"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning, These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. They all suppose the earth a created existence. They must suppose ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Fred's watchfulness, saved my life; for at the moment that my head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masai jumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast. The blade passed down my back and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... don't expect you to stand by it—indeed, I know you won't, Pa being concerned—but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty. As to any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love. Whatever weight I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly devoid of attractions—used, as that position always shall be, to oppose that woman—I will bring to bear, you May depend upon it, on the head and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... apparatus for his chemicals, to the boy's delight. Unfortunately a sudden change came, fraught with disaster. The train, running one day at thirty miles an hour over a piece of poorly laid track, was thrown suddenly out of the perpendicular with a violent lurch, and, before Edison could catch it, a stick of phosphorus was jarred from its shelf, fell to the floor, and burst into flame. The car took fire, and the boy, in dismay, was still trying to quench the blaze when the conductor, a quick-tempered Scotchman, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... all started in their canoe for their home at Skidegate, where I had been invited. En route while passing a pipe from the chief to his wife, my oar caught in the water, giving the canoe a sudden lurch which would have been quite alarming to most feminine nerves, but not to the Princess for she laughed so heartily over the mishap, that I saw a smile spread over the big face of the old chief. An hour brought us to ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... pulling the other back, seeming to get more and more ferocious the nearer their victim gained the door,—for, when the baited John reached it, he turned the handle of the lock behind him, still facing his antagonists, intending to escape by a side lurch; but, just at that critical point, there came a knock of great importance at the outer door, as if the chimney were on fire, or a baby half out of window:—the enemy fell back—John opened the door, and, lo!—There discovered an officer of the Police Force, who ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... enormous, weir: a mast goes with a sharp report; a man's figure appears on the taffrail and bounds far into the sea—it is an experienced hand who wants to escape the down-draught; the hull shudders, grows steady, and then with one lurch the ship swashes down and the bellowing vortex throws up huge spirts of boiling spray. A few stray swimmers are picked up, but the rest of the company will be seen nevermore. Fancy those women in that darkened steerage! Think of it, and then say what should be done to an ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... a gale. It came up suddenly, and some ladies sitting on a bench were swept off by a roll and sudden lurch. The deck was soon cleared of the feminine element, with the exception of Bluebell, who enjoyed an immunity from malheur de mer, and knew she would not be much better off in her cabin, where Mrs. Oliphant had gradually ousted her from everything ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Imola was able to breathe more freely, the condottieri in Urbino may well have been overcome with horror at their position and at having been thus left in the lurch by Venice. None was better aware than Pandolfo Petrucci of the folly of their action and of the danger that now impended, and he sent his secretary to Valentinois to say that if the duke would but reassure them on the score ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... same artist. I well remember (as if it was only yesterday) how anxious I was during the time you were away on the job, and how my heart was frequently in my mouth (as the saying goes) when the old ship gave an extra heavy lurch, and you and the dear old cutter were out of sight for a few seconds in the trough of the sea; and I often think now what a wonderful and merciful thing it was that we got that boat up without accident,—but you see we had so many willing ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... without disclosures regarding: the Future; but that, by the prophecies granted to our Prophet, He had met the longings of his people for revelations of the Future. While the gods of the world leave them in the lurch, just when their help is required, and never answer when they are asked, the Lord, in reference to prophecies, as well as in every other respect, has not spoken: "Seek ye me in vain," but rather: When ye seek, ye shall find me. And, finally, he says that his ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... and still breathless, he gained his knees to find the Dark Master thrusting at him from the stern, while at his side the other rower was rising. Brian brought up his fist, caught the man full on the chin, and drove him backward over the gunwale. The lurch of the boat flung the Dark Master forward, Brian felt a sickening wrench of pain as the sword pierced his shoulder and tore loose from O'Donnell's hand, then he had clutched his enemy's throat, and ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... little things her ladyship said, I felt rather hot in the collar, and discharged myself. That is, I gave them notice that I would go as soon as they could get another chauffeur. It would have been bad form to leave them in the lurch, without anyone, on tour." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... darkness he drew alongside the lugger, rose, balanced skilfully, seized his moment, and stepped safely across her gunwale. A slight lurch caused him to throw his arms out to regain his poise; the line by which he still held the canoe straightened out its length and slipped from his grasp. In an instant the pirogue was gone. A glimmer of lightning showed her driving off sidewise before the wind. But it ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... carries me to church, And often am I blamed Because I leave him in the lurch As soon as text is named; I leave the church in sermon-time And slink away to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... he cried, appealingly, "I won't believe all they said. We'll be friends, when it's all over, but don't leave me in the lurch like this." ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... The ice raft gave a lurch that nearly sent him into the water, but Kesshoo caught him ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Festival Mass.] draw upon you are the most acutely felt by myself. Do you really think it is desirable to go against trifles of this sort and openly to fight them? I should not like to decide this "a distance"; but I promise you that I will not leave you in the lurch if in the end the indispensable invitation to me follows. The concert at Prague is to take place on the 12th of March, and I invite you to it. Then after that I can travel with you on the 14th to Vienna or return to Weymar. But I hope the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... lurch, glory to the breakwater!' exclaimed Father Boyle, as the boat pitched finally outside the harbour fence, where a soft calm swell received them with the greeting of civilised sea-nymphs. 'The captain'll have a quieter passage across. You may spy him on the pier. We'll ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and smiling, despite the discomfort his red face showed him to be suffering. Still back of them rode three other young men, the last in the line being a disconsolate fat figure of a boy who slouched from side to side in his saddle, each lurch threatening to precipitate him to the ground. The boy's pony was dragging along with nose close to the earth, the bridle rein slipping lower and lower over the animal's neck. The fat boy was plainly asleep. He had been slumbering in the saddle for more than an hour, and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... pale as any ghost, Had only said to me, 'We're all right now, old lad!' when up A wave rolled—drenched us three— One lurch, and then I felt the chill ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... 'd be exactly square to leave them in the lurch ashore," he said. "Of course," he went on hurriedly, "I know the whole thing 's wrong; but you remember that first night, when you came running through the water for the skiff, and those fellows on the bank busy popping away? We did ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... with a lurch and a stagger which proved his condition. He seemed a little suspicious at first, but the silence of the house, the steady gleam of the light over the fanlight, seemed to dispel any suspicions. Then he advanced more boldly to the door. As he stood on the bottom ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... her. 'Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,' cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast. 'Ah, Mr Fox,' cried the cat. 'You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been able to climb like me, you would ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... Jane Tebbs gave a little lurch and leant against the wall in speechless horror; and yet in her heart she had been more than half expecting—we will not say hoping for—some tragedy. Then she made a rush to the store-room, where Miss Mitty, invested in a large blue apron, was ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... been leaving me in the lurch again: partly perhaps from taxing them with a little more Reading: partly from going on the Water, and straining after our River Beacons, in hot Sun and East Wind; partly also, and main partly I doubt, from ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... rat-men rallied and swept on forward in a wave that nothing could have stopped this time—but their charge was too late. The entire rocky projection collapsed with a final sickening lurch, and slid to the pit's floor, carrying Joan and Powell with it in a miniature avalanche ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... wallowin' right at us. It keeps comin' and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin' for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. It gives a lurch, like a cow playin' leap-frog, and over she comes, still pointed ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... After lurch Delphine ran upstairs to see her husband for a few minutes, and then returned to me in her little sitting-room. He was tired, she said, and hoped to sleep until tea. She had not told him of my visit; he was so listless ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Jews in the garden of Olivet. And the devil fail me, if I should have failed to cut off the hams of these gentlemen apostles who ran away so basely after they had well supped, and left their good master in the lurch. I hate that man worse than poison that offers to run away when he should fight and lay stoutly about him. Oh that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G—, I should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia. A plague take them; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... enough to show that it was all that the other old house was not. It did not sag, or lurch, or do any of those disreputable things. It stood up as straight and was as firm on its foundations as on the day when its last hand-wrought nail had been driven home, a century or so before. No mistaking its period or architecture—it was ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... ally of unguessed potency. Before he himself knew it he was standing on the overhang and had shifted his hold to seize the fellow about the waist; then, lifting him clear of the deck, and aided by a lurch of the cat-boat, he cast him bodily into the dory. The man, falling, struck his head against one of the thwarts, a glancing blow that stunned him temporarily. Kirkwood himself dropped as if shot, a trailing reef-point ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... out and walked over the footbridge, in time to behold the owner of the British accent wave his hat triumphantly from the coupe with a hearty (English) "Huzza!" as the vehicle recovered, by a violent lurch to the left, from an equally violent one to the right, issuing scathless from the last flood that lay in the way,—and then both diligences began at a leisurely pace to crawl up a long ascent of road, bordered on each side by olive-grounds;—until ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... word was finished Garnet's retort was bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling——" He was cut short by the lurch of the carriage into a hole. It flounced him into the seat from which he had half started and faced him to the horses. With a smothered imprecation he rose and laid on the whip. They plunged, the carriage sprang from ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... hacendado, splendidly horsed, was next upon his flanks; but each time he reached forth to grasp the tail it was whisked beyond his reach. He succeeded at length in seizing it; but the bull, making a sudden lurch, whipped his tail from the rider's hands, and left ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... of rain, all through the spring and into the summer. Strawberries, that generally do well in wet weather, did not bless us with their usual abundance. Currants and gooseberries also left us in the lurch—but the Snyder blackberries were loaded with luscious fruit, while raspberries—why the berries of the Golden Queen bent the stalks down with their weight. Prof. Hansen's Sunbeams were covered with berries, ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... jumping over the sliding trunk and rolling bottles, and making frantic efforts, apparently, to put both legs simultaneously into one boot. Surprised in the midst of this arduous task by an unexpected lurch, he made an impetuous charge upon an inoffensive washstand, stepped on an erratic bottle, fell on his head, and finally brought up a total wreck in the corner of the room. Convulsed with laughter, the Major could only ejaculate disconnectedly, "I tell you—it ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... through the glistening set teeth. The prostrate body gave an upward lurch. With one swift, treacherous thrust, he drove his knife into my coat-sleeve, grazing my forearm. The effort cost him his life. He sank down with a groan. The sightless, bloodshot eyes opened. Le Grand Diable would never ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... as they were finishing their supper, an Indian stepped abruptly out of the darkness, and stood blinking at them just within the circle of light from the little fire. He was the Indian they had seen lurch from ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... Lady Angleford told me that you were coming here, and I made up my mind that I would let bygones be bygones and act squarely by you. As I said, I'm not a bit sorry that I married; no, indeed!—you've seen Lady Angleford—but I don't want to leave you in the lurch. I don't want you to suffer more than—than can be helped. I've been thinking the matter over, and I'll tell you what I'll ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... willowy stream; And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs warped and bent, And the horseless plough in the furrow, and things ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... to him,[21] make him talk on the way and learn whether he would like to enter into an agreement in his brother's name, and work it so that the duke will leave the Burgundian in the lurch at all points for ever, and make a good treaty, as you will know how, for I do not believe that the Seigneur de Lescun left here for any other reason than to attempt to make an arrangement ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... in the lurch!" the light skirmisher reproached him. "You don't believe in the instinct of death! And I was just going to begin living to a hundred and fifty and dying voluntarily by leaving off cheese. Now I will take some ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Lightning Loose was going faster and faster along that subterranean channel, and every now and then gave a lurch and ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... staring out to where the Sunderbunds lay hidden under mist; then she put one bare foot upon the lower rail, and swinging herself up, sat sideways, leaning far over; in such a position that the slightest lurch of the ship would have sent her headlong into ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... for servants to marry: it complicates things too much. Besides, she was sure to make a bad choice, and that is not pleasant. Men are sordid creatures. They come courting when a woman has money, squeeze it out of her, and then leave her in the lurch. She had seen too many cases of that and was not inclined to do the same."—She did not tell him of her own unfortunate experience: her future husband had left her when he found that she was giving all her earnings to her family.—Christophe used to see her in the courtyard mothering the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... deal with; he thinks it quite natural that if you put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to despair, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... over the possibilities in tense anxiety. If there were no will, James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will already in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless get the money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, to give it all to that greasy Shapless, would be the most natural trick in the world for an incisive old ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... of the team, already alarmed by the shot, followed her lead; before the startled highwayman could get out of the way they were upon him, in another instant he was under their heels, and the coach gave a sudden lurch as it ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... space they had gained. "Give way, lads! give way, they're gaining on us!" and the oars bent like willows in the hands of the hardy launchers; but in vain this expenditure of strength; one half of it was lost in a heavy lurch, which sent the starboard oars glancing in the sunbeams, dripping salt tears from their blades into the exulting wave, and nearly unseating the men. Like the Giselle, the agile cutter skips alongside. "Pull ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... He and Ned were too busy to talk much, as they were aiding in getting some hysterical girls and young women into the two sound craft. And when the last of the picnic party had been taken off, the boat with a hole in it gave a sudden lurch, there was a gurgling, bubbling ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... Peggy, and in a few seconds she was lowered into the boat. Mrs Hayward followed. Then Massey insisted on his wife going, and the obedient Nellie submitted, but, owing to a lurch of the ship at the moment, she missed the boat, and dropped into the water. One of the men attempted to pull her in, but could not, and, as all the others were engaged at the moment in trying to fend off the rocks, Massey at once jumped into the sea, and helped ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... mother proudly. "They knew without being told. That is the way a Duck takes to water." And she gave a dainty lurch and ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... appeared to be an age to the terrified young woman crouching there in such utter fright, the vehicle stopped short with a sharp thud and a lurch forward that would have thrown Sally upon her face, had not her companion ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... his slow walk, made a most astonishing departure; for, taking his driver unawares, he suddenly started after the flying white steed, breaking into a lumbering gallop, that set plumes nodding, curtains flapping, and glasses rattling, and made the huge unwieldly vehicle lurch and bob about in a way ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... similar elaborate statements of principle made during the Commonwealth period in England. Had the national forces failed at the critical period of financial organization, and the States, bankrupt by the revolutionary struggle, been left in the lurch, the republic would have followed the usual course of disintegration displayed by federations from the time of the Greek amphictyonies down to that of the ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... us a trick, and leave us in the lurch, now that we are all ready for a start?" asked the mate, with some ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... yet been made to Monsr. la force [Paris Mont Martell]. I think I can easily divert them from this, as I can convince St. Sebastien [Young Pretender] in case I see him, that they would leave him in the lurch. This proposal comes from your side the watter. I find Mrs. Strange [Highlanders] will readly except of any offer from Rosenberge [King of Sweden] as that negotiant can easily evade paying duty for any wine he sends hir. I can answer for Mrs. Strange's [Highlanders] conduct, as it will wholly depend ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... towards the shore, but it was swept quickly round again; she redoubled her exertions, tugging frantically at her helpless oars. She only succeeded in getting the boat into the trough of the sea, where, after a lurch that threatened to capsize it, it providentially swung around on its short keel and began to drift stern on. She was almost abreast of the battery now; she could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that seemed blown and scattered above her head; she even ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a few moments he came running back to her. "That's the way it always is with me! Him first! But after this it's you—and I was leaving you here in the lurch. But I don't know what to do!" He looked at her, then at the broken jumper; he gazed to the north and he stared to the south; in that emergency, his emotions stressed by what she had told him, he was as ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... I had no doubt he would have been glad if he could have seen his "narrow house" put to such a use. So we made ourselves comfortable with it, until, at an invisible station, it was taken off. Then we were obliged to stand, or to retreat into a miserable small box-car behind us. The platform would lurch a little now and then, and I, for one, was not experienced as a "train hand;" but we all kept our places till the Frankenstein trestle was reached. Here, where for five hundred feet we could look down upon the ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... and the word jerked out of her, and my arms jerked nearly out of me. In the dark the wagon had hit something that felt like nothing but a boulder in the middle of my decent road. The wagon stopped dead, with an up-ending lurch, and nothing holding it to the horses but the reins. Why on earth they held I don't know. For with one almighty bound my two young horses tried to get away from me,—and they would have, if the reins had not been new ones. As it was I had a minute's hard fighting before I ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... I like it," telegraphed Polly, nodding away to her. So Phronsie turned again to her watch, lest Grandpapa's head should slip from the blanket pillow in a sudden lurch of the cars. ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... without her profound political capacity, a woman without heart and without head, floundering in evil. Madame de Rochefide loves Madame de Rochefide only. She would have parted you from Madame du Guenic without the possibility of return, and then she would have left you in the lurch without remorse. In short, that woman is as incomplete for vice as she ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... ground continued to lurch and heave on its axis. Vivid lights crossed and criss-crossed the atomic heavens. The fissures in the ground appeared now as black canals. The lower part of the circle of boulders disappeared. Off to the right came despairing screams. White bodies glowed for an instant against the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... crossing a river, kneeling on my horse's back, when he gave a lurch and threw me into the water. Gaining the bank, and being quite alone, I stripped off my wet clothes and waited for the sun to dry them. The day was hot and sultry, and, feeling tired, I covered myself up with the long grass and went to sleep. How long I lay I cannot tell, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... can't help it, Dick. I can't live with a person without trying to like them and wanting them to like me. And then, when the ungrateful things are saucy, or leave me in the lurch as they do half the time, it almost breaks my heart. But I'm thankful to say that in these hard times they won't be apt to leave a good place without a ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... orderly drew his revolver and began waving it at us, shouting at the same time that if that —————— dog came any nearer, he would shoot him down. The officer paid no attention, but rode on ahead. I started after them on foot, but they began to trot and left me in the lurch. I ran back to the motor, overtook them, and placed the car across their path. The officer motioned his orderly to go ahead, and then let me tackle him. He took the high ground that I had no reason to complain since ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... in the sky. The shadows of huge pines appeared and disappeared in the rapid light. Sometimes when the tarantass neared the side of the road, deep gulfs, lit up by the flashes, could be seen yawning beneath them. From time to time, on their vehicle giving a worse lurch than usual, they knew that they were crossing a bridge of roughly-hewn planks thrown over some chasm, thunder appearing actually to be rumbling below them. Besides this, a booming sound filled the air, which increased as they ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... coming. It was like one of those dreams he'd had where he was unable to move, his muscles frozen, as some unknown horror stalked him. It could only end in a terrifying fall through cold space towards a tremendous lurch against the bedsprings that brought little comfort until his pounding heart came back to normal. But this was no dream; it was a known horror that stalked him, and it could not end as a dream ends. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Planta, meanwhile, I was forced to leave in the lurch; for I could not propose the bed-room passage to my present company, and she ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... to his editorial work he performed many experiments, for his was the soul of the inventor. These experiments were performed in the baggage car of the train. One day, as he was in the midst of one of these experiments, a sudden lurch of the train upset his bottle of phosphorous, setting the baggage car on fire. The conductor, a quick-tempered man, after putting out the fire, dumped young Edison's precious printing press and apparatus out of the car and went on. This was a very sad experience for the lad, ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... discard their loads at most inconvenient places. They were awkward creatures to meet in a sap. One might attempt to pass them on the side where there appeared to be the more room, only to find that, when nearly through, the mule would lurch over and pin you to the wall of the trench with the corner of an ammunition ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... after leaving Peter and racing for the ferry, had, under Peter's advice, formulated in his mind any plan by which he could break down Ruth's resolve to leave both her father and himself in the lurch and go out in the gay world alone, there was one factor which he must have left out of his calculations—and that was ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "I see that you are not going to leave me in the lurch. I knew that I wouldn't have to go ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mouth.... While the train pulled out, she stood on the rear platform, looking, looking. She was very still. All motion, all expression seemed centered in the steady gaze which dwindled away from him, became vague ... featureless ... vanished in a lurch ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... which was to make their fortunes ten times over. She must be patient; women couldn't understand business. If she resisted his coaxing and grumbled, he always had his threat ready. He would realise his profits and make off, leaving her in the lurch. Weeks became months. In pique at the betrayal of her famous stratagem, Alice had wanted to dismiss her servant, but Rodman objected to this. She was driven by desperation to swallow her pride and make a companion of the ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... enough for your care of Plorn. I was quite prepared for his not settling down without a lurch or two. I still hope that he may take to colonial life. . . . In his letter to me about his leaving the station to which he got through your kindness, he expresses his gratitude to you quite as strongly as if he had made a wonderful success, and seems to have acquired no ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... little organ creaked a dismal "O Salutaris," and she still knelt on the floor, her white-bonneted head nodding suspiciously. The Mother Superior gave a sharp glance at the tired figure; then, as a sudden lurch forward brought the little sister back to consciousness, Mother's eyes relaxed into ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... happened. The M. N. 1 gave a lurch to one side and then shot upward so quickly that Ned and Mr. Damon lost their balance and slumped over on the bench that ran around three sides of ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... her side. The main-deck guns had several days previous been run in and housed, and the port-holes closed, but the lee carronades on the quarter-deck and forecastle were plunging through the sea, which undulated over them in milk-white billows of foam. With every lurch to leeward the yard-arm-ends seemed to dip in the sea, while forward the spray dashed over the bows in cataracts, and drenched the men who were on the fore-yard. By this time the deck was alive with the whole strength ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... swaying, swinging, clutching; hemmed in by frantic, home-going New York, nose to nose, eye to eye, tooth to tooth. Around Sara Juke's slim waist lay Charley Chubb's saving arm, and with each lurch they laughed immoderately, except when ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... as though she had soared on wings, and for a moment rested poised upon the foaming crest as if she had been a great sea-bird. Before we could draw breath a heavy gust struck her, another roller took her unfairly under the weather bow, she gave a toppling lurch, and filled her decks. Captain Allistoun leaped up, and fell; Archie rolled over him, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... new regard for my fellows since Great Barr. About you and me there are men like that. There is nothing to distinguish them. They show no signs of greatness. They have common talk. They have coarse ways. They walk with an ugly lurch. Their eyes are not eager. They are not polite. Their clothes are dirty. They live in cheap houses on cheap food. They call you "sir." They are the great unwashed, the mutable many, the common people. The common people! Greatness is as common as that. There are not enough honours and ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... godly old chaplain left him in a lurch; The sword I forsook for the sake of the church; He risked the soul, and I ventur'd the body,— then I prov'd false ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... what HE did! They were left in the lurch For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church, Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load At their feet! Then above all the shouting ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... fool enough," said Hilary, "to imagine that such a liaison would be anything but misery in the long-run. If I took the child I should have to stick to her; but I'm not proud of leaving her in the lurch, Stevie." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... boat, and as he did so he gave a lurch, and would have fallen had he not caught the prow. On this he seated himself and looked round with a face that was flushed, and two eyes that blazed like ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and the horses sprang forward with a lurch. He swung them around a sharp bend with a skillful hand and poised his weight above the brake as they plunged at terrific speed down a steep grade. The roaring was louder than ever now, and it became deafening as they suddenly ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... drawing in the entire collection is No. 89. Never did Keene show greater mastery over his material. In this drawing every line of the black-lead pencil is more eloquent than Demosthenes' most eloquent period. The roll and the lurch of the vessel, the tumult of waves and wind, the mental and physical condition of the passengers, all are given as nothing in this world could give them except that magic pencil. The figure, the man that the wind blows out ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... be so alarmed. No, indeed, I couldn't brush it off. It sticks too fast for that. I wish," he said, as she made a frantic lurch towards him, "that you could be mild but firm—I mean not quite so agitated." Her breath came in quick perfumed wafts into his face, as his steady fingers strove to undo the knot in her ribbons. But even ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... you, my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch! But when a Liberal asks me what I think— Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam— An emblem sometimes may ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... counted before they are hatched, alias, Marion and the author sent by Gen. Gates to prevent the escape of Cornwallis, before he had run — the British and American armies meet — Gates and his militia-men leave De Kalb in the lurch — his gallant behavior, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... friend, at this moment did a rather decent thing; it gave the yacht a firm but gentle lurch and sent us into each other's arms. Perhaps nothing else in all the world of chances could so effectively have broken the ice between us, for we were laughing as I helped her back to the couch; and, as our eyes met, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... position which excited sharp conflict, they never could be sure that he would not get wrong at the last moment, or have some private understanding with the Democrats and leave his own side in the lurch. This was attributed to moral timidity. I feel very sure that this is a great mistake. Garfield's hesitation, want of certainty in his convictions, liability to change his position suddenly, were in my opinion the result of intellectual hesitation ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... away from London, and left us all in the lurch; for we expected you one night at the club, and knew nothing of your departure. Had I payed you what I owed you, for the book you bought for me, I should only have grieved for the loss of your company, and slept with a quiet conscience; but, wounded as it is, it must remain ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... set Party or two at Piquet, to pass away a few Hours, till we can sleep? A seasonable and welcome Proposition (returned the King;) but I won't play above twenty Guineas the Game, and forty the Lurch. Agreed (said Friendly;) first call in your Servant; mine is here already. The Slave came in, and they began, with unequal Fortune at first; for the Knight had lost a hundred Guineas to Majesty, which he paid in Specie; and then propos'd fifty Guineas ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... the other—and he clung grimly on. He was all doubled up around Hawkeye's knees, and in that position Hawkeye couldn't get at him very well; and, besides, Toddles had his own plan of battle. He was waiting for an extra heavy lurch ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... poor Maurice in the lurch. That was rather cruel of you after all his chivalrous efforts to deliver you from bondage. And ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... oyster women locked their fish up And trudged away to cry 'No Bishop'; Botchers left old clothes in the lurch, And fell to turn and patch the church; Some cry'd the Covenant, instead Of pudding, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave the perspiring tout his hand. With a heave and a lurch ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... the port stays and clings to them, and I begin to fear that he will leap into the rigging and climb to the cross-tree, where he might be precipitated into the sea by a lurch ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... middle of the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his body, crunching his ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... with terror. Her hands took hold upon me with the instinctive clutch of an infant. The chaise gave a flying lurch, which took the feet from under me and tumbled us anyhow upon the seat. And almost in the same moment the head of Bellamy appeared in the window which Missy ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... murderer,—unintentionally, it is true, but still a murderer. The pilot opposed me, and persuaded the men to bind me, and in the excess of my fury, when he took me by the collar, I struck at him; he reeled; and, with the sudden lurch of the vessel, he fell overboard, and sank. Even this fearful death did not restrain me; and I swore by the fragment of the Holy Cross, preserved in that relic now hanging round your neck, that I would gain my ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... touched here and there by slender javelins of rain. They came faster and faster, striking on and over one another; now they turned to drops; she stopped thinking, absorbed in watching a drop roll down the glass—pause, lurch forward, touch another drop; then a third; then zigzag rapidly down the pane. She found herself following the racing drops with fascinated eyes; she even speculated as to which would reach the bottom ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Martin into a spunging-house, and there strip him to the skin. How Martin, with much ado, showed them both a fair pair of heels. How a new warrant came out against Peter, upon which Jack left him in the lurch, stole his protection, and made use of it himself. How Jack's tatters came into fashion in court and city; how he got upon a great horse and ate custard {153}. But the particulars of all these, with several ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... must have torn a great hole in the ship's bottom, for I could see she was settling down in the water before we had left her five minutes, and in a quarter of an hour she gave a sudden lurch and sank. As I was in for it now, I knew the best thing was to put a good face on it, so I lent a hand at shifting the cargo and did my best to seem contented. We sailed off in company, and in the morning when I came on deck I found ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the gods had shattered the vault of the heavens a bolt streamed into a tree not a hundred yards ahead, and one of its limbs fell to the roadway. It was impossible to stop. She saw it and crouched behind the shield. With a lurch and a leap ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... lurch the train was derailed and plunged down an embankment, not steep but rocky. The heavy Pullman toppled over, then planted itself firmly in a bed of fresh earth, and was still. There were wild cries of fear and pain, a loud crashing of glass lamps, and some wrenching of seats. Leslie fell into ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... party arose from the table, a heavy lurch of the boat threw Grace headlong into Veath's arms. By a superhuman effort he managed to keep his feet. He smiled down at her; but there was something so insistent in the smile that it ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... tonneau, helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie Billette, and pick them up. That's ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... Petrovic, the famous St. Peter of Montenegrin history, was a firm and courageous ruler, who made his influence felt throughout the courts of Europe. Austria, Russia, and England did not scruple to avail themselves of his help and then, as seems to be the Montenegrin fate, left him in the lurch. He defied the armies of the great Napoleon, who came to fear him and his warlike clan insomuch that he was even offered terms of friendship. But the proud mountaineer would have none of it. He now ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... The wind dropped, fires were lighted, and at 4.30 p.m. we proceeded under steam. Soon after seven, whilst we were at dinner, the table gave a sudden lurch, which was followed by the sound of rain on the deck above. We found that a breeze had sprung up all at once, and had carried away some of our head-sails before they could possibly be taken in. Even under close-reefed canvas we had ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... riches which they largely owed to the Allied and Associated Powers." I was under the impression that the Serbs had expended a far greater proportion of their strength and riches than any of the Allies,[105] that the Allies had, in 1915, left them in the lurch, and that the final success on the Macedonian front was due quite considerably to the genius of Marshal Mi[vs]i['c] and the valour of his veterans. As for the strength and riches which the Southern Slavs possessed in 1921, it surely would not need an expert to perceive ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... lurch; once more a mighty green cliff of water came rushing up, bearing its tide of dead and debris; again Frohman started to say the speech that was to be his valedictory. He had hardly repeated the first three words—"Why fear death?"—when the group ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... back and ascertain what has become of our young adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on the bow—or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case of a sudden lurch of the ship. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... be easy. I will not leave you in the lurch. I am not going to marry my man and woman out of hand. An obstacle, of which I suppose you have never heard,—an obstacle entirely new, fresh, and unhackneyed, will arise; so, I pray you, let ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Let me see; this is the fourteenth. These clocks run fourteen days, and, therefore, you may expect him again about the twenty-eighth. For myself, I think you are giving him an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and that if he left you in the lurch it would only serve you right; but you have the world with you, I'm told. A girl is supposed to tell a man two fibs before she may tell ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... strands cut into his back, could stand up to no more punishment. Of a sudden, with an anguished sigh, the boy half pivoted, and a score of red bands showing angrily upon his bare, thin arms, gave a lurch, bent double, and went down, his limp body in a half circle, so that his yellow ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... down!" was the cry, as the steamer gave a suspicious lurch. Then came another crash, and before he knew it Dick Rover went spinning over the side, into the dark and misty waters of ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... so abominably greedy," she said, "and Wanted our share as well as his own. Quite early this morning he was after one of my Hares; it was a remarkably active little creature, and soon left him in the lurch. He caught a Rabbit or two and a few Birds, and might have been satisfied with those. But no—he wanted something larger, and ventured so near the mountains that a Grizzly Bear, who had strolled down to see what ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... thou flee, thou evil hound, and leave thy men in the lurch? That shame shall cling to thee all the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... stuck into the last sausinger. I hed clapt a good mouthful in, or I could hev hollur'd loud enough vor him to heer. The train didn't stop, an' the vellers in green laughed to see I wur left in the lurch, as I tell'd them that Sairy Jane would be sure to meet the Lunnon train. Thay sed I could go in an' vinish the sausingers now, an' that wur what ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... was for the safety of the boats. Early on the second day of warning they had been hoisted to the topmost notch of the cranes, and secured as thoroughly as experience could suggest; but at every lee lurch we gave it seemed as if we must dip them under water, while the wind threatened to stave the weather ones in by its actual solid weight. It was now blowing a furious cyclone, the force of which has never been accurately ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... energy of men fighting for life, flinging the water over the sides with every receptacle that came to our hands, and after ten minutes of uncertainty we felt the boat renew her life beneath us. She floated again and ceased to lurch drunkenly as though dazed by the attack of the sea. Earnestly we hoped that never again would we ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... synoptical tables and invent ideal objects for the pure love of unifying. Too often the results, glowing with 'truth' for the inventors, seem pathetically personal and artificial to bystanders. Which is as much as to say that the purely theoretic criterion of truth can leave us in the lurch as easily as any other criterion, and that the absolutists, for all their pretensions, are 'in the same boat' concretely with those ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James |
