"Topple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to go soon, and when one was fairly caught its high spire was seen to quiver for a moment as if it were in pain, and then topple right over with a crash. The dangers were increased by the falling of such great masses of stone. The whole of that night the flames roared on, and devoured everything in their course. Even those whose houses were at the west end began to tremble. King Charles II. himself had ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... There's Larion, another rich one at Dubetchnya, and I bet he strips the bark off your trees as much as any poor one; and he is a foul-mouthed fellow; his children are the same, and when he has had a drop too much he'll topple with his nose in a puddle and sleep there. They are all a worthless lot, Madam. If you live in a village with them it is like hell. It has stuck in my teeth, that village has, and thank the Lord, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... deep," said David, "so she won't topple, and fix her up to suit yourselves, girls, while we get ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... be a scramble for gold. And people would begin to hoard things ... and no one would trust any one else. There would be suspicion and fear and greed and hate ... and very swiftly and very surely, civilisation would reel and topple and fall to pieces.... At any moment that might happen. So far, indeed, things were still steady ... calamity had not come so quickly as imaginative men had foretold ... but presently, when the slums ... the rich ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... streets and vivid awnings, its wide avenues and the ancient Castle to the north. To the south, the fortress and the bridges; encircling the city a thick, high wall with here and there enormous gates flanked by towers so grim and old that they seem ready to topple over from the sheer fatigue of centuries. A soft, Indian summer haze hangs over the lazy-lit valley; it is always ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... our lives. Poor bandit, he was just one of those figures that sit in a chair and are pelted with baseballs, three shots for a dime. "Every time you hit the nigger!" That's what the man used to call. When some one hit him a good hard crack he'd topple off the seat and then the man would give you a kewpie doll or maybe an ash-tray. The poor old wooden "nigger" had been packed away and all we had seen was his black face sticking up above ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... curious sensation touched Halder—a terrifying conviction that some undefinable thing had just gone wrong. And with that, his whole body was suddenly rigid, every muscle locking in mid-motion. He felt momentum topple him slowly forwards; then he was no longer falling but stopped, tilted off-balance at a grotesque angle, suspended in a web of forces he could not feel. Not the slightest sound had come from Kilby, invisible in ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... the outside layers to exclude the air; for when the wind, though never so cold, finds a passage through, it will wear large cavities, leaving slight supports or studs only here and there, and finally topple it down. At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla; but when they began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this became covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a venerable moss-grown and hoary ruin, built ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... danger on the water there is on land. I have come nearer to being killed right here in Baileyville than ever I have while cruising in mid-ocean. Folks take their lives in their hands every time they cross a city street. Then, too, aren't there high buildings to topple over; flagpoles to snap asunder, signs to blow down; chimneys to shower their bricks on your head; not to mention the death-dealing currents that come through telegraph and telephone wires? Add to ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... realized his power over these men; now he perceived that these men, some of them, realized it even better than he.... Realized it and resented it; resented it and fought with all the strength of their souls to undermine it and make it topple in ruin. ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... far from home fancies his house has been burned down, or that those dear to him are dead. For one horrible moment at least I wondered if we had come to the end of compromise and comfortable nonsense, and if at last the successful stupidity of England would topple over like the successful wickedness of Prussia; because God is not mocked by the denial of reason any more than the denial of justice. And I fancied the very crowds of Jerusalem retorted on me words spoken to them ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... so finely balanced that it seemed to be held in its place by the weight of a number of bat-like creatures clustering at one of its angles. As we approached, these bats, startled by the light of our torch, began, one or two at a time, to rise from their resting place, causing the rock to topple toward us. Thus we stood in danger of being crushed by the mass should it fall as we passed the entrance, or, worse still, if it fell before we escaped into the cave beyond, we might find ourselves entombed alive in this dreadful place, to become a prey ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... sorrowful thing, that retreat. The best I could do was to remain till the very last, having to deal with a number of persistent louts who all but suffocated me, at that. But I managed to empty my slinger into some of them and to topple the rest. I was mainly angry that Klow ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... owing to their intimate knowledge of our lack of ammunition. My next sensation was a crushing pain in my shoulder, struck by the hoof of a horse, and a sharp knife pain in my right thigh. I fired with my revolver at the hazy figure above me, saw it topple ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... the ramparts, a high red town above the fortresses, a thin red tower above the town. The whole thing looked dangerous and unsteady, as if any minute it would topple over. She knew John was there. Something awful was happening to him, ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... the boy. "If I moved the least little bit this pile of casks would topple over, and I should be thrown to ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... first slide guided by the hand of a stronger and more expert companion. How soon we learned to do the trick, and what fun there was in "keep the pot a-boiling," while strings of youngsters took the slide. What if some did topple over? No bones were broken, and the incident always caused a ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... breech-clout, and reaching the bank, he took half a minute's keen pleasure in watching the race come up the trail. When the figure was within ten yards Cutler slowly drew an ivory-handled pistol. The lieutenants below saw the man leap to the middle of the bridge, sway suddenly with arms thrown up, and topple into White River. The current swept the body down, and as it came it alternately lifted and turned and sank as the stream played with it. Sometimes it struck submerged stumps or shallows, and bounded half out of water, then drew under with nothing but the back of the head in sight, turning ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... throat, and stood fanning herself with a newspaper. Mrs. Cramer on the left, having finished her sweeping, had come out on the porch also, and in garments that indicated no padding whatever dropped into a rocking chair, crossed her legs, made a dab at her loosely piled hair to see it did not topple down, and proceeded to read the morning newspaper. It was positively shocking, thought Mrs. Barnett, how women could so far forget themselves. She ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... here is a whale indeed among fishes, a world-bearing monster, who fancieth that all the affairs of this earth rest upon his shoulders. 'Tis a cup which our gallant knight will soon spill for him. Hold fast, fair ladies, for the globe is about to topple from ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... some luckless driver. Out in the country, when the heavily laden market carts loomed slowly out of the fog as they passed, they had the appearance of being miles up in the air, and as if they must inevitably topple over. Joshua knew all the carters, not by sight, for he could not see them, but by the time and place he met them on his nightly journey. Tim could reckon pretty well that after he had heard his gruff salutation ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... water of the stream when he thirsted, yet so enrapt that he was unaware he was taking care of his body's needs, Cal built up whole structures of alien philosophies on the nature of the universe, and saw them topple of their own weight. ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... mean!" blustered Fred, and coming closer, he hit Nat on the shoulder. At once our hero hit back, and Fred received a thump in the mouth that caused him to topple backwards. ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... really getting on my nerves," said Anne. "She finished two new ones last week, stuffed and embroidered within an inch of their lives. There being absolutely no other cushionless place to put them she stood them up against the wall on the stair landing. They topple over half the time and if we come up or down the stairs in the dark we fall over them. Last Sunday, when Dr. Davis prayed for all those exposed to the perils of the sea, I added in thought 'and for all those who live in ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... alive with emotion, almost tipped over. After "Rigoletto" he played "Les soirees de Vienne," and this time the screen actually did topple over and exposed to view the group of ladies huddled behind it. I shuddered to think how the Master ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... my beloved Venice, where many years ago I camped out by the side of a canal—the Rio Giuseppe—all of it, from the red wall, where the sailors land, to the lagoon, where the tower of Castello is ready to topple into the sea. ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... his form draw upward as might Prometheus's unchained. They saw the fingers of the Spartan unclasp. They saw his bloody face upturned and torn with helpless agony. They saw his great form totter, topple, fall. The last dust cloud, and into it the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... things people can live without," said Fleda, rather dreamily, intent upon settling an uneasy rose that would topple over. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... still in fear and pride, the tears streaming down a smiling countenance on which the red glare of the fire shone. The ladder was set crazily against the flaming window and swayed with their weight. Every step seemed as if it would topple the building, yet the ladder held, and Mark sprang through the blazing window out of sight. It seemed an eternity till he returned bringing a tiny bundle with him, and handing it ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... shaft, however, I observed, in one cave of special importance, two enormous carronades looking with peculiar wickedness and malignity down a shelving rock, which perhaps, although not without tremendous difficulty, might be scaled. The mere wind of one of these huge guns would be sufficient to topple over a thousand men. What sensations of dread and horror must be awakened in the breast of a foe when this hollow rock, in the day of siege, emits its flame, smoke, and thundering wind from a thousand ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... scowling. "I see. Then perhaps it will be necessary for us to do something to topple our El Hassan before he becomes much stronger, and to find another to ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of the world is hard, disagreeable work, requiring little intelligence. Most of the people of the world are unintelligent—unfit to do any other work. If it were not done by them it would not be done, and it is the basic work. Withdraw them from it and the whole superstructure would topple and fall. Yet there is too little of the work, and there are so many incapable of doing anything else that adequate return is out of the question. For the laboring class there is no hope of an existence that is comfortable in comparison ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the most convenient blocks to stop the holes in their hovel walls, or to build a fence on the windward side of their poppy patches. The rains soon undermine the pavement, especially where it is laid on a steep incline; sections of it topple down the slope, leaving chasms a yard or more in depth." Where traveling by water is impossible, sedan chairs are used to carry passengers, and coolies with poles and slings transport the luggage and goods. The distances covered by the sedan chair porters are remarkable, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... its steepled head toward the sky, but its roof had fallen in, and Turner Hall was a mass of blackened ruins. Parts of the walls were still standing, swaying as if ready to topple over any moment. Off in one corner the blackened timbers and jumbled bits of ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... again, though, topple into any flour barrels. It was Sue who had the next accident at the corner grocery, and this is the way ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... "'Tention-l !" shriek a dozen soprani. Some passenger's fingers have entered his vest-pocket, and the boys are on the alert. Through the air, twirling and glittering, tumbles an English shilling, and drops into the deep water beyond the little fleet. Instantly all the lads leap, scramble, topple head-foremost out of their little tubs, and dive in pursuit. In the blue water their lithe figures look perfectly red,—all but the soles of their upturned feet, which show nearly white. Almost immediately they all rise again: one holds up at arm's- length ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... State, Or blended States, or peoples, pass the bounds Set for their progress, they must topple and fall Into that gulf of ruin which has swallowed All ancient Empires, States, Republics; all Perishing, in like manner, from the selfsame cause! The terrible conjunction of the event, Close with the provocation, stands apart, A social beacon in all ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Springer. His head jerked round toward his shoulder, Rodney Grant looked into the eyes of his friend of a short time past, and suddenly he released his hold on Rackliff, who, gasping and ready to topple over, was supported by one of the ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... go away. I was not sorry to leave Dubechnia, my sorrow was for my love, for which it seemed that autumn had already begun. What a tremendous happiness it is to love and to be loved, and what a horror it is to feel that you are beginning to topple down from ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... rest, never content or tired: Insatiate wanderer, marvellously fired, Most grandly piling and piling into the air Stones that will topple or arch he knows ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... at Brooklands; if so, you must have noticed that the track is banked very steeply at the corners, and when the motorist is going round these corners at, say, 80 miles an hour, his motor makes a considerable angle with the level ground, and looks as if it must topple over. The aeroplane acts in a similar manner, and, unless some means are taken to prevent it, it ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... seemed about to topple over, at the same time emitting a groan of pain which proved him to be thoroughly human. Helen was frightened, but there was a new kind of awe in this fright. All suggestion of superstition had left her and in its ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... the thrill of the chase, not at all that we wished harm to a soul in the world. If, on occasion, a slight hint of maliciousness did find its place with us, it was only because in this insecure world it is delightful to reaffirm our own security as we watch our neighbours topple over. We do not wish them to "topple," but if somebody has got to fall we would ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... you to choose some other whelp. Being in your best lust, I would topple with ye, And pluck a good crow, ere ye brake your fast with me. What? are you mankin[261] now? I reckon it best, I, To bind your hands behind you, even as ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... as fighting machines. I see Germany in the likeness of a boxer with a mailed fist as big as and rather heavier than its body, and I am convinced that when the moment comes for that mailed fist to be lifted, the whole disproportionate system will topple over. The military ascendancy of the future lies with the country that dares to experiment most, that experiments best, and meanwhile keeps its actual fighting force fit and admirable and small and flexible. The experience ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... looking round. Suppose he were to lightly skip on to table, and, standing there, defy them all? Suppose he were to lower his head, and run a-butt at the stomach of the LORD CHANCELLOR? What delight to topple him over—to see his heels rise in the air, and disappear with rest of his body at other side of Woolsack! DENMAN laughed to think he should see such fun. Content for the present with contemplation of it, and so resumed seat. "But I'll form ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... as a painful yet necessary duty to topple from its pedestal one of the most popular idols of legendary lore. I refer, I regret to say, to the widely famous ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... "Never be in a hurry—-especially don't be in a hurry about answering letters. If you leave things long enough and quiet enough they answer themselves, whereas if you hurry matters balanced on the edge of a precipice, they often topple over instead of settling and remaining ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... base the excitement—so little that he was puzzled as to what had caused the scene with his wife. And as he reflected, it seemed highly unlikely to him that he would ever permit himself to do anything that might jeopardize his whole life, topple over the structure that decades of work had built. Why, it was scarcely less than suicidal to let a stranger come into his heart and maybe weaken his position. He remembered his last thought before falling asleep. ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... answer me; Though you untie the winds, and let them fight Against the churches—though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation up— Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down— Though castles topple on their warder's heads— Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations—though the treasure Of nature's germins tumble all together, Even till destruction sicken, answer me To what I ask ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... the arrival of the Matabili. The latter could not be far-off, and every exertion was made to get the fortress ready for receiving the attack. There was a doubt as to the direction the tree would take in falling. Should it topple over into the water, their labour would be lost, and the way would be open for the Matabili to reach them by a rush. Should it fall across the isthmus, it would form an insurmountable barrier to their enemies. In silence and with intense interest did ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... shuffle fits his gait any more accurately. It was simply a walk with the least possible waste of energy. It fitted Dr. Holmes's definition of walking as forward motion to prevent falling. And yet Field never gave you the impression that he was about to topple over. His legs always acted as if they were weary and would like to lean their master up against something. As to what that something might be, he would ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the tower of Saint-Jacques, and, nearer in, the pavilions of the new Louvre and the Tuileries, were crowned by a blaze, which lent them the aspect of sacrificial pyres. The dome of the Invalides was flaring with such brilliancy that you instinctively feared lest it should suddenly topple down and scatter burning flakes over the neighborhood. Beyond the irregular towers of Saint-Sulpice, the Pantheon stood out against the sky in dull splendor, like some royal palace of conflagration reduced to embers. Then, as the sun declined, the pyre-like edifices gradually set the whole ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... o'er them and topple around, They see they are pretty near sure to be drowned. A terrible wave o'er the quarter-deck breaks, And the vessel it sinks in a ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... time a man has discovered that he is in love with a woman, she is usually so fagged out waiting for the phenomenon, that she is ready to topple right over into his ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... and won he felt that silent approbation behind him; insensibly it steadied Ford and sharpened his instinct for reading the faces of the other players, so that the miniature towers of red chips and blue grew higher until they threatened to topple—whereupon other little towers began to grow up around them. And the men in the saloon began to feel the fascination of his success, so that they grouped themselves about his chair and peered down over ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... Western Kansas, in the early Eighties, I saw a loaded four-horse wagon skid and topple ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... stood, a man knelt praying aloud; here a couple of enemies met by chance, seeking their dead, and embraced, beseeching forgiveness for injuries past. These sights went by Ruth as in a dream; and as in a dream she heard the topple and crack of masonry to right and left. Langton guided her; and haggard, perspiring, they bent their heads to the strange wind now howling down the street as through a funnel, and foot by foot battled ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... occasionally hissing and breaking into irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed, sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily. Suddenly toward three o'clock ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... To topple over from the sublime to the ridiculous is not difficult. But the presence of humour might save the sublimities from a fall, and Browning had hitherto in his art made but slight and occasional use of a considerable gift of humour which ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... retrieved and mouthed by a well-trained butcher dog, of no recognisable breed. Sometimes, after receiving its wound, a bird would walk about for a second or two, apparently unhurt; then suddenly stagger and topple over. Sometimes, as the trap opened, a bird would stand dazed. Then a ball was trundled at it to compel it to rise. Grey breast feathers strewed the whole inclosure, in places quite thickly, like a carpet. As for the crowd at the tables inside the Casino, it was largely Semitic. On the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the end of her fingers on it. But as she was raising her hand to her mouth to kiss it she remembered that the saint might not like such service from one who was already half a Jew at heart, and she refrained. She refrained, and then considered whether the bridge might not topple down with her into the stream because of her iniquity. But it did not topple down, and now she was standing beyond any danger from the water at the exact spot which Trendellsohn had named. She stood still lest she might possibly miss ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... sentences that topple a letter over onto the waste basket toboggan. But the sentence with a climax, working up interest step by step, is indispensable. By eye test, by mechanical test, by erasure test and by strength test, Orchard Hill Bond makes ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... corner," said an urchin, "she's Joe Cough's wife. I seed her going down the street with a great big bundle, and Mam said, she looked like she was going to topple over." ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... heard us! The cap rises off the 'Summer-house hill,' that eight hundred feet of upright wall, which seems ready to topple down into the nest of be-myrtled cottages at its foot; and as we sweep out into the deeper water the last mist-flake streams up from the Foreland, and vanishes in white ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Library, which was a most singular apartment, as we were informed, I don't know how many stories high, at the top of a very singular tower, with as many languages in it as the Tower of Babel itself, and very nearly as tall. One only wished the whole thing would topple down before we could ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... night thy soul be required of thee. "Beware, lest he take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee." Oh, Lord God of Israel, see these impenitent souls on the verge of death ready to topple over! See them! Is there no help? Is this plea all in vain? I can not believe it, blessed God. Oh, thou mighty One, whose garments are red with the wine-press of Thine own sufferings, in the greatness of Thy strength ride through this audience, and may all this ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... I knows on," drawled the old fellow, laughing until his old head seemed ready to topple from his shoulders. "No blood relation, any how, sir. You see, my wife's cousin's aunt's husband's brother Jerry was a cousin to Nicodemus Dunce, who, if I don't disremember, was related in some way to Isacker Pete's wife's sister, and she was this ere man's ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... of the established order that the proposed enlargement of the electorate was "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of social obligation." If it were carried, religion, morality, and property would perish together, and our venerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousand years have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hour may lay her in the dust." In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubt that the Reform Bill is ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... him and not stop in panic when they saw their companions falling, and fire a volley at him. He felt that in such a volley his only danger lay. They kept coming, and fell as he shot. The foremost man, and the last to topple, did not get ten yards from where he started. Their bodies formed a line down ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... would have turned over to the other and wrought so dexterously that, thrusting his loins against one of the sides of the chest, which had not been set on a level place, he caused it first to incline to one side and after topple over. In falling, it made a great noise, whereat the women who slept therenigh awoke and being affrighted, were silent for fear. Ruggieri was sore alarmed at the fall of the chest, but, finding that it had opened in the fall, chose rather, if aught else should betide, to be out of it than ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... administration, not alone for the upholding of those God-given ideas which have made America the most favored land on earth; but against a PRECEDENT, which involves and would destroy them all. Precedent which is, and ever has been, all powerful to overturn theories and systems, to topple kings from their thrones, and plunge nations into slavery. Of all dangers which every liberal form of government has to shun, none is so deadly as this. Grave and venerable judges, sages though they may be, rest upon it, and thereon base decisions involving millions of property, and sometimes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nearly perpendicular, but most curiously ornamented with columns and pilasters, porticos and colonnades, cornices and battlements, flanked here and there with tall outstanding towers, and crowned with spires so slender that it seemed as though a breath of air would suffice to topple them from their foundations. To accomplish the object for which we had come so far, it seemed necessary that we should ascend this butte. The day was perfectly clear and intensely hot, the mercury standing at 92 degrees in ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... almost impossible to elevate the spirits of a man groaning under ideal calamities; but nothing is easier than to render him wretched, though on the pinnacle of felicity: as it would be an herculean task to hoist a man to the top of a steeple, though the merest child could topple ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... miraculous corner where there was an outlet frowned upon by angry rocks; on to the "Caldron," as the Turks called the most imposing portion of the gorge; on through an amphitheatre where densely-wooded mountains on either side were reflected in smooth water; on beneath masses that appeared about to topple, and over shallows where it looked as if we must be grounded; on round a bluff which had hidden the sudden opening of the valley into a broad sweep, and which had hindered us from seeing Orsova the Fair nestling closely to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... strength were regained. Then he continued his weary ascent till he reached the summit of the cliffs, where he saw the boat made fast to the wreck, and the mate and passenger clinging to the forestay. In the next glare of the lightning, with a thrill of horror, he saw the hulk topple over and disappear in ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... murmuring surge That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high: I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong. ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... quite firm on my legs yet," he laughed, "and I must n't topple over, as Miss Batterson has left me for a ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... of that bitter indignation; but Jack could not guess at that, and if both felt difficulty in the neatly balanced friendship pledged under the wisteria, if there was a breathlessness for both in the tight-rope performance,—where one false step might topple one over into open hostility, or else, who knew, into complete surrender,—it was Imogen who gained composure from Jack's nervousness, and while he walked the rope with a fluttering breath and an anxious eye she herself could show the most ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the other a mountainous heap of hand-bags and valises. This is the only creature with four legs, bigger than a dog, that ever gets down the Clovelly street; and why he does not lose his balance, topple backward, and go rolling continuously down till he falls into the sea below, nobody can imagine. But the valiant little animal kept steadily on, assisted by his owner, who followed and assiduously whacked him with a stout stick, and he reached the top much sooner than any ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... suppress de candelabra. [Blows out candle.] Whew! listen to it rain. How the rain do be runnin' down the legs of this here house. That's first class thunder too. Whew! that's no slouch uv a streak uv lightnin' nuther. Here, calm down there, gentlemen, or ye'll topple over this edifice. Time ter sleep now, good-night. Shut ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... splendid shell of it left, sufficient for us to see the skeleton of a noble building which had once been the pride of Flemish craftsmen. Even as we turned toward it parts of it were falling upon the ruins already on the ground. I saw a great pillar lean forward and then topple down. A mass of masonry crashed from the portico. Some stiff, dark forms lay among the fallen stones; they were dead soldiers. I hardly glanced at them, for we were in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... three times on Sunday he was present, maintaining still his outward bearing of interest and sympathy. He was like a tree which bends before the compelling blast yet refuses for a little while longer to topple headlong. This brings us up to ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Bar. In this window were displayed a number of glass domes, under each of which a little jet of water tossed about a cork ball. The ball would soar sometimes to the roof of the dome and would then topple over, sometimes to be caught midway upon the jet and sometimes to fall to the bottom, but always to be kept drenched and dancing in a melancholy futile way. I was comparing it with myself when a hand was clapped ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... contained in that farrago of priestly absurdities— called the Bible, forsooth! as if there were no other book worthy to be mentioned beside it. Think for a moment how soon, were it not for their churches and prayers and music and their tomfoolery of preaching, the whole precious edifice would topple about their ears, and the livelihood, the means of contentment and influence, would be gone from so many restless paltering spirits! So what is left them but to play upon the hopes and fears and diseased ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... and foam, his heart failed him, and because his heart failed him he began to sink. If we turn away from Jesus Christ, and interrupt the continuity of our faith by calculating the height of the breakers and the weight of the water that is in them, and what will become of us when they topple over with their white crests upon our heads, then gravity will begin to work, and we shall begin to sink. And well for us if, when we have sunk as far as our knees, we look back again to the Master and say, 'Lord, save me; I perish!' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... dwellings fronting the streets are perforated beneath by lines of squat piazzas, and present above a dingy and windowless breadth of wall. In course of time the piers attenuate and give way; the undermined precipices topple down, parting from the solid mass behind in those vertical lines by which they are traversed at nearly right angles with their line of stratification; the perpendicular front which they had covered comes to be presented, in consequence, to the sea; its faults and cracks gradually ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... much on its hands to bother with people like her. No, there is a certain—well, immovability about the conventional, and Lilas wasn't strong enough to topple ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... see, the foundation of plank on which it rests is inclined, so the end of the leach that is down must be slantingly cut, otherwise it would not stand perpendicularly. It would topple over in the ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... little boys, so, taking advantage of a moment when the besieged had combined, shoulder to shoulder, to make one magnificent and desperate onslaught on to the obdurate door, they quietly "raised the siege," and quitting their hold, left the phalanx of small heroes to topple head over heels and one over another on to the stone floor of the passage, while they sauntered off arm-in-arm to the scene of ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... towards her, upset the spider-legged table that was always ready to topple over on the least provocation, made a hopeless labyrinth of her embroidery silks, gave her a kiss of greeting, and hurried on with numberless questions, just as if he were in the greatest possible haste, and it was a necessity of life and death that he should throw ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... their use is very apt to topple down and find some difficulty in getting up again. Martin and I, however, had had plenty of practice during the two previous winters, though we had not gone very far on our return before we felt our ankles pain us considerably. We stopped to rest, but could not venture to remain long, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... this crumbling boundary, 85 Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough-boy's foot, Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, Coiling it, harmless, with ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... well that your house, with all that therein is, stands on the edge of a precipice, and that at any moment a landslip might topple it over into everlasting ruin. And yet you behave as though your house was planted in the midst of a vast and secure plain, sheltered from every imaginable havoc. I speak metaphorically, of course. It is not a material precipice ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... with whom I was travelling, unlike most of the men of that breed, was a very nervous person, and it was not without much persuasion that I had succeeded in inducing him to join me in my camp under the shadow of the great rock. He feared that it would topple over and crush us, nor was he completely reassured until Saiyid Jasin—the chief of his followers—a shrunken, wizened little man of many wiles, had propped the stone up with a slender sapling, over which he had duly recited ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... centre of the stream by a way of his own, and we ran down to the stepping-stones by which we had come, in order to save the time which we should have been compelled to waste in feeling for a foothold as we went. Every second was of importance, and I fully expected to see Dennis topple unconscious into the pool below before I should be able to save him. I knew what it was exactly; he was going through my own horrible experience of "drowning on dry land," to quote Garnesk's vigorous phrase. Imagine my astonishment, therefore, ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... at garlands hung upon a willow wand at the end of the glade, the leafy aisles ringing with merry jests and laughter: for whoever missed the garland was given a sound buffet, which, if delivered by Little John, never failed to topple over the unfortunate yeoman. Then they had bouts of wrestling and of cudgel play, so that every day they ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... corset could restore a pair of hips to the poor lady, who seemed to have been cast in a single mould. The youthful harmony of her bosom existed no longer; and its excessive amplitude made the spectator fear that if she stooped its heavy masses might topple her over. But nature had provided against this by giving her a natural counterpoise, which rendered needless the deceitful adjunct of a bustle; in Rose Cormon everything was genuine. Her chin, as it doubled, reduced ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... sleeps again. I drink and become oblivious. In these last paroxysms there is nothing for me but brandy. I shut myself up alone and pour down my gullet huge draughts of spirit. It mounts to my brain. I am a man again! and as I regain my manhood, I topple over—dead drunk. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... deep. His keen eye measured the aperture at the bottom. No giant, such as these were, could crowd through that hole. And the hopper was heavy. Applying all his strength to it, he felt it give ever so slightly. It was not bolted down; it was merely balanced there. He would be able to topple it over. And, once over, it would be a difficult affair to handle, especially ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... three-cornered hats—very fine beaux, indeed; and the women stiffly encased in the most uncomfortable garments that ever the wit of mortal devised, holding their heads erect, lest the marvellous pyramids, built up with such expenditure of time and money, should topple over, and, in spite of all disadvantages, looking pretty and piquant. It was a crowd not so far removed from us by time, so that we can attribute to the men and women who composed it the same feelings and sensibilities as our own. And yet they ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... United States to the tune of—"Sell—cut loose—throw over!" A universal mania to get any price for anything was sweeping the land like a conflagration. Tomorrow would bring those reflexes from today when banks and trust companies from the Lakes to the Rio Grande would topple in the wake of their metropolitan predecessors. Ruin sat crowned and enthroned, monarch of the day and parent of a panic which should close mills, and starve the poor and foster anarchy—but Hamilton Burton's ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... that a sound civilization must depend upon sound popular education." But education, in order to be sound and to produce "beneficial results, must develop what is best in man, and make him not only clever, but good. A one-sided education will develop a one-sided life; and such a life will surely topple over, and so will every social system that is built up of such lives. True civilization requires that not only the physical and intellectual, but also the moral and religious, well-being of the people should be improved, and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... if you can fumble them out; the more we fill ourselves, the less room for salt water. Well, then, wind and waves are great bullies; they fly slap back in a fright when they bang against a great ship; but when they get hold of a little boat like this, how they leap and topple in, as if they made sure of us [here a wave dashed into the boat]. Yes, that's your sort. Come along, swamp a little boat you washy cowards, it's only a woman and a boy. Poor Jim, he'll miss me something, but he'll miss the liquor more; ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... have originated in a similar manner. The wind raved around the ruined pile, but its breath was not felt within it, and the rain was heard descending in deluging showers without, though no drop came through the open roof. The thunder shook the walls and pillars of the old fabric, and threatened to topple them down from their foundations, but they resisted the shocks. The lightning played around the tall spire springing from this part of the fane, and ran down from its shattered summit to its base, without doing any damage. The red bolts struck the ground innocuously, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... like Jean is doing and rush over three thousand just to settle down at the other end for ever and ever. I'd want to keep on going. It's such a comfort to know that the world is round after all, and you can't topple ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... fall in love with Jean Roland and no one else. She is the smallest and the darkest and much the best dressed. I do hope and trust it will be love at first sight. She is already just wild about you, without ever even seeing you, and when she sees you she is sure to topple over completely." ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... why should it happen now? He hung up the receiver and reviewed it all calmly. There were a hundred things which might happen to the line, for it passed through rough country near Vegas; but the weather was fair and there was no wind blowing to topple over the poles. No one used the line but him—it had been connected up by Blount when he had first taken over the mine—and yet the wire had been cut. But by whom? As he sat there pondering he raised his eyes to the hill-top, and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... door. He stood openmouthed, maddened and still, as if in the midst of a catastrophe. The door-handle rattled lightly. It seemed to him that the walls were coming apart, that the furniture swayed at him; the ceiling slanted queerly for a moment, a tall wardrobe tried to topple over. He caught hold of something and it was the back of a chair. So he had reeled against a chair! Oh! ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... or foul, a ship is generally quick to leave the company of so dangerous a neighbor as an iceberg. Sometimes great masses of ice take a notion to topple over, and, looking at the matter in what light you please, I think that they are not to ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton |
