"Midst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... authority, enter your room—and remove you forthwith. Fine or imprisonment, or both, are the legal penalties for violation of the no smoking law, and for using a flame or canned fuel, in most theatres. Principals have before now been taken off the stage in the midst of a performance and landed in jail, necessitating the dismissal of the audience. It is a mighty important man who can do a thing like that, and consequently the fireman commands the profoundest respect of every member of every company, from ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won, and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort; they perish only when the creature is either unfaithful to itself, or is afflicted by circumstances unnatural and malignant to its being, and for the contending with which it was neither fitted nor ordained. Hence that rest which is ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... Mahooley, in the midst of the general chaffing, unexpectedly received a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder that went to his head a little. He promptly arose and carried his box to her side. Mahooley was the greatest man present, and none presumed ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Jesuits, compared with the members of the other Orders, are very superior men, and their fraternity includes a few, and almost the only, learned ecclesiastics who came to the Colony. Since their return to the Islands (1859) in the midst of the strife with the Religious Orders, the people recognized the Jesuits as disinterested ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... completely into the midst, into the very heart, of Pestalozzi's work, I wished to live in the main buildings of the institution, that is to say, in the castle itself.[68] We would have cheerfully shared the lot of the ordinary ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... instead of the draft, amid blazing roofs and falling walls, smoke and ashes, deafening reports of explosions, the frenzy of women and children, left alone not only by the negro conscripting officers and President Davis and his Cabinet, but by the army and navy; in the midst of such scenes, almost beyond description, the Black Phalanx of the Union army entered the burning city, the capitol of rebeldom, scattering President Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation to the intended confederate black army. For twelve squares they chanted their ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... magnificent than ever was Bonivet; for there were in it nine thousand three hundred and two-and-thirty chambers, every one whereof had a withdrawing-room, a closet, a wardrobe, a chapel, and a passage into a great hall. Between every tower, in the midst of the said body of building, there was a winding stair, whereof the steps were part of porphyry, which is a dark-red marble spotted with white, part of Numidian stone, and part of serpentine marble; each of those steps being two-and-twenty ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... In the midst of her frenzied rejoicing at the death of the man, and Smith-Oldwick could attribute her actions to no other cause, she suddenly desisted from her futile attacks upon the insensate flesh and, leaping to her feet, ran quickly to the door, ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by Genevieve's shriek of terror the foreman had been in the very midst of pronouncing the concluding phrase of the verdict. Had it not been for the strange face, had the venturesome girl not followed the face's owner, who could say how differently events might not have turned out? ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... says one, 'be the horrid system of cruelty, ignorance, and wickedness represented by some writers of fiction and paid defamers of our institutions, how happens it that those who have been reared in the midst of it, when freed and planted in Africa at once exhibit such capacity for self-government and self-education, and set such ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... one hold that the constitution of property is bound to remain eternally just as it is, immutable, in the midst of the tremendous stream of changing social institutions and moral codes, all passing through evolutions and continuous and profound transformations? Property alone is subject to no changes and will remain petrified in its ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... midst of his deliberations, a report of the hot pursuit of Miss Durham, casually mentioned to him by Lady Busshe, drew an immediate proposal from Sir Willoughby. She accepted him, and they were engaged. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a dissatisfaction with his work and profession; but the latter is generally attributed to other causes. Actors and playwrights were in his day generally looked upon with suspicion or contempt; and Shakespeare, even in the midst of success, seems to have looked forward to the time when he could retire to Stratford to live the life of a farmer and country gentleman. His own and his father's families were first released from debt; then, in 1597, he bought New Place, the finest house in Stratford, and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... in the frame of civil polity from town government to county government. In the beginning the civil state in New England was framed after the model of the church.[138:1] It is in accordance with the common course of church history that when the people were transported from the midst of pure democracies to the midst of representative republics their church institutions should take on the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... very few peasants settled in it, holding title from ancient times; and one of these was Antanas Rudkus, who had been reared himself, and had reared his children in turn, upon half a dozen acres of cleared land in the midst of a wilderness. There had been one son besides Jurgis, and one sister. The former had been drafted into the army; that had been over ten years ago, but since that day nothing had ever been heard of him. The sister was married, and her husband had bought the place when old Antanas ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... In the midst of this, by what agency I know no more than science or a sheep does, something went off inside Christopher's head, like a pistol-shot. He gave a sort of scream, and dashed ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... grasped the idea of a God of all nations instead of one. Amos and Hosea had only caught glimpses of it. Before their time, even the greatest of the leaders of Israel had thought of Jehovah as for the most part the God of Israel only. But now in the midst of the terror of cruel armies and ruined cities and smoking fields, when no one knew what to believe or where to look for comfort and protection, this great Isaiah was able to realize that Jehovah, the God of righteousness and justice and love, was the God of ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... Porter, Hancock, Sedgwick, Sykes, and Averell. McClellan and Hancock are from Pennsylvania, Fitz-John Porter is from New Hampshire, Sedgwick from Connecticut, Sykes from Delaware, and Averell from New York. And away, away out yonder, in the midst of sage brush and Apaches, when any of us chance to meet around a camp-fire, there we sit, while coyotes are yelling off in the dark, there we sit and tell stories of home, of Virginia and Pennsylvania, of Georgia and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... which you have given to the Fudges you will receive from them; and in the firm expectation, that when London shall be an habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey shall stand shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Westminster Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream; some transatlantic ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... to set off for Chichester, and trust to chance either to favour or frustrate his designs. Arriving at the verge of the town, he dismounted, and sending the servant forward with the horses, proceeded toward the place, where, in the midst of an extensive pleasure ground, stood the mansion which contained the lovely Charlotte Temple. Montraville leaned on a broken gate, and looked earnestly at the house. The wall which surrounded it was high, and perhaps the Argus's who guarded the Hesperian ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... the most adorable of wives, the most interesting of companions. Her defects as a housekeeper, which Aunt Beatrice noted in silence but with surprise, were nothing to him. He could not help pausing sometimes even in the midst of his work, to wonder at his own good fortune and to reflect that whatever the future might have in store, he would have no right to complain, since it had been given to him to know the taste ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... Dominicans may appear in a somewhat unfamiliar guise as torch-bearers of freedom in the vanguard of Spanish colonial expansion in America, but such was the fact. History has made but scant and infrequent mention of these first obscure heroes, who faced obloquy and even risked starvation in the midst of irate colonists, whose avarice and brutality they fearlessly rebuked in the name of religion and humanity: they sank, after lives of self-immolation, into nameless graves, sometimes falling victims ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat the illustrious ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the way there! room for the governor!"—a rush of many feet up the stairs—more, cheering—the door is thrown open, and a party of from fifteen to twenty undergraduates come pouring in, with Mr. Frampton in the midst of them, carried in triumph on the shoulders of Lawless and another man, and waving a list in one hand, and the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... best clothes and went to church with the others. The service over, the squire and his wife came out first and were standing in the path exchanging greetings with their friends; then as the others came out with Martha in the midst of the crowd the lady turned and fixed her eyes on her, and suddenly stepping out from the group she stopped Martha and said, "Who are you?—I don't ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... religion. The adherents of mid-Victorian science and philosophy were bewildered by the phenomenon of 'men in the nineteenth century actually expressing a belief in a divine society and a supernatural presence in our midst, a brotherhood in which men become members of an organic whole by sharing in a common life, a service of man which is the natural and spontaneous outcome of the service of God.'[90] In the view of this learned and acute thinker, Catholicism, or institutionalism, is destined to supplant Protestantism, ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... figure with its swishing black skirts and its flying points of rich India shawl, and he smiled happily and tenderly. That evening at the inn his caller, a young fellow just married and beaming with happiness, saw an answering beam in the older man's face. He broke off in the midst of a sentence and ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... In the midst of the ensuing recital, Cass was announced; and Ketchim, after detailing to him the previous conversation, launched into the project which had been developing in his own mind while Reed had been describing his experiences in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to kiss him as it had been taught by Marian. Never was mother prouder, happier than Katy during the first few days succeeding baby's arrival, while the family seemed to tread on air, so swiftly the time went by with that active little life in their midst, stirring them up so constantly, putting to rout all their rules of order and keeping their house in a ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... on the train, the conductor sought me out. In the midst of the discussion he drew out a roll of bills. He told me that in those mountain towns many of the ranchers did not buy their ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... subject for one of his Liber Studiorum engravings. Here the subjects were entirely after my feeling, and, as my eyes had ceased to trouble me, I set to work on a large drawing of the town and fall from below. In the midst of it the snapping behind my eyes came back, worse than ever, and that time not to leave me for a long time. It was followed by an incessant headache, which made life a burden, with obstinate indigestion. Here Ruskin suddenly found that he must go back to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the First Consul entered without being announced. He was dressed in a very plain uniform, with a tricolored silk scarf, with fringes of the same around his waist. He wore close-fitting pantaloons of white cassimere, and top-boots, and held his hat in his hand. This plain dress, in the midst of the embroidered coats loaded with cordons and orders worn by the ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, presented a contrast as striking as the toilette of Madame Bonaparte compared with that of the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the plantation was left barren. Day after day I could run down to the gate and see down the road troops and troops of Garrison's Brigade, and in the midst of them gangs and gangs of negro slaves who joined with the soldiers, shouting, dancing and clapping their hands. The war was ended, and from Mobile Bay to Clayton, Ala., all along the road, on all the plantations, ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... has step by step led me on, and He has not broken the bruised reed. His gentleness towards me has been great indeed, very great. (Brethren, let us follow God, in dealing gently with each other!) He has borne with my coldness, half-heartedness, and backsliding. In the midst of it all, He has treated me as His child. How can I sufficiently praise Him for this long-suffering? (Brethren, let us imitate our Father, let us bear long, and suffer long with each other!) He has been always ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... the song, and the doctor, who was filled with disgust and astonishment, opened the door. He absolutely recoiled at the scene presented to his gaze. In the midst of a large room, the sides of which were crowded with coffins, piled to the very ceiling, sat about a dozen personages, with pipes in their mouths, and flasks and glasses before them. Their seats were coffins, and their table was a coffin set upon a bier. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... In the midst of the stupor of astonishment, she advanced straight toward Georgia Conway, twined her arm in that of the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... flashed in her eyes. 'Do I need to be told, to know? Ah, Greif, if you felt what I feel—here—' she pressed her hand to her side, 'you would understand that I need no telling, nor ever shall. You are there, dear, there in the midst of my heart, more really even than you ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... to believe that she is not the author of the stanzas in question. According to the best of our recollection, this poem was dashed off in the wine-room of the Gault House, at Louisville, Ky., by Colonel John A. Joyce, from ten to twenty years ago. Joyce was in the midst of a party of convivial friends. After several cases of champagne had been tossed down, a member of the party said to Colonel Joyce, "Come, old fellow, give us an extempore poem." As Colonel Joyce had ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... bad an account of her and my father's method in burying of our gold, that made me mad: and she herself is not pleased with it, she believing that my sister knows of it. My father and she did it on Sunday, when they were gone to church, in open daylight, in the midst of the garden; where, for aught they knew, many eyes might see them: which put me into trouble, and presently cast about how to have it back again to secure it here, the times ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... be sitting quietly, any evening after dark, in the house of her father, the parish clerk, which stood in the middle of Stickleford village street, this being the highroad between Lower Mellstock and Moreford, five miles eastward. Here, without a moment's warning, and in the midst of a general conversation between her father, sister, and the young man before alluded to, who devotedly wooed her in ignorance of her infatuation, she would start from her seat in the chimney-corner as if she had received a galvanic shock, and spring convulsively towards the ceiling; then she ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Caiaphas and their spiritual kindred ministered at the altar, but there were some in whose hearts the ancient fire burned. In times of religious declension, the few who still are true are mostly in obscure corners, and live quiet lives, like springs of fresh water rising in the midst of a salt ocean. John thus sprang from parents in whom the old system had done all that it could do. In his origin, as in himself, he represented the consummate flower of Judaism, and discharged its highest office in pointing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... "It was me." The result was that he was soon in the midst of the interesting conversation that he had been trying ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... silence, when the barking of a small dog, within a few feet, apprised them of a new danger. The almost simultaneous click of the scouts' rifles was heard by the girl, who rapidly approached them, and stated that they were now in the midst of the Indian wigwams, and their lives depended on the most profound silence, and implicitly following her footsteps. A moment afterwards, the girl was accosted by a squaw, from an opening in the wigwam. She ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the peace, the poetry, the suggestive charm of that silent, lonely, radiant land took hold upon me with compelling power. Here in the midst of busy, commonplace America it lay, a section of the Polished Stone Age, retaining the most distinctive customs, songs and dances of the past. Here was a people going about its immemorial pursuits, undisturbed by the railway and the telephone. Its shepherds, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... so often and so boldly made that Infidelity produces crime, and that Christianity, or belief, or faith, makes people good, that the following statistics usually produce a rather chilly sensation in the believer when presented in the midst of an argument based upon the above mentioned claim. I have used it with effect. The person upon whom it is used will never offer that argument to you again. The following statistics were taken from the British Parliamentary ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... "Servants are even more cowardly than they are curious. They would be too frightened to congregate at the foot of the staircase, for fear the murderer might come leaping downstairs and discharge another shot in their midst. It is possible, however, that the murderer remained hidden upstairs for some time longer—perhaps until the butler left the house to go to the village for the police, and Musard took all the male guests downstairs to make another search of the house. He would then have an exceedingly ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... have made him notorious for life. He looked round upon me slowly when he had ceased to speak, and I saw that his dark eyes were burning with triumphant fire. He sat down, and for a moment there was a dead hush in the crowded place, and then a buzz of excited speech, and then a clamour. In the midst of it an officer placed a chair before the judge, immediately between the judicial seat and the railed space in which I stood. If I had been amazed at the speech of the young advocate, you may guess how I felt when Arthur Clyde came forward and took the seat. His eyes met mine once, ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... receded despairingly, seeing the utter impracticability of such a move. Then he had spent the evening quarrelling irritably with Dot, and returned to camp morose and angry with the world. There had been a disagreeable scene, in the midst of which he had precipitately departed. What was to be done with her did not seem to concern him vitally at present—he was completely absorbed in the disheartening silence of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul."[581] The Church of God, yea, many nations, are commanded to rejoice, performing this service. "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee: and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee."[582] On a solemn occasion, all Judah rejoiced at the oath which they ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... the carry, in the midst of a clearing of sixty acres or more, there was a log camp of the usual construction, with something more like a house adjoining, for the accommodation of the carryman's family and passing lumberers. The bed of withered fir-twigs smelled very sweet, though really very dirty. There was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... growing worse, he became excessively weak, rambled in his discourse, and grew delirious, had cold, clammy sweats, short cough, and a deep way of fetching his breath; and he observed upon these occasions that an ulcerous matter issued from his fundament. In the midst of all this, whenever he recovered his senses he said he was better, and seemed quite serene, and told him he thought himself like a man bit by a mad dog. "I should be glad to drink, but I can't swallow." About noon his speech faltered more than before; he grew ghastly, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... who always watched over him with a most reverent worship and affection, made a discovery. The Judge was breaking; that brave life was beginning to sink and totter toward its fall and dissolution. There were moments when the cheerfulness, which had never failed him in the midst of trial, failed him now when there was none; when the ancient springs of strength ceased to run and he was discovered to be feeble. Sometimes he no longer read his morning newspaper; he would sit for long periods in the front door of his office, looking out into the street and caring ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... months later, she was hurrying as a fugitive on board an English yacht on her way into exile, having passed through anxieties and griefs that had streaked her hair with gray. Even in the midst of her personal triumphs in the East, there were clouds on the horizon of her life which she could see darkening and increasing. A few days before the fetes of the opening of the canal, she writes to her husband, who, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... my life I have often observed that the happiest hours are often the heralds of misfortune. The very next day my evil genius took me to the Ville de Lyon. This was the inn where Piccolomini and his wife were staying, and I found them there in the midst of a horde of cheats and sharpers, like themselves. As soon as the good people heard my name they rushed forward, some to greet me, and others to have a closer look at me, as if I were some strange wild beast. Amongst those present were a Chevalier ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... watercourse. Soon they passed around the Bend, and then came within sight of a scene which almost appalled them. A mass of wreckage consisting of a small tree and a quantity of newly cut timber had come down the stream and become caught among the jagged rocks above the Bend, and in the midst of this wreckage, with the water rushing and foaming all around them, were a man and a boy, struggling wildly ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... a little more constantly, the extent of his knowledge of us, and the extent to which his position as a visitor should qualify his bearing towards us. I address this hint particularly to those who make copy out of their wanderings in our midst; and I believe it has only to be suggested, and it will be at once recognised for true, that the proper attitude for a visitor in a strange land is one of modesty. He may be a person of quite considerable ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wholesale.... Peel does all he can to make his friends behave like gentlemen. But the nightly vulgarities of the House of Commons furnish new reasons for Reform, and not a ray of talent glimmers among them all. Double-distilled stupidity!'[6] In the midst of it all Russell fell ill, worn out with fatigue and excitement, and as the summer slipped past the people became alarmed and indignant at the dead-lock, and in various parts of the kingdom the attitude of ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... called him Prophet, you say? Why, he stood there face to face with them; bare, not enshrined in any mystery; visibly clouting his own cloak, cobbling his own shoes; fighting, counselling, ordering in the midst of them: they must have seen what kind of a man he was, let him be called what you like! No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting. During three-and-twenty years of rough actual trial. I find something of a veritable ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the houses were not high, and they found themselves in the midst of a group of refugees like themselves—mothers sobbing over their babes, men caring for sick and fainting wives, and children standing by feeble and aged parents. Family servants crouched on the pavement beside their employers, and continually gave utterance ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... winds of March, with whirling snow, One brightening hour an April breeze would blow; Now hail, now hoar-frost bent the flow'ret's head, Now struggling beams their languid influence shed, That scarce a cowering bird yet dared to sing 'Midst the wild changes of our island spring. Yet, shall the Italian goatherd boasting cry, "Poor Albion! when hadst thou so clear a sky!" And deem that nature smiles for him alone; Her renovated beauties all his own? No:—let our April showers by night descend, Noon's genial warmth ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... possession to be worth preservation, but that it is positively mischievous, since it involves the lack of necessary knowledge. "It is little short of criminal," writes Dr. F.M. Goodchild,[21] "to send our young people into the midst of the excitements and temptations of a great city with no more preparation than if they were going to live in Paradise." In the case of women, ignorance has the further disadvantage that it deprives them of the knowledge ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... calm, sweet June evening! quiet country farms, and homes lay all about us. The whole scene spoke of peace. It was such a restful change to us from the din and smoke and crowd we had been in the midst of so long. We gave ourselves up to the influences of the hour, and a very pleasant evening we cannoneers had strolling along, in front of the column of guns, ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... obviously sincere, so free from any jarring note of affectation or unctuous sentiment that it attracts rather than repels. If I might venture upon a paradox, his personal references are instances of self-oblivion in the midst of self-consciousness. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle, into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay him for the room and leave the hotel. "It's the best minute; I couldn't ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in the midst of his employees, Hadgi-Stavros moved only the ends of his fingers and his lips; the lips to dictate his correspondence, the fingers to count the beads in his chaplet. It was one of those beautiful chaplets of milky amber which do not serve to number prayers, but to amuse the solemn idleness ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... In the midst of the tumult of her life one day, very soon after the lunch at Sherry's, she begged Susan Fleet to come to see her. That day Claude and she had been with Gillier at the theater. As they had ignored Mrs. Shiffney's treachery in the affair of the libretto, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... and picked up pebbles; and the sea came up to her feet, just as the air comes up here, and you can't get any farther,"—said Frank, walking to the very edge and putting one foot out over, while the wind blew in her face up the long opening between rows of brick houses of which theirs was in the midst upon one side. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... others had leaped on Mount. Swearing, threatening, roaring with rage, the desperate giant shook them off into our midst, and cut the throat of one as he lay sprawling—a sickening spectacle, for the poor wretch floundered and thrashed about among the leaves and sticks, squirting ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... a wearisome ride of several hours, we descended suddenly into the most fertile and luxuriant valley I ever beheld, and which seemed to extend a distance of some miles. A mountain brook flowed down the midst, on the banks of which numerous scattered and picturesque cottages appeared. On either side the ground was covered with the green carpet of Nature in the spring of the year. Everywhere, except in this smiling valley, we saw nothing but the aridity of summer, and the desolation caused by ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... on the other hand, am a regular church-goer. I should go for various reasons if I did not love it; but I am happy enough to find great pleasure in the midst of devout multitudes, whether I can accept all their creeds or not. One place of worship comes nearer than the rest to my ideal standard, and to this it was that I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... word, never looked behind him, while she, almost tumbling down his back as she cursed with outstretched arms, deafened him with her raging. He walked steadily down the path to the road, where he stepped into the midst of her goods and chattels. The sight of them diverted a little the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... hot Paste, for minced Pyes, or such like, by taking a quantity of Flour as you like, and break a Pound or two of Butter into a large Sauce-pan of Water; and when the Butter is melted, make an hollow in the midst of the Flour, and scumming off the Butter, throw it, at times, into the Flour, with some of the boiling hot Water along with it; then, when you have enough for your use, work it into a stiff Paste, and lay it before the Fire, cover'd with a Cloth, and cut ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... a critic of rare insight. Accordingly, although he says nothing new in his discussion of the purport and content of the play, he makes the old story live anew. He images Shakespeare in the midst of his materials—how he found them, how he gave them life and being. The section on Shakespeare's language is not so solid and scientific as Wiesener's, but his discussion of Shakespeare's versification is both longer and more valuable than Wiesener's ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... shadow Herodias leaned. At a signal from her the musicians attacked the prelude of a Syrian dance, and in the midst of the assemblage a figure veiled from head to foot suddenly appeared. For a moment it stood very still; then the veil fell of itself, and from the ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... new-discover'd joy, and lends To feeling change that never ends; And duties which the many irk, Are made all wages and no work. How sing of such things save to her, Love's self, so love's interpreter? How the supreme rewards confess Which crown the austere voluptuousness Of heart, that earns, in midst of wealth, The appetite of want and health, Relinquishes the pomp of life And beauty to the pleasant Wife At home, and does all joy despise As out of place but in her eyes? How praise the years and gravity That make ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the background in this story, but whom we must never forget, sits in the midst of South House like some omniscient and benevolent providence, decided that something must be done to stop these mischievous wagging tongues, so she summoned ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... action. And yet," he continued, placing his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat, and drawing out a blue official paper, "this may convince you of your folly; at least, it may convince you of the fact that there is a traitor and informer in your midst. Who he is I leave yourselves ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... human nature, as represented by holiday crowds flocking out of the town into the woods and adjacent villages at Eastertide. Those who know Germany well will feel the art with which Goethe at once transports us into the midst of a Germanic Feiertag in spring-time, with its bright sunlight, its throngs of townspeople streaming into the country—happy and merry without vulgar rowdyism; the smugly dressed apprentice and the servant-girl in her Sonntagsputz; the pert student and the ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... as the Greeks did in a city festival which was older than the Homeric gods among them, and which symbolized, in classical times, the days when they had literally stoned a man and a woman from their midst, bound, and with chaplets of flowers on their heads and necklaces of black figs around their necks. It is recorded, among the South Sea Islands, that a traveller once witnessed such a sacrifice as this memorized in the classic Greek festival. Then, by a queer but common inversion ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... strawberries which Fluff had piled on his plate, and conveyed them to his lips. Fluff flew out of the room for her guitar, and when she returned she began to sing a gay Italian air in a very sprightly and effective manner. In the midst of her song the squire broke in with a ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... vision of the future is moulded by his knowledge of the past. Israel and Jerusalem were to him the embodiments of the divine idea of God's dwelling with men, and of a society founded on the presence of God in its midst. We are not forcing meanings on his words which they will not bear, when we see in the society of men redeemed by Christ the perfect embodiment of his vision. Nor is the prophet of the New Testament doing so when he casts his vision of the future which is to follow Resurrection ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... sunrise till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage-coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft of maples, with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh bubbling spring, that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a striped ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... convalescence, for the stronger Jehan grew, the weaker Bertha became, and so weak that she allowed herself to drift into that Paradise the gates of which Jehan had opened for her. To be brief, she loved him more and more. But in the midst of her happiness, always mingled with apprehension at the menacing words of Fallotte, and tormented by her great religion, she was in great fear of her husband, Imbert, to whom she was compelled to write that he had given her a child, who would be ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... cheap, heavily ruled, glazed paper that is sold alongside plug tobacco and pearl buttons and safety pins in the Indian traders' stores. Staring from under her straight brows at that folded letter, Annie-Many-Ponies had a swift, clear vision of the little store set down in the midst of barrenness and dust, and of the squaws sitting wrapped in bright shawls upon the platform while their lords gravely purchased small luxuries within. As a slim, barefooted papoose, proud of her shapeless red calico slip buttoned unevenly up the back with huge ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... Ottawa man found it impossible to refrain from hurling taunts at them and inviting them to battle. They had gone not more than two blocks when there was a rush from behind, and before they could defend themselves they were each in the midst of a crowd, fighting for their lives. The principal attack was, of course, made upon the Ottawa man, but the crowd was quite determined to prevent the lieutenant and Harry from getting near him. In vain they struggled to break through the yelling mass of Gatineaus, who now had become ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... acquire feminine obligations as rough cheviot does lint and Henrietta is one of Polk's when it comes to the fishing days. He takes her so often that she thinks she owns him and all the trout in Little Harpeth, and she landed in the midst of the picnic with ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... In the midst of progress comes reaction. The far northern European country of Finland had for a century been progressing in advance of its neighbors. It was a true democracy. It had even established, first of European lands, the full suffrage for women; and numerous women sat in its parliament. But Finland ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... amongst the silent woods, which stretched away for miles on either hand. Sometimes he would come upon an open space, whence he could look down upon the broader valley beneath, with its quiet river flowing through the midst, reflecting white villages, forges, long rows of poplars, an occasional bridge, and here and there a long low island; or descending, he would find himself in some narrow ravine, cleft between grey rocky heights ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... day of our visit, we all drove three or four leagues across the country, to see an old ruin of a royal castle called Vivier. This name implies a pond, and sure enough we found the remains of the buildings in the midst of two or three pools of water. This has been a considerable house, the ruins being still quite extensive and rather pretty. It was originally the property of a great noble, but the kings of France were in possession of it, as early as the year 1300. Charles V. had a great affection for ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... his portrait still remains.] The house full of Parliament- men, it being holyday with them: and it was observable how a gentleman of good habit sitting just before us, eating of some fruit in the midst of the play, did drop down as dead, being choked; but with much ado Orange Mall did thrust her finger down his throat, and brought ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... foot of the garden-steps, indulging in lamentations in the midst of the other servants ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... said—"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them;" [488:4] and, true to His promises, He is really present with His people in every act of devotion. Even when they draw near to Him in secret, or when they read His word, or when they meditate on His mercy, as well as when they ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Rosicrucian Sanctuary, having an open sepulchre, from which blue flames continually emanated; there was a platform in the midst of the temple designed for the accommodation of more Indian Vestals, one of whom it was proposed should evaporate into thin air, after which a Fakir would be transformed before the whole company into a living mummy and be interred for a space of three years. ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... Meriem, the savage little Mangani, out of her beloved jungle into the midst of a home of culture and refinement. Already "Bwana" and "My Dear," as she first heard them called and continued to call them, were as father and mother to her. Once her savage fears allayed, she went to the opposite extreme of trustfulness ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a solemn light such thoughts as that throw on the low attainments of our average Christianity! So many of us, like Gideon's fleece, dry in the midst of the dew that comes down from heaven! So many of us in the midst of the blessed sunshine of His grace, standing like deep gorges on a mountain in cold shadow! How much you have lying at hand; how little of it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... a number of people flocked together, but were quiet enough, save one fellow who, salv veni, mocked at us with unseemly gestures in the midst of the road when he saw us coming. The constable had to jump down again, but could not catch him, and the others would not give him up, but pretended that they had only looked at our coach and had not marked him. May be this was ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... secure, for he knew God protected him; and Tully makes it an argument of Roscius Amerinus' innocency, that he killed not his father, because he so securely slept. Those martyrs in the primitive church were most [6741]cheerful and merry in the midst of their persecutions; but it is far otherwise with these men, tossed in a sea, and that continually without rest or intermission, they can think of nought that is pleasant, [6742]"their conscience will not let them ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... make men humble, and feel their personal ill-desert and need of mercy, had become self-satisfied and self-righteous. A religion designed to prompt the utterance of the greatest of its prophets: "Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips," now prompted the utterance of the Pharisee: "I thank Thee that I am ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... evenings in guiding strangers to the trolley lines. But a person naturally expects to lose his bearings on Staten Island. On the other hand, to be lost in Brooklyn irritates as well as confuses. It is like starving in the midst of plenty. One always has the choice of half a dozen surface cars, but one is always sure to be directed to the ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... sculptures. On either side there were beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy by the hundred, and a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularly comfortable appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards and gardens, and gave me an impression of ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the Emperor's bedchamber were hung in black in token of his deep mourning for his mother, but many pictures from the brush of Titian were hung in that apartment. As Charles lay in bed he could see the famous "Gloria," which represented the emperor and empress of a bygone age in the midst of a throng of angels. He could also join in the chants of the monks without rising, if he were suffering from gout, for a window opened directly from his room into the chapel of the monastery. Sixty ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... passage is taken from Deut. xviii. 15, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly, saying. Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see his great fire ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... railroads, as they fought in the dark ages, for the same ends—for sensual pleasures, gross love of power, barbaric show. They would fight on, glorifying their petty deeds of personal gain; but not always. The mystery of human defeat in the midst of success would be borne in upon them. The barbarians of trade would give way, as had the barbarians of feudal war. This heaving, moaning city, blessedly quiet tonight, would learn its lesson of futility. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... these young girls, sitting or standing, in the midst of their color-boxes, playing with their brushes or preparing them, handling their dazzling palettes, painting, laughing, talking, singing, absolutely natural, and exhibiting their real selves, composed a spectacle unknown to man. One of them, proud, haughty, capricious, with black hair and ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... soon, for, as the press of the fugitives was brushed aside by our advance, mingling in the midst of the disorderly mass, came the red line of the British, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... a prize, and, (2) the Space Vikings had captured Prince Bentrik and were holding him for ransom. Beyond that, the Government was trying to sit on the whole story, and the Opposition was hinting darkly at corrupt deals and sinister plots. Prince Bentrik arrived in the midst of an impassioned tirade against pusillanimous traitors surrounding his Majesty who were betraying Marduk ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... had not been the teachers and scholars of Europe during the five preceding centuries for nothing, and though Walton was but a sailor, he shared the quick-wittedness of his race. He had heard somewhere that people often starved in the midst of plenty, and he started exploring for food on his own account. The village was built near a wide stretch of mud, which was covered by the sea at high tide, but dry when the water went down, and he noticed that numbers of land- and sea-birds were in the habit of ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... continues to live with her venerated traditions and her holy principles, not permitting outsiders devoid of religion and patriotism to disturb her existence, not spotting the most holy rights of the Church, our mother; enveloped in dust, in dirt, and in filth, asleep in the sun, in the midst of her ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... cried a voice behind me, in the midst of this operation, identically the same voice, too, as that still going on in the room in front of me. "What the dickens are you trying ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... at casting a humming-top into the midst of others on the ground, and if well aimed it scatters them prettily. I seemed to be playing such a game with my thoughts, for each new one sent the others here and there, and so what could I do in the end but fling my tops aside, and return to the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... squadrons burning for the fight Thine be no boasting when the victor's crown Wins thee deserved renown; Thine no dejected sorrow, when defeat Would urge a base retreat; Rejoice in joyous things—nor overmuch Let grief thy bosom touch 'Midst evil, and still bear in mind How changeful ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... asked what madame wanted for the evening, and Adelaide in her fluent French began explaining that what she really desired most was that Lucie should not make so much noise in her room that monsieur could not sleep. In the midst of it she stopped and turned ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... convictions" an end may be made of the conflict.[151] It is usual that doubt be present in many men's minds when a grave decision is made by society. The constitution of the United States was adopted in the midst of a struggle of ideas, so violent that all agreement seemed to be precluded. The chances of agreement can rarely be certainly known until all possible grounds of ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... and seek it where it is weakest, is indeed no new phenomenon in its history. Frederick the Great prides himself more on his flute-playing than on his kingship; and it is not so very long ago that in our very midst a university professor called the happiest day of his life not that on which he discovered a new Greek particle, but that on which the crew of his university won the boat-race. And a mere chance tour on a Sunday through our churches would quickly show the lamentably frequent misapprehension ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... step or two forward, and found himself in the midst of a small crowd who were admiring the antics of a very small and grotesque performer. A little boy with reddish hair and blackened face was turning somersaults with wonderful rapidity in the centre of the pathway. Another boy, cap in hand, stood by ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... heard, close to my ear, a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment: it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it—hoarse and guttural, and indistinct with passion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself over the balustrade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd. They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood; but—so great was the terror of Mohun's name—all recoiled when they saw him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That momentary ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... portent-breathing shore. For all our ship, thou see'st, is weak and sore Shaken with storms, and no more lighteneth Her head above the waves whose trough is death. She wasteth in the fruitless buds of earth, In parched herds and travail without birth Of dying women: yea, and midst of it A burning and a loathly god hath lit Sudden, and sweeps our land, this Plague of power; Till Cadmus' house grows empty, hour by hour, And Hell's house rich with steam of tears and blood. O King, not God indeed nor peer to God We deem thee, that we kneel ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... that we despise not one of these little ones, lest we despise our Lord Himself. For as often as we enter into communion with little children, so often does Christ come to us. So often, as in Judaea of old, does He take a little child and set him in the midst of us, that from its simplicity, docility, and trust—the restless, the mutinous, and the ambitious may learn the things which belong to their peace—so often does He say to us, "Except ye be changed and become as this little child, ye shall in no wise enter into ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... description of a great religious revival in Calaveras, in which the sheriff of the county—a notoriously profane sceptic—was alleged to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the withdrawal of the county advertising from the paper. In the midst of this practical confusion he suddenly died. It was then discovered, as a crowning proof of his absurdity, that he had left a will, bequeathing his entire effects to a freckle-faced maid-servant at the Rockville Hotel. But that absurdity became serious when it was also discovered ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... with the breath of the upper snows, and the man's blood cried out for a fire (June stands close to winter in the high ranges of the Crestones), and at last he rose stiffly and returned to the little sitting-room, where he found the widow in the midst of an argument with her boarders to prove that they were all fools together for hangin' to the side of a mountain that had no more gould in it than a flatiron or a loomp o' ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... pleased to discover that my efforts had not been wasted. She had been thinking, and she had even found time, in the midst of her distractions, to read part of a book. In the course of our talks I had mentioned Veblen, and she had been reading snatches of his work on the Leisure Class, and I was surprised, and not a little amused, to observe her reaction ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... was a rocky, swampy piece of land, well grown with berry-bushes, in the midst of the large isle of Nauset, that lay outside of the smaller Pochet Island and outside Stage or Nauset Harbor, the harbor of Eastham. Now, Slut's Bush ledge and Nauset Island are far out from the present shore and under deep water. On this mostly sandy coast wind and wave have ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... glowing July afternoon, the room, with blinds carefully closed, was full of a great calm. From the three windows, through the cracks of the old wooden shutters, came only a few scattered sunbeams which, in the midst of the obscurity, made a soft brightness that bathed surrounding objects in a diffused and tender light. It was cool here in comparison with the overpowering heat that was felt outside, under the fierce rays of the sun that blazed upon the front ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... "Now to the left there; gently here, for we must be in the midst of their lines. Ha! I knew we ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... recent, so that millions of individuals to-day, even in the midst of great educational systems, remain entirely unlettered. Nevertheless, the persistent effort on the part of people everywhere to have good schools, with the best methods of instruction, certainly must have its effect in bringing the masses of ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... abyss. If thou so far descendest, thou mayst see them. But to the pleasant world when thou return'st, Of me make mention, I entreat thee, there. No more I tell thee, answer thee no more." This said, his fixed eyes he turn'd askance, A little ey'd me, then bent down his head, And 'midst his blind companions with it fell. When thus my guide: "No more his bed he leaves, Ere the last angel-trumpet blow. The Power Adverse to these shall then in glory come, Each one forthwith to his sad tomb repair, Resume his fleshly vesture and his form, And hear the eternal doom ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... confluence, {173d} in front of the fence, {173e} After leading his men in close array, In front of a hundred he pierces the foremost. {173f} Sad it was that you should have made a pool of blood, As if you but drank mead in the midst of laughter; {174a} But it was brave of you to slay the little man, {174b} With the fierce and impetuous stroke of the sword; For like the unrestrained ocean {174c} had the foe {174d} put to death A man, who would otherwise have been in rank ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... African expedition, [7] was unanimously proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife, the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of Achilles. [8] By the conspiracy of the malecontents, Zeno was recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person, of Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to the long agony ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... happy in his illustrations, and make the most of some passing incident. One afternoon, when he was replaying to a somewhat heated opponent, a sudden squall came up and rattled the window curtain so as to produce a considerable noise. The orator stopped short in the midst of his remarks and inquired aloud, what was the matter; and then, as if divining the cause of the disturbance, he said: "Storms seem to be coming in upon us from all sides." The observation, though trivial as related, was highly amusing under the circumstances which gave ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Lydia's sense of humor was so tickled at the grotesque contrast between Marietta's injured conception of the brilliant social event from which she had been excluded and the leaden fiasco which it had really been, that even at the time, in the midst of denying hotly her sister's charges of snobbishness and social ambition, she was unable to keep back a shaky laugh or two as she cried out: "Oh, Etta! If you could know how things went, you'd be too thankful to have escaped it. It was awful ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... midst of all the confusion occasioned by another removal; surrounded by trunks and boxes and cargadores, and at the same time by our friends (all those who have not taken flight yet) taking ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... than the other. The gallery was very narrow, like the one within, and it led through a perfect maze of columns, pinnacles, arches, turrets, flying buttresses, and other constructions pertaining to the exterior architecture of the church. It was like walking on a mountain in the midst of a forest of stone. The analogy was increased by the monstrous forms of bears, lions, tigers, boars, and other wild and ferocious beasts, which projected from the eaves every where to convey the water that came down from rains, out to a distance from the walls ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... passing reference to the English Bible. So it comes about that when Dickens is describing the injustice of the Murdstones to little David Copperfield, he can put the whole matter before us in a parenthesis: "Though there was One once who set a child in the midst of the disciples." Dickens knew that his readers would at once catch the meaning of that reference, and would feel the contrast between the scene he was describing and that simple scene. Take any of the great books of literature and black out the phrases which ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... slain in the midst of the flock, Purchased peace at the price of his blood. O joyous grief, in mournful gladness! The flock breathes when the shepherd is dead; The mother wailing, sings for joy in her son, Because he lives under the sword a conqueror. ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... first time that Ranald had heard her voice in prayer, but somehow it sounded different in the open air under the trees and in the midst of all the jollity of the sugaring-off. With all other people that Ranald knew religion seemed to be something apart from common days, common people, and common things, and seemed, besides, a solemn and terrible experience; ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Two Spanish words, which, according to a Latin form, denote a forest of palm-trees, palmetum, and of pines, pinetum.) we find solitary palm-trees and pines. They are somewhat like colonists that have advanced in the midst of a country ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt |
