-blooded creature to enjoy so immensely this terribly cold water as do these old seals. They paddle about, throw themselves on their backs, float and puff out their breasts, flapping their flippers like ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... side in friendly or in loving companionship. He felt so utterly alone, and all these about him were mated. The tones of women sounded soft and sweet in his ear. Stray verses of Canticles began to float through his mind as wisps of vapor drift across the sky before the fog comes in from the sea. He repeated the collect for the day, and through it all he was thinking that it was possible to walk past the house of Mrs. Fenton. The difference in the time of his reaching the Clergy House would ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... green grass, the glorious sunshine, the birds of the air, and the young lambs gambolling down the verdant slopes, which fill the heart of a British child with a fond ecstacy, bathing the young spirit in Elysium, would float unnoticed before the vision of a Canadian child; while the sight of a dollar, or a new dress, or a gay bonnet, would swell its proud bosom with self-importance and delight. The glorious blush of modest diffidence, the tear of gentle sympathy, are so rare on the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the gas didn't shut itself off, but kep' on a-leakin' an' shot up inter the b'ar's mouth and down his throat. The onfortnit b'ar couldn't help hisself, an' bimby he were filled with gas like a balloon, till he had to float, an' away he sailed, up an' up an' up. Wen I fired at the b'ar, ez he was floatin' to'ard the clouds, the linen on the bullet carried fire with it, an' w'en the bullet tapped the b'ar's side the burnin' linen sot it on fire, showin' th't th' can't ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... sneakin' coyote of a road agent," said the man, "or I'll blow yer so full of lead that yer couldn't float in ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... top of the sea, and carrying me in, full speed, with the flood of foam and spray. After three or four quick strokes I jerked the oars out of the row-locks, jumped into the water knee-deep, and wading dragged the boat backwards as far as she would float, when the receding surf let her gently down upon the sand, and before the next wave the servant had taken the bow and I the stern and lifted her high and dry upon the beach. And so my afternoon's pull of thirty miles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... knowledge never saved him from whipping; mere years help nothing; King and Hay and Adams could neither of them escape floundering through the corridors of chaos that opened as they passed to the end; but they could at least float with the stream if they only knew which way the current ran. Adams would have liked to begin afresh with the Limulus and Lepidosteus in the waters of Braintree, side by side with Adamses and Quincys and Harvard College, all unchanged and unchangeable since archaic time; but what purpose would it ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... she would like to hear her voice float away with his. She bent over the music again—the first and foremost lay Mendelssohn's beautiful duet. "Oh, would that my love." They sang it in the summer gloamings when she had been pleased and proud to hear her wonderful voice float away over the trees and die ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... as strong as passions, Float softly back—a faded dream; Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations, The tale of others' sufferings seem. Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding, How longs it for that time to be, When, through the mist of years receding, Its woes but ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... other's right. Doubts have existed whether Charles Lamb ever gave up for the sake of Mary the one real attachment of his youth. It has been considered somewhat probable that Alice W. was an imaginary being—some Celia, or Campaspe, or Lindamira; that she was in effect one of those visions which float over us when we escape from childhood. But it may have been a real love, driven deeper into the heart, and torn out for another love, more holy and as pure: for he was capable of a grand sacrifice. No one will, ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... of Julia Hammond seemed to float before the eyes of his mind day and night; and when he saw, in his imagination, that face with its sparkling black eyes, and the finely poised head, with its wavy black hair, her well-rounded bust, and the handsome figure, it made him feel like removing a mountain of ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... Float forth, thou flag of the free; Flash far over land and sea, Proud ensign of Liberty— Hail, hail ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... victorious. The Clouds themselves, as the chorus of the piece (for the poet converts these substances into persons, and dresses them out strangely enough), are an allegory on the metaphysical speculations which do not rest on the ground of experience, but float about without any definite shape or body, in the region of possibilities. We may observe in general that it is one of the peculiarities of the wit of Aristophanes to take a metaphor literally, and to exhibit it in this light before the eyes of the spectators. Of a man addicted to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... yon sunset! swift and strong As new-fledged Eagles, beautiful and young, That float among the blinding beams of morning; And underneath thy feet writhe Faith, and Folly, 2185 Custom, and Hell, and mortal Melancholy— Hark! the Earth starts to hear the mighty warning Of thy voice sublime and holy; Its free spirits here assembled See thee, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... in the different consistency of the substances secreted by the cells to lie between them; skin cells are soft-walled masses lying close together; even blood is a tissue, although it is fluid and its cells are the corpuscles which float freely in a liquid serum. Thus an organism proves to be a complex mechanism composed of cells as structural units, just as a building is ultimately a collection of bricks and girders and bolts, related to one another ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... or a quiet little abbe crossing the piazza on his way to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the light on wall and facade, and of the transparent waters of the canals and the azure skies in which float great snowy fleeces. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... at the court of the Muscovite Great Prince would suit a poor adventurer; abundance of such men might be found at that time possessed of talents and learning. But hardly was Aristotle's letter communicated to Antony, than visions began to float in his ardent brain.—'To Muscovy!' cried the voice of destiny—'To Muscovy!' echoed through his soul, like a cry remembered from infancy. That soul, in its fairest dreams, had long pined for a new, distant, unknown land ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... sufficiently low. Hence it is inferable that somewhere between centre and surface in the supposed larger spheroid, there will arise that state described by Prof. Andrews, in which "flickering striae" of liquid float in gaseous matter of equal density. And it may be inferred that gradually, as the process goes on, these striae will become more abundant while the gaseous interspaces diminish; until, eventually, the ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... on the radar bridge, in a suicidal attempt to destroy the invader. But the larger ship was ready. The two forward blasters opened fire. A flaming ball of light exploded near the stabilizer of the destroyer and it fell off course to float helplessly in free-fall orbit around the asteroid. Still lying on the ground, Tom sighed with relief. At ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... ye doubt the tale I tell, Steer through the South Pacific swell; Go where the branching coral hives Unending strife of endless lives, Where, leagued about the 'wildered boat, The rainbow jellies fill and float; And, lilting where the laver lingers, The starfish trips on all her fingers; Where, 'neath his myriad spines ashock, The sea-egg ripples down the rock; An orange wonder dimly guessed, From darkness where the cuttles ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... had finished our inspection, "we've got to get across somehow. I guess we'll have to sail in, the first thing to-morrow morning, and build a raft. These pine-trees down here by the water will cut easy and float well, and there's some comfort in that, anyway. But what I'm after right now is ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... in the dark," he says, "the moon glinting in at the open door. I sat with one leg over the chair and let my mind float." ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and yet no one uttered a murmur. Louis XIV., by his infamous demands, had united all hearts in the most determined resistance. Amsterdam appeared like a large fortress rising in the midst of the ocean, surrounded by ships of war, which found depth of water to float where ships had never floated before. The distress was dreadful. It was the briny ocean whose waves were now sweeping over the land. It was so difficult to obtain any fresh water that it was sold for six cents ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... one comes to trees whose leaves are all a vivid glowing crimson. You can't imagine any thing more beautiful when the light shines through them. Through openings in the columned aisles one sees fields steeped in golden glamour, where float feathery tufts of down. There also linger a few late golden-rods, and butterflies with limbs ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... sails were immediately taken in, and the boats lowered. We had struck just before dark, and at daylight I observed land some eight miles distant. High tide was expected at about eleven o'clock, when it was hoped the vessel would float off, though we feared she would sink in ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... float a short time longer than we should otherwise have done; but the yacht had taken in too much water before we applied the remedy, for suddenly, on the top of a huge wave, she made a heavy roll, capsized, and came up with her keel in the air. I am only afraid that I did not do all ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... morning, the glow of the noon, The play of the clouds as they float past the moon, The most magical tint on the snowiest peak, They are gone while I gaze, fade before you can speak, Yet they stay in my palace ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... nation's flag. To him it is the visible and tangible token of the government he serves, and in it he beholds all the government's strength and virtue. To William Driver, therefore, the Stars and Stripes typified the glory of the land and of the sea. And seeing his nation's symbol float dauntless and triumphant above stress of every encounter and happening upon the deep enkindled the inherent love in his heart for it to enthusiastic ardor, and in thought he ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... looking more at the changes in her expressive face than at the palaces. Venice was as new to him as to Katy; but she was a new feature in his life also, and even more interesting than Venice. They seemed to float on pleasures for the next ten days. Their arrival had been happily timed to coincide with a great popular festival which for nearly a week kept Venice in a state of continual brilliant gala. All the days were spent on the water, only landing now and then ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... arms went round his neck and drew him close. With his lips on hers he seemed to float away. That kiss closed his eyes, and he could not lift his head. He sat motionless holding her, blind and helpless, wrapped in a sweet dark glory. She kissed him—one long endless kiss—or else a ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... who celebrated the lady artists, and who mostly preferred to swim in seas of personal float, did now and then offer their readers a basis of solid fact; and they all agreed that the Synthesis of Art Studies was the place for a girl if she was in earnest and ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... floating!" she whispered. "They float slowly, but they are on their way. By and by they will meet the ship. Then everything will be crushed or frozen. I try to make them stay still, but they won't do it, and I'm so tired—oh, I'm so ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... that!' she replied. 'Give me the reins and the whip.' Before he could resist she had taken them from his hands. 'Put your feet on our box,' she directed, 'or the water will float it away. ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of himself, for he had dropped the duck. I watched it floating by on the waves, its head under water. Suddenly something jerked it under, a fish perhaps, for it did not come up and float again, as far as ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... girl did not speak. She drew the man's strong rugged head close up to her face, and nestled her cheek against his. Love without words; love greater than words. It was like a fairy dream; if either spoke the gentle gossamer web of it would float away like mist, and of needs they must talk of ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... float in my airplane boat— For Venus I am truly sorry! All the stars you sight, you witless wight, You'll see when you and Venus light! But then—I'm sure ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... was dreaming one of those horrors, impossible to realize in life, which is termed dethronement, imprisonment and insult toward a sovereign who formerly wielded unlimited power. To be present at—an actual witness, too—of this bitterness of death; to float, undecisively, in an incomprehensible mystery, between resemblance and reality; to hear everything, to see everything, without interfering with a single detail of agonizing suffering, was—so the king thought within himself—a torture far more terrible, since it might last forever. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... and broad spear-head; and upon the air was the sound of noisy talk and boisterous laughter. Through the midst of this great green hollow a stream wound that broadened out in one place into a still and sleepy pool upon whose placid surface stars seemed to float, a deep pool whereby was a tall tree. Now beneath this tree, far removed from the fire, sat a great swarthy fellow, chin on fist, scowling down at that which lay at his feet, and of a sudden he spurned this still and ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... and enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and they were coasting southward, where even the rain-furrowed, heat-cracked clay becomes gem-like with purple shadows, and where one may float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world has ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... diameter;[3] there you may travel by rail most comfortably on palace cars, and at night you may sleep on Pullman cars, to find in the morning that a young lady has been sleeping in the berth above your bed. The people are most ingenious in that they can float a company and water the stock without using a drop of fluid; there are bears and bulls in the Stock Exchange, but you do not see these animals fight, although they roar and yell loudly enough. It is certainly a most extraordinary country. The people are wonderful and are most ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... Lamp.—Mothers who have timid little ones will appreciate the new night lamp, the apparatus of which may be carried to the country in a trunk or handbag. This apparatus consists of a small wooden float through which passes a tiny wick. An ordinary china teacup is half filled with cottonseed oil, the little floating wick placed in this, and a match touched to the upright wick. While the sides of the cup prevent thc direct light of the flame being visible to the person ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... pleasure, I locked in my heart the consciousness and vanity of power; in the levity of the lip, I disguised the knowledge and the workings of the brain; and I looked, as with a gifted eye, upon the mysteries of the hidden depths, while I seemed to float an idler with the herd only upon the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been compared by one writer to jelly which, filling all space, serves as a setting for the planets, moons, and stars, and, in fact, all solid substances; and as a bowl of jelly carries a plum, so all solid things float in it. ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... of this the most ornamental of all native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away—the great dark, velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail (Papilio philenor), its green-shaded hind wings marked with little white half moons; the yellow and brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias), that we saw about the wild parsnip ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... the Arab porters as they hauled huge trunks off the ship onto a float. Then one after the other the two tenders puffed away, packed from stem to stern. A few people for whom there was no room embarked in small boats manned by jabbering Arabs. Two of these cockle-shells still moved up and down under the black, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... vessels usually disappear totally beneath the surface. It takes even big steamers only between four and ten minutes to sink, after being hit by a torpedo or shell beneath the water line, and yet occasionally a ship may float several hours before going down to the bottom ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... way to stop pain is to let your right arm slowly rise while you are under hypnotic suggestion. Do not help it. If the suggestions are strong enough, it will "float" up. As soon as the arm is straight overhead, you should give yourself the suggestion that it is as rigid and unbending as a bar of steel. Following this, a suggestion is given that the hand is beginning to tingle and become numb. As soon as the numbness has spread through the entire ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... of governing with steering is a very happy one," for the interest of him who steers is the same as that of the people in the ship: "all must float or sink together." So the interest of those that govern, of those that guide "the ship of state," as we often express it, is the same as ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... to lie down flat in the boat, and hold on to the line about twenty feet from this end, which I am going to make fast to the ferry post. Keep it clear of the bank, and let the bait float well out in the stream. The minute the 'gator swallows it, do you give the line a jerk as hard as you can, so as to fix the stick crosswise in ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon." ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... convincingly the stage entrance of that theatre was for Paul the actual portal of Romance. Certainly none of the company ever suspected it, least of all Charley Edwards. It was very like the old stories that used to float about London of fabulously rich Jews, who had subterranean halls, with palms, and fountains, and soft lamps and richly apparelled women who never saw the disenchanting light of London day. So, in the midst of that smoke-palled city, enamoured of figures and grimy toil, Paul had his secret temple, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Norse word Wyke or Vik means a creek or bay, and the fact that such a name was given to this spot would suggest that the Vale was more than marshy in Danish times, and perhaps it even contained enough water to float shallow draught boats. Flotmanby is another suggestive name occurring at the eastern corner of the lake about four miles from Filey. In modern Danish flotman means a waterman or ferryman, and as there is, and was then, no river near Flotmanby, there is ground for believing ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... turn backwards or forwards he had to change his course, for the tide was running in fast. The sea fascinated him; he could not help watching it, especially now when all sorts of bits of wreckage were beginning to float in—lengths of rope, a life-belt or two, and things belonging to the Cora's deck. The men from the station were watching with the sailors and hauling things ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... Did you feel that?" (A puff had caught the schooner, and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of the wind.) "'Tis no egg-shell'll float on this sea an hour come, an' it's a stroke iv luck for them we're here ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the captain said. "My orders were to go to Leghorn, and to Leghorn I mean to go if the ship floats; but I tell you honestly I do not think there is much chance of our getting there. Still, as long as the ship floats, the British flag will float ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... fate; or, if you prefer it, I leave my future in the hands of Providence. I shall stroll out this morning, as soon as I've "cleaned myself," and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers. Our Bagdad teems with enchanted carpets. Let one but float my way, and, hi, presto, I seize it. I go where glory or a modest competence waits me. I snatch at the first offer, the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by, feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs. I had a mighty passion come over me to be the captain of one,—to glide back and forward upon a sea never roughened by storms,—to float where I could not sink,—to navigate where there is no shipwreck,—to lie languidly on the deck and govern the huge craft by a word or the movement of a finger: there was something of railroad intoxication in the fancy: but who has not often envied a ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... children, celluloid ducks, fish, or boats may float about on the water, and the entire bath be forgotten by the little fellow's ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... be at their mercy. They could come right to the edge of the bank unseen, so dense was the cover; and, working as our men were at such a disadvantage in the gloom, which was rapidly growing deeper, there was no knowing how long it would be before the first boat was sufficiently lightened to float again; it even seemed to be possible that we might not keep pace with the fall of the tide, and then perhaps we ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... vision seemed to float behind a veil of sparkling gauze, unreal as a mirage; but toward noon it brightened and sharpened in outline, until at last the tall trees took individual form, bunches of unripe dates beneath their spread fan of plumes hanging down like immense yellow fists at the ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson |
