"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cautiously, and stepped with catlike tread into the room. Then he looked about the room. Hanging on nails were several garments belonging to the inmates of the room. Jim selected a pair of pants which he knew belonged to Hector, and hurrying forward, thrust the wallet into one of the side pockets. ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... nor Wingate spoke a word until the door was finally closed after the unwelcome caller and they heard his heavy tread retreating down the hall. Then she sank back upon the couch and motioned him to sit ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his tread was slow; a somnambulistic gleam appeared in his eye. Yet he was very much awake; he had never felt more keenly alert. ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve, mere engines of the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another in this general frame; Just ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... the sleeping dead Spring up to active life again: And in the busy pathway tread, Mingling ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... showed that Yerba must have sent for him and told him of Don Caesar's threats; would he be wild enough to attempt to strangle the man in some remote room or in the darkness of the passage? He stepped softly into the hall: he could still hear the double tread of the two men: they had reached the staircase—they were DESCENDING! He heard the drowsy accents of the night porter and the swinging of the ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... a minute at the window in the empty parlor, watching their departing bulk, and then went into the hall, where the tread of many invading feet had left the moist autumn soil, with bits of grass and now and then ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... your old rival, it is your tall and angular sister, it is the black city of London, who takes your glittering sword and transforms it into a policeman's baton of wood! You are destined to see within your walls—if any walls remain to you—your own wives and daughters clog their dainty tread with encumbrances of English leather, flatten their heads beneath mushroom-shaped hats, surround themselves with crinoline and flounces, and wear magenta, that abominable mixture of red and blue which always filled your soul with horror. Then, to increase the resemblance of your Parisian ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... brown eyes and hair; Midnight was dark, with eyes and hair as black as charcoal; while Sunrise had hair golden as the sun, and eyes blue as morning sky. And all three were as strong as any of the strong men and mighty bogatirs who have shaken this land of Russia with their tread. ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... bushes of twiggy willow that looked like tamarisk from a distance. The sun was now hot, and the ground was again all astir with lizards. Looking upon the path just in front of me, I brought myself to a sudden stop. Had I advanced a step or two more I could hardly have failed to tread upon a serpent that lay dozing in the sun just in my way. I was glad that I did not do so, for I recognised it, by its olive skin with reddish patches, as the dreaded aspic, or red viper. There it lay stretched out its full length, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... presenting a prospect frightful to the eyes of humanity, yet once the nurse of science, of arts, of heroes, and of freeman—a country which although at present apparently self devoted to destruction, we fondly hope may yet tread back the steps of infamy and ruin, and once more rise conspicuous among the free nations of the earth. In this advanced period of your life, when nature demands the sweets of tranquility, you have been constrained to encounter ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... attract to themselves the attention of the guard when he went the rounds. As it was especially necessary, on this occasion, to know certainly when the night-guard approached, small bits of coal had been sprinkled, just before the hour for locking up on the floor of the first range, so that (tread as lightly as he would), the slinking cur could not ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave as any of them.—My own bride! Oh, how I adore you! When you are gone, I could fall upon the grass you tread upon, and kiss it. My breast feels empty of my heart—Lucy! if we lived in those days, I should have been a knight, and have won honour and glory for you. Oh! one can do nothing now. My ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... or, worse still, ungodly children, have desecrated everything. The old-time guests pass it with a sigh. The hill, the brook are there, but the aged horse looks in vain for the welcome open gate and watering place, and, drooping his head, walks slowly by in sadness. Ministers and church people tread that yard no more. The very ground seems backslidden. Sabbaths have fled. Prayers and praises are no longer echoed. That light is put out, and "how great is ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... a hundred yards or so of the Widewood house and the other was not much farther away, the rider coming up from the southward stopped, heard the tread of the horse approaching in front, and in hasty trepidation turned his own animal a few steps aside in the forest. He would have made them more but for the tell-tale crackle of dead branches strewed underfoot by the March winds. He sat for a long time very ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Till under their bite and their tread The swedes, and the wheat, and the barley, Lay cankered, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... no time to think, whilst the soul in her eyes first frowned and then laughed in glee, she turned and crossed the few yards covered by the sand which for centuries blown hither and hither had been waiting to make a carpet for her lovely feet to tread when Allah in his graciousness should show her the path, which would lead ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... government not to be neglected; and Richard was even accused of using unwarrantable methods for procuring to his partisans a seat in that house. This practice formed one considerable article of charge against him in his deposition; yet Henry scrupled not to tread in his footsteps, and to encourage the same abuses in elections. Laws were enacted against such undue influence; and even a sheriff was punished for an iniquitous return which he had made:[**] but laws were commonly at that time very ill executed; and the liberties of the people, such as they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... the lithe, adaptable movement of his body; and every step was drawing him nearer to a meeting which would be like no other between them. Soon he would be crunching the glass of the house under that confident tread; in the ecstasy of a new part he would be before the opening he had broken in the barrier with the jauntiness of one who expected admission. His pulse-beat under the touch of her fingers at the precipice edge, his artery-beat in the arroyo, was hammering in her temples, hammering out a decision ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... with stooping shoulders, hooked nose and velvet tread, stood before the card rack in the lower corridor of the old studio building on Tenth Street. He was scanning the names, beginning at the top floor and going down to the basement. ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... any fellow-creatures I had ever encountered before. The old man was tall and spare, and from his snowy-white majestic beard I took him to be about seventy years old; but he was straight as an arrow, and his free movements and elastic tread were those of a much younger man. His head was adorned with a dark red skull-cap, and he wore a robe covering the whole body and reaching to the ankles, of a deep yellow or rhubarb color; but his long wide sleeves under his robe were dark red, embroidered with yellow flowers. The other men ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... yawned. Yes, it was certainly a rough path, but his mind was made up to tread it with a good heart, and this being the case, he was not likely ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... who from zone to zone Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, 15 Will ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... the least necessary expense when they come to age. Nay, it looks as if the jealousy of seeing them appear in and enjoy the world when we are about to leave it, rendered us more niggardly and stingy towards them; it vexes us that they tread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go out; if this were to be feared, since the order of things will have it so that they cannot, to speak the truth, be nor live, but at the expense of our being and life, we should never meddle with being ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the sliding ground when a bush caught at his feet and yanked them from under him with a crackling of branches, and the bottom tread of a flight of stairs swung at his head like a gigantic club. Among the sudden splintering of branches and snapping of vines was a crunching ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, For all the bloomy flush of life ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... would behold him coming from afar and keep well out of his way, while he, poor creature, would never be able to spot them at all among the white snow-fields. He would starve for want of prey, at the very time when the white fox, his neighbour, was stealing unperceived with stealthy tread upon the hares and ptarmigans. In this way, from generation to generation of arctic animals, the blacker or browner have been constantly weeded out, and the greyer and whiter have been constantly encouraged, till now all arctic animals ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... regiments, who voted overwhelmingly to fight. A Committee of five soldiers was elected to serve as General Staff, and in the small hours of the morning the regiments left their barracks in full battle array.... Going home I saw them pass, swinging along with the regular tread of veterans, bayonets in perfect alignment, through the deserted ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... did the value of the hull of the St. Patrick lately lost, which I told him I could not presently answer; though I might have easily furnished myself to answer all those questions. They stood a good while to see the ganders and geese tread one another in the water, the goose being all the while kept for a great while: quite under water, which was new to me, but they did make mighty sport of it, saying (as the King did often) "Now you shall see a marriage, between ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... seat serene, and virtue's self approves:- Here come the grieved, a change of thought to find; The curious here to feed a craving mind; Here the devout their peaceful temple choose; And here the poet meets his favouring Muse. With awe, around these silent walks I tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead:- "The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply; "These are the tombs of such as cannot die!" Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime, "And laugh ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... heart is staggered, but it is only for a moment." He struck his hand upon his breast, and walked slowly from the room. And Crawley heard his step descend to the hall, and then to the cellar; and the indomitable character of the man rang in his solid tread. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... evidence of his own eyes. The thing was too utterly absurd—yet Gordon was positive that the strong oak floor of the dancing space was visibly swaying and creaking beneath the stranger's mincing tread! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... in love with her. "He? Who?" Why, the newcomer, the Counsellor. Did I not see his eyes turn toward her as the silvery notes rippled from her throat? Did they not follow her in her movements, as she turned her tread this or that way? ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... how fairly dost thou go Over those hoary crests, divinely led! Art thou that huntress of the silver bow Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, Where hunters never climbed—secure from dread? Ode ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... eyes were upon them, and all faces blank. After all, he was the King and she his wife. And then upon the silence, ominous as the very steps of doom, came a ponderous, clanking tread from the ante-room beyond. Again the curtains were thrust aside, and the Countess of Argyll uttered a gasp of sudden fear at the grim spectre she beheld there. It was a figure armed as for a tourney, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... nor to nature; they placed before the ardent Celtic fancy an Irish glory and grandeur entirely different from the reality. Nor had he in any degree caught the bardic spirit. His lyre was attuned to reach the ear rather than the heart; his scenes are in enchanted lands; his dramatis personae tread theatrical boards; his thunder is a melo-dramatic roll; his lightning is pyrotechny; his tears are either hypocritical or maudlin; and his laughter is the perfection of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... followed the swift movements of his deft fingers. There was no hesitation. There was no fumbling. There was the sure indication of accurate knowledge, the obvious self-confidence of experience in everything he did. Even to her untutored eyes the doctor seemed to be walking with a very firm tread. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... picture—this story of the French soldier. It has little in it of the grandeur, the beat of drums, the sound of martial music, which is supposed to accompany war. The tread of marching feet has died away, the excitement is gone, and man the demon is supplanted by man the everyday human creature of suffering ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... is lying hoary In the distance, gray and dead; There no wreaths of godless glory To his mist-like tresses wed, And the foot-fall of the Ages Reigns supreme, with noiseless tread."' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... hot, and all the while Night was stalking westward on the summits of the trees with stealthy tread. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... casting a half-contemptuous, half-pitiful look at Amelia. "I have no wish to marry. Truly, I have not seen many happy examples of wedded life in our family. All my sisters are unhappy, and I see no reason why I should tread the same thorny path." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the sea, nothing so patient. On its broad back it bears, like a good-natured elephant, the tiny mannikins which tread the earth; and in its vast cool depths it has place for all mortal woes. It is not true that the sea is faithless, for it has never promised anything; without claim, without obligation, free, pure, and genuine beats the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... overcome—overcome, however, only in order, as it were, to explain and justify their more habitual sway. All the poetry in it is reached through the endeavour to find speaking symbols for a love that cannot be told. The poet is a high priest, entering with awed steps the sanctuary which even he cannot tread without desecration save after divesting himself of all that is habitual and of routine,—even the habits of his genius and the routine of his art. Unable to divest himself of his poetry altogether, for he has no other art, he lays aside ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... in any way; it seemed to cost him an effort even to agree with Marian's censure. Yes, she thought, as she stood looking at the print of S. Margaret, Walter might pass by the dragon, nay, fight his own battle with it, but he would never tread it manfully under, so that it might not rise to hurt others. He might mourn for the sins around him, but would he ever correct them? Marian thought if she was a man, a man almost twenty, destined to be a clergyman, she ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... admire Virtue who follow not her lore. Permit me To hear thee when I come (since no man comes), And talk at least, though I despair to attain. Thy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure, Suffers the hypocrite or atheous priest To tread his sacred courts, and minister About his altar, handling holy things, Praying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice 490 To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet Inspired: disdain not such access to me." To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:— "Thy coming hither, ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... with these thoughts, he heard talking on his stairs, accompanied by a strange lumbering tread. These came nearer; and at last stopped just outside his door, which opened in another ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... dazzling glories of the bannered trees. Another year, with all its light, and joy, and beauty, slowly waned away, and had itself decently entombed beneath the thick, soft bed of yellow leaves, with nothing to disturb it but the rabbit's tread, or forest cries, or hoof-strokes of the deer. That year had added life and beauty to the face and form of Redbud, making her a woman-child—before she was but a child; and the fine light now in her tender eyes, was a light of thought and mind, the mature radiance of opening intellect, instead ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... her chief intention is the writing "of a sort of novel-poem," and one "as completely modern as 'Geraldine's Courtship,' running into the midst of our conventions, and rushing into drawing-rooms and the like 'where angels fear to tread'; and so meeting face to face and without mask the Humanity of the age, and speaking the truth, as I conceive of it, out plainly." She is waiting for a story; she will not take one, because she likes to make her own. Here is without doubt the first ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... spy two hosts of fighting men, The blue coats and the red. For mile on mile in rank and file They come with even tread. ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... the dynamic force of his close-gripped jaw, the power of his quick, steady eye, the patience of his courage. The eyes of women followed him down the street, for there was some arresting quality in the firm, crisp tread that carried the lithe, smooth-muscled body. With the passage of years he had grown to a full measure of mental manhood. It was inevitable that when Washington County set itself to the task of combing the outlaws from the mesquite it should delegate ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... impulse put by Nature there? Where now the gentle maxims of the school, The cant of preachers, and the Golden Rule? What feeble word or doctrine now can stay The tribe whose fathers own'd Valhalla's sway? Too long restrain'd, the bloody tempest breaks, And Midgard 'neath the tread of warriors shakes. On to thy death, Berserker bold! And try In acts of Godlike bravery to die! Who cares to find the heaven of the priest, When only warriors can with Woden feast? The flesh of Sehrimnir, and the cup of mead, Are but for him who falls in martial ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... stationed over some convicts confined in caves nearly halfway up the mountain. At the expiration of my watch I went below, feeling not a little anxious for the day, that I might see more nearly, and perhaps tread upon, this romantic, I ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... he reached a point where his right eye got its line of sight, between the uprights of the gallery's balustrade, on the four live men and the inert, midway between the door out of sight beneath him, and the place where the broken tea-pot had spilt its contents in an ugly pool near the lowest tread of the stair. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by him thus; but as it was inevitable, she had braced herself up for his inspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite unemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness into her tread. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the cabin, where the two old people were made plainly visible by the lamp and the warm, ruddy glow of the fireplace. With silent tread he entered the peaceful abode, and drew a pistol on the old couple, who stood up speechless and horror stricken before him. He demanded the money, which he very well knew the old man had received, but neither the man nor his wife would inform him of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... rag-carpeted floor. Marg'et Ann sat still in her mother's chair, looking down at the stripes of the carpet,—dark blue and red and "hit or miss;" her mother had made them so patiently; it seemed as if patience were always under foot for heroism to tread upon. She fought with the ache in her throat a little. The stripes on the floor were beginning ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... and worthy known! Thou didst not keep Her soul in death. O keep not now, my Lord, Thy servants in far worse—in spiritual death And darkness—blacker than those feared shadows O' the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms, Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul, And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds With which the world hath pierc'd us thro' and thro'! Give us new flesh, new birth; Elect of heaven May we become, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the Rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. Under his slouch hat left and right, he glanced and the old ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... and another was cantering round, clad in a riding habit and gentleman's hat. The horse was black, and shone like satin; he pawed the ground with dainty, cat-like tread; the ring-master followed him as he went, and cracked his whip in encouraging fashion. Viva planted one foot on Pixie's toe, and jumped up and ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... room above had seemed long to her. Her ears had been expecting the sound of Beaumaroy's tread as he mounted the stairs, laden with his burden. That sound had not come; instead, there had been the soft, just audible, plop of the Sergeant's body as it dropped on the floor of the passage. It occurred to her that Beaumaroy had perhaps ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... repeated your experiments in relation to the collection of the mud, turf, sods, etc., and have known them to be carried many hundred miles off and identified. I have also found the little depressions caused by the tread of cattle affording a fine nidus for the plants. You have only to scrape the minutest point off with a needle or tooth pick to find an abundance by examination. I have not been able to explore many other sites, nor do ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... perhaps a chief, was very ill, or had died, in the other village. Finding some of the people going in that direction, I followed them. The path, however, was very difficult to walk in, as it was sunk a foot or so below the ground on either side, and was only broad enough for a man's foot to tread in; the Dyaks walk in a peculiar manner, by placing one foot directly before the other, without in the slightest degree turning out their toes. I found on my arrival at the village that my suspicions were correct. The chief was not dead, but very ill, and as I saw him lying on his mat ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... public opinion which credits the lower life with what we term rights. The most important result of this movement will be the creation of a sense of duty by this life. It is said of Mohammedans that they hesitate to tread upon a bit of paper lest it bear the name of God. We know now full well that every living creature in this world bears the stamp of a Providence which has acted from all time, and that we, so far as our own advancement will permit, are morally bound ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... idea of the lay of the land. Twice I looked down the steep sides of the mountain, sorely tempted to risk a plunge. Still I hesitated and kept along on the brink. As I stood on a rock deliberating, I heard a crackling of the brush, like the tread of some large game, on a plateau below me. Suspecting the truth of the case, I moved stealthily down, and found a herd of young cattle leisurely browsing. We had several times crossed their trail, and had seen that morning a level, grassy place on the top of the mountain, where they ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... too in hastier swell to show 350 Short glimpses of a breast of snow. What though no rule of courtly grace To measured mood had trained her pace,— A foot more light, a step more true, Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew; 355 E'en the slight harebell raised its head, Elastic from her airy tread. What though upon her speech there hung The accents of the mountain tongue— Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear, 360 The listener ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... time, neighbor Hedden himself was having but sorry sport in the forest. He saw nothing worth even pointing his gun at, and felt altogether so ill at ease and so fidgety as he trudged along, stepping now upon the soft moss, and now upon fallen branches that crackled even under the stealthy tread of his hunting moccasins, that I doubt whether half the bears hidden in the depths of the forest were not in a livelier mood than he. Not that he had anything to make him feel especially ill-humored, unless it was the disobedience of his children in having failed to appear ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... his lips he turned and strode from the chamber. But while the wooden stairway was still creaking under his tread, Queen Sigrid called after him in ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... the Erne shall run red With redundance of blood, The earth shall rock beneath our tread, And flame wrap hill and wood, And gun-peal and slogan-cry Make many a glen serene, Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die, My dark Rosaleen! ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... it, lads! Don't be down-hearted!" cried the captain. "Keep the boat above water a half hour longer, and we'll tread the soil of mother earth again! Well done, Peter! You handle a good oar! You're the youngest in the boat, but you've set an example for the others! There's good ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the ladders were covered with wet mud. And from one ladder we descend to another with the guide ever in advance, continually assuring us that there was no danger so long as we held firmly to the rounds and did not look at our feet, and that we must not for our lives tread on the side plank, where the buzzing barrel-rope runs, and where two weeks ago a careless man was knocked down, unfortunately breaking his neck by the fall. Far below is a confused rustling and humming, and we continually bump against beams and ropes which are in motion, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood And waves were white below. No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee; The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... western valley of that part of French Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, not only do we tread on historic ground, but we see in these days a landscape of more varied beauty than that which so delighted the gentlemen-adventurers of old France nearly three centuries ago. In this country, which the poem conceived by Longfellow amid the elms of Cambridge has made ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... Domine! what mean these knaves, To lead me thus with bills and glaves? O, what example would it be To all my pupils for to see, To tread their steps all after me, If for some fault I hanged be; Somewhat surely I shall mar, If you bring me to the bar. But peace; betake thee to thy wits, For ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... So they tread the lanes of the hill-side town. Just as on the previous night, they meet Arabs, Moors, Kabyles, Jews and negroes. The silence is like that of the tomb, and yet the interior of more than one house doubtless presents a spectacle gay enough to please any lover of light and color, of lovely ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... of the mountains seldom hurry on any mission. Their walk is a slow and foot-sure tread. When they come to the store, if only for a plug of tobacco, they remain with John Marion for a social hour or more. Their purchase is an incident, the last ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... not stir from his rooms that day; and had there been a Caleb's faithful ear to listen, his tread, too, might have been heard all that sleepless night passing to and fro, but pausing oft, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wood, but is without any ornament which could possibly be abstracted from it; without color, and without varnish, dimly lighted by small windows thickly overgrown with plants, and so low that it is impossible to stand upright. The guests tread the apartment with solemn measured steps, and, having been received by him according to the prescribed formulas, arrange themselves in a half-circle on both sides of him. All distinctions of rank are abolished. The ancient vessels are now removed with solemn ceremonies ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... toilet. When it was concluded, she took off her stays, and drew her chemise over her head, I doubt if it could have fallen over her enormous buttocks. She then walked across the room in my direction, stark naked as nature made her, and strikingly magnificent in the firmness of her tread, and the glorious uprightness of her truly superb grandeur of form. I was positively awestruck. I could imagine her to be Juno in all her glory before Jupiter, and well he might be tempted to stray to the forbidden path ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... faint sound, the light tread of little feet, was heard amidst the silence. Then a weak, childish voice ventured to inquire: ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... lavoirs, cheap fruit-shops and plebeian cremeries, its slimy cobblestones, its gutters running not with laughing waters, and sending up scents not of spicy isles ensphered by sun-illumined seas—was a rainbow arch over which she passed with airy tread toward the Krug studio. For had she not at last finished for ever the detestable photograph-coloring which had been a daily crucifixion of all her artistic feelings for years? Had she not at last reached the Enchanted Land for which she had labored and pined ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... more than four-score years and ten; and, withal, a sense of loneliness that appealed to my sympathy. Slightly stooped, and with his hands clasped behind him, he walked back and forth with slow and measured tread, that day when first we met. I can hardly say what particular motive impelled me to pause in my walk and engage him in conversation. He seemed pleased when I complimented him on the attractiveness of his bungalow, and on the well-tended vines and flowers clustering in profusion over its ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... lost in a rapt interest in his adventures. If with design, then my mission had been futile, and it was wisdom to retreat. If without design, I could not bring myself to the role of a prosecutor, and to argue was to tread on dangerous ground. I had done what I believed right. I had kept my promise. So I rose to go. I must have given Rufus Blight a strange look as I held out my hand. I was furious at him for his obtuseness or his cunning, and I must have shown it, for he returned my gaze ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... that hand is highest honor, Than its traces never yet Upon old memorial hatchments was A prouder blazon set; And the unborn generations, as they Tread our rocky strand, Shall tell with pride the story of Their ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... on th' eternal home, The Saviour left for you; Think on the Lord most holy, come To dwell with hearts untrue: So shall ye tread untired His pastoral ways, And in the darkness sing your carol ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... With heavy tread the skipper mounted the narrow ladder, and almost at once Penurot entered. Heideck, with a wave of his hand, invited him to sit down opposite and ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... be sufficient to bear up the soul in, at, and under the judgment of God! "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness." This text can be so fitly applied to none as the Pharisee, and to those that tread in the Pharisee's steps, and that are swallowed up with his conceits, and with the glory ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... like clockwork. Since Lady Maulevrier had been lying upstairs—the voice which had once ruled over the house muffled almost to dumbness—the monotony of life at Fellside had seemed all the more oppressive. The servants crept about with stealthier tread. Mary dared not touch either piano or billiard balls, and was naturally seized with a longing to touch both. The house had a darkened-look, as if the shadow of doom ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... by, and both were growing impatient, when the firm tread of "the Prince" was heard swiftly approaching. Quickly the lasso was drawn taut. Dick, not dreaming of the trap, came boldly along, tripped, and went sprawling to the ground. The next instant his enemies were on him, each with a ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... the clamor and tread of men of the town racing to the chase were wafted to them on the night wind, drawing nearer and nearer; Rake drew the reins tight in his ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... sport is Oriental. He believes his women-folk should not be too patent. Somewhere behind grilles or flower-ornamented fire escapes they await him. There, no doubt, they tread on rugs from Teheran and are diverted by the bulbul and play upon the dulcimer and feed upon sweetmeats. But away from his home the sport is an integer. He does not, as men of other races in Manhattan do, become the convoy in his unoccupied ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... Fenshire Volununteers, stood in front of the small piece of glass in the hatstand, and with a firm and experienced hand gave his new silk hat a slight tilt over the right eye. Then he took his cane and a new pair of gloves, and with a military but squeaky tread, passed out into the road. It was a glorious day in early autumn, and the soft English landscape was looking its best, but despite the fact that there was nothing more alarming in sight than a few cows on the hillside a mile away, the Major paused at his gate, and his face took on an appearance of ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... around him; time, to him, passed unheeded; the sun was fast sinking towards the western hills, and the wild beasts of the forest were again in motion. Mayall slowly awoke to consciousness, and, to his surprise and horror, he heard the tread of a panther walking about him, and covering him with leaves. Being perfectly acquainted with the habits of this animal, he knew that to move a hand or foot would cause his instant death, as the old panther was then preparing a feast for her young ones, ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... portion of the trap was overhung by bushes, which grew so thickly around the part which sank that the probability was small indeed that anyone would tread upon it. Julian saw, too, that under the handle was a bolt that, when fastened, would hold the trap firmly down. No doubt the man in his haste had forgotten to fasten it before he descended. Looking down, Julian saw a circular ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... paying no heed to the conventional ideas of other people, and is lacking in experience and knowledge of her own, she may be very well pleased with herself for her daring. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"—that is an old saying which suggests that ignorant people, defying the counsels of experience, were known to exist before now—only in the past they were called "fools," whereas to-day they prefer to be considered "exponents of advanced thought," with ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... of their clothes and started to tread for the mussels that lay concealed in the mud or sand ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... And Jeannot's Manon, she laugh, she say, 'Cross the sea after her, old witch! Who keeps thee?' Then—see, p'tit Jacques! see, Petie! I have not seen this wiz my eyes, no! but in my heart I have seen, I know! Then Mere Jeanne run at that woman, that devil; and she pull off her cap and tread it wiz her foot; and she pull out her hair,—never she had much, but since this day none!—and she scratch her face and tear the clothes—ah! Mere Jeanne is mild like a cherub till she is angry, but then— And that devil scream, scream, but no one come, no one care; they are ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... irrelevantly bringing up a knotty point in the character or action for her criticism. For these excursions Godolphin had equipped himself with a gray corduroy sack and knickerbockers, and a stick which he cut from the alder thicket; he wore russet shoes of ample tread, and very thick-ribbed stockings, which became ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... that it is dangerous ground to tread upon; yet I must refer the reader to what I have accomplished in this world, as proof that my philosophy is not ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... say so: I shall never be happy if I could not on my way back home tread on the dust of the road that led me away from my King. I would be deceiving myself if I were now to go in ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... familiar realities of school life thus brought low and lying in inglorious disorder at his feet. It gave him a feeling of triumph and had a fascination for him. Damp smelling books were here and there among the ruins, histories, arithmetics, algebras and grammars. He could tread upon these with his valiant heel. A huge roll call book (ah, how well he knew it even in the darkness) lay charred and soggy near the assembly-room piano. Junk heaps had always had a fascination for Pee-wee and had yielded up some of ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was tesselated with snow-white, and russet-hued marbles; and echoed to the tread, as if all the Paris catacombs were underneath. I started with misgivings at that hollow, boding sound, which seemed sighing with a subterraneous despair, through all the magnificent spectacle around me; mocking it, where ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... from others. A foot, for instance, I will allow it is natural should be clean. But if you take it as a foot, and as a thing which does not stand by itself, it will beseem it (if need be) to walk in the mud, to tread on thorns, and sometimes even to be cut off, for the benefit of the whole body; else it is no longer a foot. In some such way we should conceive of ourselves also. What art thou?—A man.—Looked at as standing by thyself and separate, it is natural ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... footsteps, and the blent sounds of the two were now distinctly audible—one a slow, listless tread, as of one loitering along, as if irresolute whether to turn back or proceed; the other a firm, rapid, and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... veneer had peeled and blistered under the hot sun of long afternoons, and the sudden surge of youth into his dry, middle-aged mind, was suffocating. Something not himself impelled him on up the half-flight from the landing, each step creaking under his heavy tread; drew him across the hall, laid his hand on the door of the secretary.... Yes; there they were: the green pasteboard box, the flannel book to hold the flies. He put out his hand stealthily and lifted the book;—rust ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the hall at Final are moved at the gentle tread of Fabrice and his little ward, and seem to bow to them as ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... favorite national tune of America, although it commenced with the British officers and Tories, in derision, in the year 1775. When that animating tune is struck up in our Theatres, it electrifies the pit and the upper galleries. When our soldiers are marching to that tune, they "tread the air." "With that tune," said general M——, the same gallant officer, who took nine pieces of cannon from the British, planted on an eminence, at the battle of Bridgewater—"with that tune these fellows would follow me into hell, and ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... to do. During our conversation we had not gone to the end of the path, and the Alpine-stock marked the place where we had stood. The blackish soil is kept forever soft by the incessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its tread upon it. Two lines of footmarks were clearly marked along the farther end of the path, both leading away from me. There were none returning. A few yards from the end the soil was all ploughed up into a patch of mud, and ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... forced the Governor of Virginia to pay for the powder which he had carried away from the colonial magazine. Then, too, there was a third variety of snake, the one that stretched itself across a colonial naval flag and proclaimed—from the top of the mast—"Don't tread on me." On another flag the rattlesnake appeared coiled in the roots of a pine tree and ready to strike. The Culpeper Minute Men of Virginia had a coiled snake on their flag. In the winter of 1775 there ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... that in a solemn assembly of so many nobles and warriors, of whom the greater part were the adherents of popery, an individual should be found insane enough to propose an act of positive infamy, which did not so much injure any religious party in particular, as rather tread under foot all respect for religion in general, and even all morality too, and which could have been conceived only in the mind of the vilest reprobate. Besides, this outrage was too sudden in its outbreak, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... He will come to every one of us at death. He will then raise our redeemed souls into the life of heavenly bliss; for he is the resurrection and the life of every one that loves him. It is the privilege of every one to enter into life through the narrow gate. But I cannot enter for you, nor tread the narrow way, nor obtain a crown of glory for you. This is your own individual choice, your own individual work—nay, it is the Lord's merciful, loving, gracious work in you, for without him you can do nothing. But when you believe ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... it after thou hast fulfilled thy desire to pray at thy Saviour's tomb, and to tread the holy soil His sacred Feet have trodden; but it must be ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... side street, faced by a large brick dwelling, there came with regular and unhurried tread a tall and dignified figure, crowned with a soft Panama, and tapping with official cane. As it approached the car the driver straightened a trifle ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... sainted dead! Dear as the blood ye gave; No impious footstep here shall tread The herbage of your grave; Nor shall your glory be forgot While Fame her record keeps, Or Honor points the hallowed spot Where Valor ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... along the side walls other figures silently emerged and grouped around the coffin. Raising it they turned it slowly around and carried it down the dim aisle in measured tread, moving ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Zelma, replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... boy would have contrived a different arrangement, with a belt and foot-tread like the one on our mother's sewing machine! But for those days the ancient wheel was ingenious. Many different kinds of Hebrew pottery are found in the excavations: large jars, small cups, lamps of all sizes and shapes and even ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... The turf and shrubbery meant to brighten the entourage, especially at the carriage concourse on the east front, we can hardly hope will fare so well. The defence of their native soil, to prevent its being rent from them by the heedless tread of millions and scattered abroad in the shape of dust, will demand the most untiring struggles of the guardian patriots ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... angels fear to tread, but you will walk alone, Will Blithers. I shall not be with you, and you may as well understand it now. I've told you a hundred times that money isn't everything, and it is as cheap as dirt when you put it alongside of tradition, honour, pride and loyalty. Those Graustarkians would take you by the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon |
