"Pit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in order that they might not hear his voice for ten years? and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile; and they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis. And yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these things would never have happened to them. For the good charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... these families of higher plants, over two hundred in number, is one known as the rose family. Notwithstanding their close relationship, the modes of seed dispersion are varied. The seeds of plums and cherries and hawthorns are surrounded by a hard pit, or stone, which protects the seeds, while animals eat the fleshy portion of the fruit. When ripe, raspberries leave the dry receptacle and look like miniature thimbles, while the blackberry is fleshy ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... coach! I wish it had tumbled down the 'Devil's Descent' into the bottomless pit!" exclaimed the frantic host, seizing his gray locks with both hands, and running away from before the face of his tormentor—and jumping from the frying-pan into the fire, when he came full upon his daughter Bessie, who stopped ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... hither to this place:— A barren detested vale you see it is: The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe: Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds, Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven:— And when they show'd me this abhorred pit, They told me, here, at dead time of the night, A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins, Would make such fearful and confused cries As any mortal body hearing it Should straight fall mad or else die ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... told them what their work should be. He has bidden them visit the sick and comfort the sorrowing. What if there be danger in the work? Did He shrink from the Cross which was to end His work of love, and is it for His followers to do so? 'Though you go down into the pit,' He has said, 'I am there also'; and with His companionship one must be craven indeed to tremble. This is a noble opportunity for holding high the banner of Christ. There is work to be done for all, and as the ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... divil be wanting of me?" cried Betty, tartly. "And isn't there divils enough in the corps already, without one's coming from the bottomless pit to frighten a ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of salt is spread, then a layer of pilchards, and so on—layers of pilchards and salt alternating until a vast mound is raised. Below the slabs are gutters which convey the brine and oil oozing out of the fish into a large pit in the centre of the court. Upwards of three hundredweight of salt are used for each hogshead. After the pilchards have remained about a month, they are cleansed from the salt, and packed in hogsheads, each of which contains ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... of youth, wholly innocent, yet turning his footsteps to the great desert to get away from the scorn of lovers and friends, and when we realize that this which he dreads must continue to the last hour of his life, there is to my mind a ghastliness about it as if it were seen in the light of the pit which is bottomless. I have not recovered, and can never recover, from that experience. You will infer, however, that I did not remain in just the condition of mind which I have endeavored to describe. He whom I had blasphemed came to me, and I was penitent. The teachings of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... paper and turned to my landlady's library. It consisted of Derham's "Physico- and Astro-Theology," "The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," by one Taylor, D.D., "The Ready Reckoner or Tradesman's Sure Guide," and "The Path to the Pit delineated, with Twelve Engravings on Copper-plate." For distraction I fell to pacing the room, and rehearsing those remembered tags of Latin verse concerning which M. de Culemberg had long ago assured me, "My son, we know ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fathers have met at that wretched pit, and the foreman has told me what passed between them. My father complained that mining for coal was not husbandry, and it was very unfair to do it, and to smoke him out of house and home. (Unfortunately the wind was west, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... to stern - A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce - As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once: A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoyed the merry fit, With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like Demons of the Pit. They crowed their fill, and then the Chief made answer for the whole:- "Our skins," said he, "are black, ye see, because we carry coal; You'll find your mother sure enough, and see your native fields - For this here ship has picked you ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... along the canyon's wall, rode into another pit of darkness, came out into a sandy stretch that seemed hazily familiar to Bud. They crossed this, dove into the bushes following a dim trail, and in ten minutes Eddie's horse backed suddenly against Sunfish's nose. ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... gold-haired mistress white and drawn, saw her witless shaking, saw her tear and rend herself, heard her jerked words of loathing, blasphemy, and obscene defiance—and fairly fled the house. "For," as she said, "if words of man or woman could bring the rafters about our ears, or open a pit to send us lightly whither we all must go who have heard them, those words which Madam Olimpia spat about her must surely do it." So much she confessed to afterwards, but no more; ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there was but one cloud; and two artisans worked it up with its supernatural freight, and worked it down with a winch, in full sight of the audience. These disposed of, the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the stage; the carpenters and Virtues shoved the Vices in, and the Virtues and Beelzebub and his tormentor danced merrily round the place of eternal torture to the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... felt a momentary queer sensation near the pit of his stomach. If the circulation dropped, his income followed it. But could ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... details of domestic life. The tone of these pictures was glad and gay; and, what is remarkable, they had no trace of the funeral ritual or the god Osiris. These were not like tombs, but rather like homes. To secure the body from all profanation, it was concealed in a pit, carefully hidden in the solid masonry. These tombs belong to ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... engine-shed, or "stable." You may, perhaps, have noticed the round houses near the railway—say at York Road, Battersea—those are the engine-"stables." Every engine is placed in its "stall," so that its chimney is just under an opening, or flue. It is also over a "pit," so that the fire can be raked out, or the working examined from underneath before the engine goes into the station next day to take the train away to the seaside, or to carry you to school, or home for the holidays. The engine-driver or the fireman ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... or along the Pacific coast where things never freeze solid, worms may be kept outside in a shallow shaded pit (as long as the spot does not become flooded) or in a box in the garage or patio. In the North, worms are kept in a container that may be located anywhere with good ventilation and temperatures that stay above ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... drink no more, he rolled up his napkin into a ball, and became devoutly thankful. "How goot of Gott," he remarked, "when he invented the worlds to invent eatings and drinkings too! Ah!" sighed Herr Grosse, gently laying his outspread fingers on the pit of his stomach, "what immense happiness there is ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... march, 'twas White who gave him his last sup of water, and brought me his bit Bible. So I'd be fain to tend his daughter in her sickness, if you could spare me, my leddy, and I'd aye rin home to dress Missie Primrose and pit her to bed, and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence in a book, or a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the Pit. And this benefit is real, because we are entitled to these enlargements, and, once having passed the bounds, shall never again be quite ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... known now for three days that at four o'clock the roof would open and the drome would be turned into a blast-pit and the rocket would shoot out ...
— Zero Hour • Alexander Blade
... particular about carrying them. You might have been a great swell at home, where you would have shuddered if Bond Street had seen you carrying a parcel no larger than your card-case; but those considerations rarely troubled you here. Very likely, your servant was lying crouched in a rifle pit, having "pots" at the Russians, or keeping watch and ward in the long lines of trenches, or, stripped to his shirt, shovelling powder and shot into the great guns, whose steady roar broke the evening's calm. So if you did not wait upon yourself, you would stand ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... and the thoughts of practical men were turned thereby to the long-neglected possibilities of steam. Wind was extremely inconvenient for the purpose of pumping, because in these latitudes it is inconstant: it was costly, too, because at any time the labourers might be obliged to sit at the pit's mouth for weeks together, whistling for a gale or waiting for the water to be got under again. But steam had already been used for pumping upon one or two estates in England—rather as a toy than in earnest—before the ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... less than thirty seconds, and they had a large relux disc laid under the entire group and machines. Arcot turned a molecular ray down. The rock and soil shot up all about them, even the ship shot up, to fall back into the great pit its ray had formed. But the ionization told of the ray shield over the little group of men. A heat ray reached down, while the men still frantically worked at their stubby projectors. The relux disc now showed its purpose. In an instant the ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... addressing the chair, "it is not possible for the mind to coin, or the tongue to utter baser libels against an injured people. Their condition is as much superior to that of the slaves as the light of heaven is more cheering than the darkness of the pit. Many of their number are in the most affluent circumstances, and distinguished for their refinement, enterprise, and talents. They have flourishing churches, supplied by pastors of their own color, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... heartily? DAN. Doubtless, me thought that I was walking In a fair orchard, where were places two: The one was a hot bath, wholesome and pleasing To all people that did repair thereto, To wash them and clean them from sickness also; The other a pit of foul stinking water; Shortly they died, all that therein did enter. And unto this wholesome bath methought that ye In the right path were coming apace, But before that methought that I did see A foul, rough bitch—a prick-eared ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... feelings and resist them better. They do not master me so. You have seen the little birds when they are very young and just begin to fly, how all their feathers are ruffled when they are frightened or angry; they have no power over themselves left, and might fall into a pit from mere fright. You were like one of those little birds. Your sorrow and suffering had taken such hold of you, you hardly ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the vast obscure. A glory, a rose of fire, blooms in the pit of darkness. It is now a glowing mist with far-spread vans, a phoenix wrought ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... Giles's Churchyard were buried Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Shirley, Roger L'Estrange, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Pendrell, who assisted in Charles II.'s escape; his altar-tomb is easily seen near the east end of the church. By 1718 the graveyard had risen 8 feet, so that the church stood in a pit or well. The further burial-ground at St. Pancras was taken in 1805, and after that burials at St. Giles's were not very frequent. Pennant was one of the first to draw attention to the disgraceful overcrowding of the old graveyard. There seem to have been several ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... in some ways the most interesting of all. In this instance the accused was thrown into a pond or tank, which was technically described as the fossa or "pit." If he floated, he was adjudged guilty; if he sank, his innocence was regarded as divinely proved. It is sometimes stated "if he floated without any appearance of swimming," but swimming appears to have been precluded if it be true that his thumbs were tied to his toes, or he was ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... o'clock in the morning of the 27th of December, hours before any kind of daylight, while the faint "pit-pat" of all-night dancing still sounded from the chief's cabin, we dropped down the steep bank to the river surface and resumed our journey. Ahead was a man with a candle in a tin can, peering for the faint indications of the trail on the ice; the other two were at the handle-bars of the toboggans. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot: what do I say?—why, almost without a desk to lean their ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... would draw him up by his cord even from the pit of hell. But when he dies, though St. Francis comes to take him, one of the Black Cherubim of hell seizes and claims him, truly urging that absolution for an intended sin is a contradiction in terms, since absolution assumes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... up here," was the reply; and the party climbed up to stand at the edge of the great pit-like place, gazing down and listening to the hollow, echoing roar of what was evidently ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... their places, he felt distinctly nervous. The burst of applause which greeted the conductor keyed him still higher. He found that he had taken off his gloves and twisted them to a string. When the lights went down and the violins began the overture, the place looked larger than ever; a great pit, shadowy and solemn. The whole atmosphere, he reflected, was somehow more serious ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the devil." Antichrist is described by a similar allusion: "Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness." "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... Manila itself, than a man squatted down on his heels with one of these fowls, in order that it might become accustomed to the noise, so that it might not grow confused or become frightened in the pit. There are men who take heed of nothing else or have other thought during the day than of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... amendment was defeated at the election of November 3. The State convention was called for November 5, 6, in order that the Eastern women might be present, as they were to leave on the 7th. A magnificent farewell meeting was held on the first evening in Metropolitan Temple, which was crowded from pit to dome. The Call declared, "It was more like the ratification of a victory than a rally after defeat;" and at the close of the convention said: "It furnished during its entire sessions an example of pluck and patience such as should forever quiet the calumny that women do ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... of the dead were next morning taken to a place near the hospital, and there buried. About one hundred bodies, shockingly mangled, were buried in one pit on the beach. The remains of all the officers (with the exception of Captain Edwards) were found, and were interred the ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... of south Tarawa atoll due to heavy migration mixed with traditional practices such as lagoon latrines and open-pit dumping; ground ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... wall between us and young people Orderliness, from which men are privately exempt People were virtuous in past days: they counted their sinners Professional Puritans Regularity of the grin of dentistry That pit of one of their dead silences The beat of a heart with a dread like a shot in it The good life gone lives on in the mind The shots hit us behind you The spending, never harvesting, world The terrible aggregate social woman Venus of nature was melting ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... spoil it with their laughing, and being all of them out, and with the noise they made within the theatre, that I was ashamed of it, and resolve not to come thither again a good while, believing that this negligence, which I never observed before, proceeds only from their want of company in the pit, that they have no care how they act. My wife was ill, and so I was forced to go out of the house with her to Lincoln's Inn walks, and there in a corner she did her business, and was by and by well, and so into the house again, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... wrote to Garrick in 1763:—'I remember that during the run of Cymbeline I had the misfortune to disconcert you in one scene of that play, for which I did immediately beg your pardon, and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill in the pit, with great truth; and that was the only time I can recollect of my being confused or unmindful of my business when that gentleman was before me. I had even then a more moderate opinion of my abilities than your candour would allow me, and have always acknowledged ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... of France," he said, "there is a little custom of our people that I had forgotten. When a stranger warrior visits us it is our fashion to pit him in a bout against one of our own folk, so that if he leaves us alive he may speak well of ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... visited eight counties in Wales, from motives of curiosity. While I was in that part of the country I was led to go down into a coal-pit in Shropshire, but my curiosity nearly cost me my life; for while I was in the pit the coals fell in, and buried one poor man, who was not far from me: upon this I got out as fast as I could, thinking the surface of the earth the safest ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... long way on in front picking their way gingerly among the furrows. If only Mark had been there instead of Roddy. Roddy would keep on saying: "The great plague of London. The great plague of London," to frighten himself. He pointed to a heap of earth and said it was the first plague pit. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... world, I find myself repeating the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe in the "Minister's Wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted by the old theology; "Oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? Brides should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of despair, and only one in ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... chap," returned the baron, softening. "You are quite right. My desire was unreasonable; but I swear to you, by all my ancestral Bangletops, that I am hungry as a pit full of bears, and if there's one thing I can't eat, it is lobster and apples. Can't you scare up a snack of bread and cheese and a little cold larded fillet? If you'll supply the fillet, I'll provide ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... with a plough, which are bordered with thyme, and some cherry-trees, myrtles, etc. Here was a great many orange trees and syringas which were then in flower. In this garden are twenty-one sorts of thyme. The pit, as I may call it, is stored full of rare flowers and choice plants. He hath there two pretty lads his gardeners, who wonderfully delight in their occupation, and this lovely solitude, and do enjoy themselves so innocently in that pleasant corner, as if they were out of this troublesome world, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Beluch to track down the deserters and goats, in which they were not successful, we passed through the village of Sagesera, and camped one mile beyond, close to the river. Phanze Kirongo (which means Mr Pit) here paid us his respects, with a presentation of rice. In return he received four yards merikani and one dubuani, which Bombay settled, as the little Sheikh, ever done by the sultans, pleaded indisposition, to avoid the double fire he was always subjected ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... with its red hangings, its chairs, its carpet and its ledge covered in red velvet. After, feeling the carpet in the most serious manner possible, and discovering nothing more here or anywhere else, they went down to the corresponding box on the pit tier below. In Box Five on the pit tier, which is just inside the first exit from the stalls on the left, they found nothing worth ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... passage, at the end of which was an image of the Virgin, which he was required to kiss. In approaching it, he stepped upon the trap, and was precipitated into the depths below upon a wheel armed with knives, upon which he was torn in pieces. The story is, that this horrible pit was discovered in searching for a little dog which had fallen through the planking, when the wheel was found, with its knives rusty, the fragments of bones and garments still clinging to them. But people who go ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... him to hear what the Lord had done for them. Ever he shook them off, not roughly, nor smiled at their transports. Then the preachers spoke and painted the terrors of Judgment, And of the bottomless pit, and the flames of hell everlasting. Still and dark he stood, and neither listened nor heeded; But when the fervent voice of the white-haired exhorter was lifted, Fell his brows in a scowl of fierce ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... This man flatters the people; but in his heart he despises them. Those whom he leads he knows to be blind, and his trade is to persuade them that they can see. The Illusion has made them mad; none sees whither he is going; the next step may plunge them all into the pit; they live for they know not what. All this is known to yonder man; and, being unenlightened, he has no way of escape, but yields to his destiny, which is, that he shall be the bond-servant of lies." In short, the discovery which the Oriental ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... the names. Not even here can one venture to credit the Priestly Code with consistent fidelity to history. As for Hosea v. 1, 2, the original meaning seems to be: "A snare have ye become for Mizpah, and an outspread net upon Tabor, and the pit-fall of Shittim (XT HYM) have they made deep." Shittim as a camping-place under Moses and Joshua must certainly have been a sanctuary, just like Kadesh, Gilgal, and Shiloh; the prophet names these seats at which in his opinion the worship was especially seductive and soul-destroying; ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... that wrung us When some went down to the pit, Who faded as leaves among us, Who flitted as shadows flit; What visions under the stone lie? What dreams in the shroud sleep dwell? For we saw the earth pit only, And we heard ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... uttered over the dust of the slain? The most interesting memorials of the contest are the green grassy mounds which mark the graves of the slain Highlanders, and which are at once distinguished from the black heath around by the freshness and richness of their verdure. One large pit received the Frasers, and another was ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... however, still alive. Kondwana the induna, Senzanga—the man without a head-ring, and one other, had fallen into an old elephant-pit, the surface of which was completely covered over with brushwood. Dry leaves and twigs had accumulated at the bottom, and thus the shock of their fall had been lessened. Wounded and bleeding, they lay in the pit until the howling of the hyaenas told them that the Makalakas ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... that the tango and the fox-trot were devices of the devil to drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in all the ancient revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood on one leg and pointed right at where I was sitting and shouted, 'This means you!' I could have sunk through ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... was affected with great difficulty of respiration, and cough particularly troublesome on attempting to lie down, oedematous swellings of the legs and thighs, abdomen tense and sore on being pressed, pain striking from the pit of the stomach to the back and shoulders; almost constant nausea, especially after taking food, which he frequently threw up; water thick and high-coloured, passed with difficulty and in small quantity; ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... chosen for the pit is, almost without exception, in the vicinity of a drinking place, and the natives exhibit a great amount of cunning in felling trees across the usual run of the elephants, and sometimes cutting an open pit across the path, so as to direct the elephant by such obstacles ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... enter. Descending about twenty steps at a sharp angle, we landed in a small, damp vault, with an opening in the floor, communicating with a short passage below. The vault was undoubtedly excavated for sepulchral purposes, and the bodies were probably deposited (as in many Egyptian tombs) in the pit under it. Our guide, however, pointed to a square mass of masonry in one corner as the tomb of Lazarus, whose body, he informed us, was still walled up there. There was an arch in the side of the vault, once leading to other chambers, but now closed up, and the guide stated that seventy-four ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the pit and dress circles and in the higher parts of the house other cool and collected men had risen to the occasion. Women were crying and sobbing, and more than one had fainted, but the mad panic was over, and something like order had been restored. The stalls were moving quietly ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... necessary costumes. Andy himself had been asked by Harry Clifford to lend his Sunday suit, that young scamp intending to personate some raw New England Yankee; and that was how Mrs. Markham, senior, first came to hear of the proceedings which, to one of her rigid views, savored strongly of the pit, especially after she heard one of the parties described by an eye-witness, who mentioned among other characters his Satanic Majesty, as enacted by Harry Clifford, who would fain have appeared next in Andy's clothes! No wonder the good woman was enraged and took the next ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... we live and learn," said his father whimsically. "Our blunders are often very expensive. The only redeeming thing about them is that we pass our experience on to others and save them from tumbling into the same pit. Thus it was with the early railroad builders. When the Boston and Providence Road was constructed this mistake was not repeated and a flexible wooden roadbed was laid. In the meantime a short steam railroad line had been built from Boston to Newton, a distance of seven ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the terrible hordes of middle Asia burst in upon civilized Europe in the thirteenth century, many beheld in the ravages of their innumerable cavalry a fulfilment of that prophetic word in the Revelation (chap. ix.) concerning the opening of the bottomless pit; and from this belief ensued the change of their name from 'Tatars' to 'Tartars', which was thus put into closer relation with 'Tartarus' or hell, out of which their multitudes were supposed to ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... has never come from the orchestra pit of the Auditorium. Strange combinations of sounds that seem to come from street pianos, New Year's eve horns, harmonicas and old-fashioned musical beer steins that play when you lift them up. Mr. Prokofieff waves his shirt-sleeved arms and ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... gun! Why the blazes couldn't you have come home and brought me a bit of peat from the pit? A fine hunter you are! I might as well have married the devil.—And his wife turned ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... to the bottomless pit, as the only place at all suited for such stupid idiots who could refrain from shooting blacks when so grand an opportunity presented itself. Her eyes flashed fire as she delivered herself of her woes, and at the concluding sentence she stamped her little ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... peremptorily ordered the janitor to display the bouquet as ornately as possible along the narrow window-sill of the biggest window that faced the street. Then all through the night he lay dozing and waking intermittently, with a lovely, scared feeling in the pit of his stomach that something really rather exciting was about to happen. By surely half-past seven he rose laboriously from his bed, huddled himself into his black-sheep wrapper and settled himself down as warmly as could be expected, close to the ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Carlton, dropping back to the marble pavement again, and gazing impotently up at the row of figures outlined against the sky. "I must look like a bear in the bear-pit at the Zoo," he growled. "They'll be throwing buns to me next." He could see the two elder sisters talking to Mrs. Downs, who was evidently explaining his purpose in going down to the stage of the theatre, and he could see the Princess Aline bending forward, with both hands on her parasol, and ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... wretched and melancholy spectacle that man can ever become,—starving in the midst of abundance, and moving like a beast about his house. But of all ill luck that can happen to the lottery-gambler, the worst is to win a small prize. It is all over with him from that time forward; into the great pit of the lottery everything that he can lay his hands on is sure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... three or four of our immediate Fore-fathers, whom we knew by Tradition, but were soon stopped by an Alderman of London, who, I perceived, made my Kinsman's Heart go pit-a-pat. His Confusion increased when he found the Alderman's Father to be a Grasier; but he recovered his Fright upon seeing Justice of the Quorum at the end of his Titles. Things went on pretty well, as we ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the body before you lift them. You will then place them above the head; and after holding them there for an instant, lower them, passing them before the face, at the distance of one or two inches, down to the pit of the stomach. There you will stop them two minutes also, putting your thumbs upon the pit of the stomach and the rest of your fingers below the ribs. You will then descend slowly along the body to the knees, or rather, if you can do so without ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... of the statement touched me in the pit of the stomach (you know that's the spot where emotion gets home on a man) for it was borne upon me that really and truly I was nothing but a second officer of a ship just like any other second officer, to that constable. I was moved by this solid evidence of my ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... every fibre of my being at tension, my senses quickened by the unseen but certain presence of danger, I could hear at the other side of the thin boards the eager breathing of the fanatic devil of a priest who had come to slay me, miserably trapped like a panther in a pit. At this thought the very blood froze in my veins. My hand relaxed its hold on the lamp, and in its fall the ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... the two—he was a mere boy, for all his amazing growth of beard—put his foot in the bucket and went down on the rope, kicking off the sides of the shaft with his free foot. A group of diggers, gathering round the pit-head, waited for the tug at the rope. It was quick in coming; and the lad was hauled to the surface. No hope: both drives had fallen in; the bottom of the shaft was blocked. The crowd melted with a "Poor Bill—God rest his soul!" or with a silent shrug. Such accidents were not infrequent; ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... trilogy of novels dealing with wheat, the object being an arraignment of wheat operations at Chicago, and the consequent gambling with the world's food-supply. The first of the series, "The Octopus," deals with wheat raising and transportation; the second, "The Pit," a vigorous, human story covers wheat-exchange gambling, and appeared in 1903; the third, which was to have been entitled "The Wolf," was cut short by the author's death, which occurred on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Chittledroog division of Mysore in 1834. He mentions in his "Reminiscences of Life in Mysore"[16] that his division was infested with wild beasts and, to reduce their numbers, he obtained from one of the officials a plan of a pit 12 feet long, 12 feet deep, and 2-1/2 feet wide, closed with brushwood at both sides and one end. Wooden spikes were fixed at the bottom, and the top of the pit was covered over with light brushwood. A sheep or goat was then tied inside at the closed ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... vivid and powerful language the scene presented to the view at the very mouth of the crater. A large space, one mile in circumference, which a few days before had been one fathomless pit, from which issued masses of smoke, was now absolutely filled up to within a few feet of the brim all round. A great mass of lava, a portion of the contents of this immense pit, was seen to detach ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... compress his lips to persuade his friends and himself that he has a strong will, but he can play no trick with his nose. There it stands, an incorruptible witness, testifying to what he is, and not only to what he is, but to the rock whence he was hewn and to the pit whence he was digged. For his nose is a bequest from his ancestors, an entailed estate which he ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the three days following were pleasantly spent in visiting with them at the different hotels. On the evening of the 12th occurred the birthday fete. There is not room in these pages to describe in full that magnificent gathering, the great Metropolitan Opera House crowded from pit to dome, each of the boxes brilliantly and appropriately decorated and occupied by the representatives of some organization of women. On the stage was a throne of flowers and above it an arch with the name "Stanton" wrought ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... days, after which, if they remained unclaimed, their sale became legal." But many visitors will probably take greater interest in the famed Carclaze Mine, situated more than 600 feet above sea-level; the pit is about 150 feet deep, and nearly a mile round. Once notable for its tin, this mine now supplies an immense quantity of china-clay and stone. Charlestown may claim to be the port of St. Austell, and is becoming also a popular residential suburb. But St. Austell ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... story of the sub-prior was to be believed, Hereward and his housecarles had taken an ugly stride forward toward the pit. They had met him riding along, intent upon his psalter, in a lonely path of the Bruneswald,—"Whereon your son, most gracious lady, bade me stand, saying that his men were thirsty and he had no money to buy ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Blessed be Thou, O Lord; for Thou camest to my help. This seems to me to be in principle the temptation of Judas, only that Satan did not dare to tempt me so openly. But he might have led me by little and little, as he led Judas, to the same pit of destruction. ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... roofed with slender poles and covered with grass and earth. Such pitfalls were dug in a region where antelope were plenty, and a long > shaped pair of wings, made of poles or bushes or even rock piles, led to the pit. The antelope is very inquisitive and was easily led within the chute and there frightened, as were the buffalo, by people who had been concealed and who rose up and showed themselves after the antelope had passed. This was done more in order to secure antelope skins for clothing than ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... galleries in both were arranged on three sides of the building; the small rooms under the lowest, answered to our present boxes and were called rooms; the yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use, and where the common people stood to see the exhibition; from which circumstance they are called by Shakspeare "the groundlings," and by Ben Jonson, "the understanding gentlemen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... his blessings upon you!" he whispered. "I am glad that I shall lie under the sands of the desert, and not be buried like a dog in a pit with others." ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... to lay back their ears, and turn tail for kickin'. The Abolitionists and Planters are at it like two bulls in a pastur'. Mob-law and Lynch-law are working like yeast in a barrel, and frothing at the bung hole. Nullification and Tariff are like a charcoal pit, all covered up, but burning inside, and sending out smoke at every crack, enough to stifle a horse. General Government and State Government every now and then square off and sparr, and the first blow given will bring a genuine set-to. Surplus Revenue is another bone of contention; like a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... against Germany, the lying international press has raised itself up, flooded the world with lies about our splendid and upright army, and slandered everything that is German. We have been almost entirely cut off from any possibility of protecting ourselves against this "beast of the pit." Do not believe the lies, and spread abroad the truth about us. We are today no different than Carlyle pictured ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... with care and caution; to shun the least approaches of dishonour, and never to confide too much in the honesty of a man, nor in her own strength, where she has so much at stake; let her remember she walks on a precipice, and the bottomless pit is to receive her if she slips; nay, if she makes but ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... likely to afford both wood and water, of which articles we were much in want, I was induced to take advantage of the opportunity, and immediately made preparation to commence these occupations. In the evening a pit was dug for water, which oozed so fast into it, that we did not anticipate any difficulty on that head, and the wood was both plentiful and convenient to ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... get away. I had had a glimpse through the spy- glass, and thought I recognized Mr. Snider. We hauled the tender alongside, and Spook got in it to begin the towing. Just as he did so, and as I was standing outside the cock-pit, there came a sound above my head as if the ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... saying, he hastily snatched up the rest of his jewels, thrust them into his pack, and slung it over his shoulder, leaving Hulda looking after him with the bracelet in her hand. She saw him walk rapidly along the heath till he came to a gravel-pit, very deep, and with overhanging sides. He swung himself over by the branches ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... from the pit. You gave them the force, You, when You poured the measure of agony into them. Didn't You know what it would be, Giving blind people fire? Not gold and red and amber fire, But marsh fire. Fire of ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... they would be persuaded to follow his present advice, which would include what they were so eager about, but was not so very bad, but, in the distress they were in, of a lighter nature. He begged of them, therefore, not to kill their brother with their own hands, but to cast him into the pit that was hard by, and so to let him die; by which they would gain so much, that they would not defile their own hands with his blood. To this the young men readily agreed; so Reubel took the lad and tied him to a cord, and let him down gently into the pit, for it had no water ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... he reached a bend in the corridor where two ways met. The one went directly on to the Cave Hall, but the other led away into that remote and dangerous part of the cavern where lay the Pit of Fumes. Thither he was wont to go to practice his most secret arts. No Imps ever dared to tread that way, for it was well known that none but himself could pass ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... vain search for rest. This time a myriad of hostile pygmies were dragging him down into a bottomless pit. They tugged, and pushed, and danced upon his helpless body, and laughed in spiteful glee as he descended further and further into the ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... into a long harangue. He had been urging that he must have more money for his works at Calais. He was agitated because a French chalk pit outside the English lines had been closed to his workmen. They must bring chalk from Dover at a heavy cost for barges and balingers. This was what it was to quarrel ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... the workers and the improvement in their status as citizens, and that so far from being repressed it should be encouraged; (iii) that it is the natural development of the system of Conciliation Boards and (occasionally) Pit Committees which has prevailed in the industry for many years, though more highly developed in some parts of the country than others. So far, these organs have been mainly used for purposes of consultation and negotiation; ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... scream and shiver, While devils push them to the pit wide-yawning Hideous and gloomy, to receive them ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... going into the bottomless pit of metaphysics, excuse me," said Lord Oldborough—"there I must leave you. I protest, sir, you are past ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... of your discursive faculty: The word of God is plain. And never challenge man, for he that condemneth your way to heaven, to the very pit of hell, as Paul doth, can yet set ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... meaning in the gipsy's tone and in the glance she bestowed upon him. "It's doin' good. I tell you boys when I realized that I'd probably have to change myself within and without and be like some of the pious folks I'd seen, it give me a gone feeling in the pit of my stomach. But you can't keep me down, and after I'd saw I was a sinner and repented 'cause I was so bad, I saw that the whole trouble was this, I'd tried everything else, but I hadn't ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... that this is stating my views a little stronger than I desire. I have formed no opinion as to the origin of this wonderful thing. I was not allowed to make an examination of it beyond the privilege of looking from over a railing into the pit where the giant lay, and this pit was shaded by a tent, and the railing surrounded by double and triple rows of people, all anxious to see. I do not complain that I was not allowed a more perfect examination; ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... crowd of lackeys, and gazing at every person that passed. At length, seven o'clock having struck, without my being able to discover anything or any person connected with our project, I procured a pit ticket, in order to ascertain if Manon and G—— M—— were in the boxes. Neither one nor the other could I find. I returned to the door, where I again stopped for a quarter of an hour, in an agony of impatience and uneasiness. ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... detested the working-men, because he had suffered so much on their account in his province, a coal-mining district. Every pit had appointed a provisional government, from ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... that I would again dance over a pit, because it was artfully covered with garlands?" said Eudora. "Believe me, I have been tried with too many sorrows, and too long been bowed under a load of shame, to be again ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... represented, and shew themselves, in general very good judges of theatrical merit; and the entertainments which please their taste are certainly of a superior order to a great part of those which are popular in England. A great number of the performances which are loudly applauded by the pit and boxes of the London theatres, would be esteemed low and vulgar, even by the galleries at the Theatre Francais. It must be added, likewise, that the morality of the plays which are in request, is very generally more strict than of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... had witnessed when told that the notes which had acted like a bomb formed the first bar of "God Save the Tsar." A few miles farther on the Autocrat of All the Russias had already met an ignominious death by being thrown down a disused pit near the line dividing Asia and Europe. In death, as in life, he remained ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... Nay, I am sure it is, Volumnius. Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes; Our enemies have beat us to the pit: [Low alarums] It is more worthy to leap in ourselves Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius, 25 Thou know'st that we two went to school together: Even for that our love of old, I prithee, Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... she is good at every thing. I could make you laugh at a ridiculous embarrassment, but I won't; nay, I dare not, for who knows but you may first see this in the newspaper. Madam, this is Colonel B., V.P.U.S., all out loud. Sir, this is Mrs.——-. Miss, this is, &c., &c. The players stand, and the pit stand, and the gallery stand. No, there is no gallery. Indeed, I don't know when I have been better ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... match for her prudence. She sighed to think how slightly Toledo had spoken of the minister on the local committee, and she piously admitted to herself that Toledo and his friends were undoubtedly on the brink of the bottomless pit, and yet—they certainly were very kind. If she could only exert a good influence ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... On one side there was a smooth wall of rock, many feet deep. On the other the ground and rock were broken away, and it was quite easy to get into it. They found that by some means or other, one of their cows had fallen into this deep pit, over the steep side of the quarry. Of course the poor creature was dead, but the boys, out of curiosity, resolved to go down and look at her. They clambered down, found the cow, and, to their horror and ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... and most part of the neck; cut off the pinions and pull out the tail feathers, make a plastic cake of clay or tenacious earth an inch thick and large enough to envelop the bird and cover him with it snugly. Dig an oval pit under the fore-stick, large enough to hold him, and fill it with hot coals, keeping up a strong heat. Just before turning in for the night, clean out the pit, put in the bird, cover with hot embers and coals, keeping ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... it. I have heard my father say the Puritan breed makes the stoutest men-at-arms; that nothing has been found to stiffen a battle-line equal to a good text. Give this fellow a pike, pit him against a boatload of Spanish papists, and, I 'll warrant, he 'll crack more heads than any two of us. Besides, he controls a perfect tornado of a voice, fit to frighten the crew of a frigate on ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... was packed, both in the smart orchestra boxes and in the pit, as well as in the more plebeian balconies and galleries above. Gluck's ORPHEUS made a strong appeal to the more intellectual portions of the house, whilst the fashionable women, the gaily-dressed and brilliant throng, spoke to the ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... lord abducted her, Scroggs?" he added thoughtfully. "A man of spirit, until the Puritans got after him and showed him the burning pit and frightened him to that virtue which was foreign to his inclinations. My lady was right in refusing to honor such a paltry scoundrel with her hand. But it takes courage, Scroggs, to face ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... too thunderstruck to speak, aghast at this catastrophe. Like a fool, indeed, I had tumbled into the pit that had been dug for me by Chatellerault for I never doubted that it was of his contriving. At last, "My masters," said I, "these conclusions may appear to you most plausible, but, believe me, they are fallacious. I am perfectly acquainted with Monsieur de Chatellerault, and ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... was on a narrow ledge, with a perpendicular wall of rock at his back. Under him fell away the chaos of torn-up rock and shale. Far below the valley lay a black and bottomless pit. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... such circumstances it was small wonder that he was sometimes nervous and irritable; and, of course, there could be nothing hid between them, and when he was out of sorts, Corydon would be plunged into a bottomless pit of melancholy. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the traveler, says, on the authority of Recupero, a priest, that in sinking a pit near Iaci in the region of Mount Etna, they pierced through seven distinct formations of lava, with parallel beds of earth interposed between each stratum. He estimates that two thousand years were required to decompose the lava and form it into soil, and consequently that fourteen thousand years ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and [467]Ob. I take Abadon, or, as it is mentioned in the Revelations, Abaddon, to have been the name of the same Ophite God, with whose worship the world had been so long infected. He is termed by the Evangelist [468][Greek: Abaddon, ton Angelon tes Abussou], the angel of the bottomless pit; that is, the prince of darkness. In another place he is described as the [469]dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan. Hence I think, that the learned Heinsius is very right in the opinion, which he has given upon this passage; when he makes Abaddon the same as the serpent ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... wrest Persia, Babylonia, and Media from the Syrian kings. The selfish maxim, Divide et impera, assumed its meanest form as it was now pursued. It is a poor and cowardly policy for a great nation to pit against each other its semi-civilised dependencies, and to fan their jealousies in order to prevent any common action on their part, or to avoid drawing the sword for their suppression. Slave revolts, constant petty wars, and piracy were preying on the unhappy provincials, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... A thing woven as out of rainbows, on a ground of eternal black. A small flute-voice of infinite wail speaks there, into our very heart of hearts. A touch of womanhood in it too: della bella persona, che mi fu tolta; and how, even in the Pit of woe, it is a solace that he will never part from her! Saddest tragedy in these alti guai. And the racking winds, in that aer bruno, whirl them away again, to wail for ever!—Strange to think: Dante ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... looked into his face as one who escapes a pit gazes over the precipice, and shuddered. As for Eliphalet, let it not be thought that he had no passion. This was the moment for which he had lived since the day he had first seen her and been scorned in the store. That type of face, that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Odysseus speaks to us, and when from his sepulchre of flame the great Ghibelline rises, the pride that triumphs over the torture of that bed becomes ours for a moment. Through the dim purple air fly those who have stained the world with the beauty of their sin, and in the pit of loathsome disease, dropsy-stricken and swollen of body into the semblance of a monstrous lute, lies Adamo di Brescia, the coiner of false coin. He bids us listen to his misery; we stop, and with dry and gaping ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... mole has had its part to play in history. My readers may remember that William the Third's horse is supposed to have put his foot into a mole-pit, and that the king's death was hastened by the unconscious agency of "the little gentleman in black," who was so often ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... enthusiasm, was composed of real connoisseurs, and men of talents, and genius. This little group assembled at the opera-house, under the box belonging to the queen. The other party filled up the rest of the pit and the theatre; but the heads were mostly assembled under the box of his majesty. Hence the party names of Coin du Roi, Coin de la Reine,—[King's corner,—Queen's corner.]—then in great celebrity. The dispute, as it became more animated, produced several pamphlets. The king's ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... loike. No matter what ye've done or where ye've been or who ye've been with, a mither's heart welcomes ye back jist the same as when yes were a babby an' slept on me breast. A mither's heart ud quench the fires o' hell. I'd go inter the burnin' flames o' the pit an' bear ye out in me arms. So niver fear. Now that I've found ye, ye're safe. Ye'll not run away from me ag'in. I'll hould ye—I'll hould ye back," and the poor creature clasped Alida with such conclusive energy that she ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... die wrapped up in a Secession flag!—gazing admiringly upon the unostentatious signboard which is suspended in front of the Hon. Izzy Lazarus's tavern—glancing, wondering, and gazing thus, I enter the old Chatham theatre. The pit is full, but people fight shy ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... recovers his senses, Dante finds himself no longer in Charon's bark, but on the brink of a huge circular pit, whence arise, like emanations, moans and wails, but wherein, owing to the dense gloom, he can descry nothing. Warning him they are about to descend into the "blind world," and that his sorrowful expression—which Dante ascribes to fear—is caused by pity, Virgil conducts ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Above all he wished to avoid a rough and tumble, in which he would stand no chance at all. He had speed, wind, and nerve to pit against a young mountain ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... yesterday. He was cantering a showy chestnut mare over the turf, humming a tune aloud. He looked very fit and very much in love with the world. I asked him what he meant by it. He replied that he couldn't help it; everybody was combining to make him happy; his C.O. had fallen down a gun-pit and broken a leg; he had won two hundred francs from his pet enemy; he had discovered a jewel of a cook; and then there was always the Boche, the perfectly priceless, absolutely ridiculous, screamingly funny little Boche. The Boche, properly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... take old Lincoln the first thing and swing him to a limb and let him play around awhile and then shoot his head off. But I 'member the morning old mistress got a letter that told how young master Henry was in a pit with the soldiers and they begged him not to stick his head up but he did anyway and they shot it off. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... what is in the pit? Or wilt thou go ask the Mole: Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod? Or Love ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... and bound on a 'good time generally.' Two 'shining lights,' on either side of the pulpit, held aloft blazing torches of pine, which illuminated the sea of grinning darkness, and sent up a smoke like that arising from the pit which is said to be bottomless. About a hundred darkies were present; and the number of glossy coats, fancy turbans, gaudy bonnets, red shawls, and flaming dresses, which the light disclosed, was amazing. The poor worm that grubbed in the earth, had appeared ('for that occasion only') as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the ramp, growing narrower and steeper. And louder sounded the insane, coughing howls of the dog. Then the passage was abruptly barred by a grill of black stone. Garin peered through its bars at a flight of stairs leading down into a pit. From the pit arose ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... passes by that name. It never thinks of the suffering world, or sees it, or cares to extend its knowledge of it; or, so long as it remains a world, cares anything about it. All those whom Dante placed in the first pit or circle of the doleful regions, might have represented the agricultural interest in the present Parliament, or at quarter sessions, or at meetings of the farmers' friends, or ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... the fire-arms and bottles. Behold the weapons. The dark pit lies near him with many cross-bars, cages and clouds. An evil combination—imprisonment, though your sunlight has only been dimmed. If so, your will, patient labor and strong desire can yet win for you. The flag of victory ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... is commenced. It should be as nearly as possible on a level with the upper border of the os calcis, a point which the surgeon can determine, if the dorsum of the foot is in a natural state, by feeling the pit in which the extensor brevis digitorum arises. Another incision is then to be drawn vertically across the sole, commencing near the anterior end of the former incision, and terminating at the outer border ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... wide pit on the right, and it seemed to her that faces were resting against the edge of it on a level with the ground, as decapitated heads might have done. However, their eyes moved, and from these half-opened mouths groanings escaped in ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert |
