"Zigzag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Michelangelo expected to find in the palace of the Pope. Later he came to know that life is unrest, and its passage at best a zigzag course, that only straightens to a direct line when viewed across the years. If a man does better work than his fellows he must pay the penalty. Personality ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... shaft was about six feet by nine. It was nearly perpendicular, and the slope of the ladders corresponded with its width—the head of each resting against one side of it, and the foot against the other, thus forming a zigzag of ladders ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... not certain. Then they stopped playing and talked, and their voices sounded goblin-like in their dark recess, where candles were carried about in an uncertain wavering manner, reminding Ruth of the flickering zigzag motion of ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... mainland another portion is built. We were now standing at the bottom of a chasm looking up two hundred feet or more to the castle walls, which were originally joined by a drawbridge. The castle was anciently called Dunchine, or the Fort of the Chasm. A zigzag path enabled us to gain the summit of the cliffs. The entrance to the castle was through a gateway, a ruined archway which still stands. Passing through it, we entered a court, called King Arthur's Garden, immediately beyond which rose a precipitous rock, crowned by a tower ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... sketching. Round the corner was the Siena gate, from which the road to England started, and she could hear the rumble of the diligence which was going down to catch the night train to Empoli. The next moment it was upon her, for the highroad came towards her a little before it began its long zigzag down the hill. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... Ghats are so called from their terraced ledges, rising one above another from the shores of the ocean like the stairs leading up from a pool. In achieving the ascent of these gigantic stairs all the expedients of road-makers have been resorted to: the zigzag, the trestle, the tunnel, the curve, have been pushed to their utmost applications; for five continuous miles on the Thull Ghat Incline there is a grade of one in thirty-seven, involving many trying curves, and on nineteen miles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... little timber dipped before he had jumped to the next and the next after. Behind him the logs, bobbing up and down, churned the water white. Jimmy moved rapidly across the enclosure on an irregular zigzag. The smaller logs he passed over as quickly as possible; on the larger he paused appreciably. Bobby was interested to see how he left behind him a wake of motion on what had possessed the appearance of rigid immobility. The little logs ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... column to its chief was soon put to the test. After advancing up that valley, girt on both sides with lofty mountains and scored with numerous gulleys, the force descried the Peiwar Kotal Pass at its head—a precipitous slope furrowed only in one place where a narrow zigzag path ran upwards through pines and giant boulders. A reconnaissance proved that the Afghans held the upper part in force; and for some time Roberts felt the gravest misgivings. Hiding these feelings, especially from his native troops, he spent a few days in reconnoitring ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept, And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... to be somewhat of a "handful" (St. Angelo I mean, not WEBB, who is very slight), and evinces a strong desire to run in any direction but the one desired of him! I think Mr. MILNER should have him trained on a zigzag method, when his natural wilfulness would cause him to run straight when racing! This is an excellent idea, and I have others equally good (applicable to all styles of horses), which I intend to suggest to different trainers on my next ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... fifty-five plain electric sewing machines and thirty-two special machines, as follows: three buttonhole, one two-needle, one binding, one zigzag, five hemstitching, five tucker, four Bonnaz, one braider, one hand embroidery, one ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... track. At every bunch of feathers the ghost stops to consider, "Is this the whole of my body or only a part of it?" The doubt gives him pause, and when at last he has made up his mind fully at all the bunches, and has further wasted valuable time by the zigzag course which he invariably pursues in going from one to another, the hunters are safe at home, and the bilked ghost may stalk in vain round about the village, which he is too ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... You must have the necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you must have the soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome them. There is upon this world only a narrow belt of land, circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of talent. In the Southern Hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. In the ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... boots, shoes, and all behind, and deposited us at the door of the uncle's villa, where a friendly hand welcomed us to its hospitalities. It was very prettily situated upon a cliff overlooking Massachusetts Bay, in which said cliff a zigzag stepway was cut down to the water, for the convenience of bathing. The grounds were nicely laid out and planted, and promised in time to be well wooded, if the ocean breeze driving upon them did not lay an embargo upon their growth, in the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... hard— Lightning broke forth out of the cloud, Zigzag and dart, cleaving their way Slantwise to ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... carriages crawled slowly up the zigzag road, climbing the long and steep hill, the occupants of both gazed at the towers of the Castle whenever they came in sight at a turn of the road, or at an opening in the mighty horse-chestnuts and beeches, but they spoke little about them. Those ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... recall here the fact that the room in which he received us was hung round with satin coverings, on which, as the only ornament, were the crown and cipher of Diaz' unfortunate predecessor, the Emperor Maximilian. Thence we went to California, and zigzag along the Pacific coast to Tacoma and Seattle; then through the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City meeting everywhere interesting men and things, until at Denver I left the party and went back to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... tell like the honour in which the smith was held their tale of industrial art. The curiously twisted glass goblets, so common in the early graves of Kent, are shewn by their form to be of English workmanship. It is only in the English pottery, hand-made, and marked with coarse zigzag patterns, that we find ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... a pipe." The October sunlight rested upon all these men and women sitting immobile; and little Johnnie Sturgeon took the chance to swing down the staircase, carrying his large mysterious parcel, and so dodging a zigzag course between the wheels he reached the pavement, started to whistle a tune and was soon out of sight—for ever. The omnibuses jerked on, and every single person felt relief at being a little nearer to his journey's end, though some cajoled themselves past the immediate ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... street otherwise than in shoes and stockings, with a well- powdered, curled wig, and his hat under his arm. He walked on rapidly, but with a singular sort of stagger; so that he was sometimes on one and sometimes on the other side of the way, and formed a complete zigzag as he went. The wags said that he made this irregular step to get out of the way of the departed souls, who might follow him in a straight line, and that he imitated those who are afraid of a crocodile. But all ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... descended the precipice, three hundred feet in depth, forming the wall of the old crater, but now thickly covered with vegetation. It is so steep in many places that flights of zigzag wooden steps have been inserted in the face of the cliff in some places, in order to render the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... proposed line of advance over the Nek, and was retreating westward towards the positions near the right bank of the Tugela, but no attempt was made to pursue him. The motto of Buller's Army was festina lente and its track towards Ladysmith was in zigzag. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... more sure than those of men would be. I have seen them put both their fore feet out together, and let them slip, then drag their hind feet up to them, and repeat this process on descending the vitrified, and almost perpendicular roads of Madeira, taking a zigzag direction across the road each time. Mules do the same, and perhaps derive the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... surprise in the streets of Maraucourt when the villagers saw the head of the firm seated beside a little girl wearing a hat of black straw and a black dress, who was gravely driving old Coco at a straight trot instead of the zigzag course that William forced the old animal to take in spite of herself. What was happening? Where was this little girl going? They questioned one another as they stood at the doors, for few people in the village knew of her and of ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... Mrs. Forrest meanwhile, though trembling for her husband's safety, was occupied in wetting blankets, and carrying them to the roof of the house, for the dry shingles would have been ignited by a spark. On our return, it was necessary to climb over some "snake" or zigzag fences about six feet high. These are fences peculiar to new countries, and though very cheap, requiring neither tools nor nails, have a peculiarly untidy appearance. It is not thought wise to buy a ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... both in liquids and in gases, is so minute as to be beyond the reach of the most powerful microscope. This free path in liquids is a zigzag course, owing to the perpetual collisions with other molecules. The molecular behavior of liquids differs from that of gases only in what is called surface tension. Liquids have a skin, a peculiar stress of the surface molecules; gases ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... of leaded glass Mistress Yordas and her widowed sister sat for an hour, without many words, watching the zigzag of shale and rock which formed their chief communication with the peopled world. They did not care to improve their access, or increase their traffic; not through cold morosity, or even proud indifference, but because they had been so brought up, and so confirmed ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of roysterers who are leaving the inn. The inn-door is slammed with a crash. The lights in the windows go out. A distant barking of dogs is heard and a loud, confused crowing of cocks. On the path from the inn to the house a dark figure becomes visible which reels in zigzag lines toward the farmyard. It is FARMER KRAUSE, who, as always, has been the last to leave ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... It was a zigzag course, and the way was strewn with the flotsam and jetsam of wrecked parties and blighted hopes, but out of the wreckage John Quincy Adams always appeared, calm, poised and serene. When he opposed the purchase of Louisiana it looks as if ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... swinging in the swell—climbing the steep sides of the big waves, riding the crests, slipping downhill, tipped to an angle, and lying flat in the trough of the seas. In respect to their distribution they were like stones in a brook: it was a zigzag course—the intervals varied. Leaping from stone to stone to cross a brook, using his arms to maintain a balance, a man can not pause; and his difficulty increases as he leaps—he grows more and more confused, and finds it all the ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... have done so if the great streaks of lightning which now and then shot zigzag through the sky had taken the shape of words and bid us all beware. I was not one to be daunted, and knew no other course than that of advance when once a stroke of justice had been planned, and the direction for its fulfilment marked out. I went on, but I began ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... some scores of steps from the landing-stage. Patient "Moses," the hotel luggage-carrier, awaits the prospective guests at the pier. This handsome brown donkey is quite a character, and mounts gaily his own private zigzag path leading to the hotel when heavily laden. His dejection, however, when returning with empty panniers, is accounted for by the circumstance of "No load, no carrot!" at the end ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... an old quarter of Florence, in that picturesque zigzag which goes round the grand church of Or San Michele, and which is almost more Venetian than Tuscan in its mingling of color, charm, stateliness, popular confusion, and architectural majesty. The tall old houses are weather-beaten into the most delicious hues; the pavement is enchantingly encumbered ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... sometimes set a stiff beard upon a face without expression, or arranged the hair of the head in an old-fashioned manner, and, while making the drapery fly out in a direction opposed to that of the figure, gave to it formal zigzag lines, which could only be proper if it were hanging down in quiet. At other times, while they gave to the human figure all the truth to which their art had then reached, they yet gave to the drapery these ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... address took me to Brooklyn Bridge and down a strange, dark thoroughfare running toward the East River. Above was the great bridge, unreal, fairy-like in the morning mist. I was looking for Rose Street, which proved to be a zigzag alley that wriggled through one of the great bridge arches into a world of book-binderies. Rose Street was choked with moving carts loaded with yellow-back literature done up in bales. The superintendent proved to be a civil young man. He did not need me before Monday, ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willing or unwilling dupes,—it might have seemed wonderful how Herr Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or Councillor, and Counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could this particular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag figure; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessant fluctuation,—you traced rather confusion worse confounded; at most, Timidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was "the very Spirit of Love embodied:" blue earnest ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... tenth or eleventh round we hit her in the upper works, as was shown by a bright red and yellow flash near her funnel. This did not check her firing or speed in the least, in fact she seemed to be gaining on us. She also began to zigzag slightly and throw smoke bombs overboard, which were not so effective from her point of view as I had ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... well. The Frieslanders are stiff in their motions; they throw their bodies forward, and hold themselves very straight, looking as though they were starched, and keeping their eyes fixed on the goal. The Dutch skate with a zigzag movement, swaying from left to right and from right to left with an undulating motion of the body. The Frieslander is an arrow, the Dutchman ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the steep zigzag pathway leading down to the river, he could not help gazing again and again at the buildings that so ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... ago I was walking along the edge of the green mound on which the Montmartre telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the zigzag paths which wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my attention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance to a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... brook; the hill beyond it was covered towards the top with a wood, apparently of oak, between which and the ravine were small green fields. Both sides of the ravine were fringed with trees, chiefly ash. I descended the road which was zigzag and steep, and at last arrived at the bottom of the valley, where there was a small hamlet. On the further side of the valley to the east was a steep hill on which were a few houses—at the foot of the hill was a brook crossed by an antique bridge of a single ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... however, instances of such, as in the church of St. Mary, at Leicester, where is a fine Norman triple sedile, divided into graduating seats by double cylindrical piers with sculptured capitals, and the recessed arches they support are enriched on the face with a profusion of the zigzag moulding. In the south wall of the choir of Broadwater Church, Sussex, is a stone bench beneath a large semicircular Norman arch, the face of which is enriched with the chevron or zigzag moulding. In Avington ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... I am afraid, that more of the house is coming down. Look at this great zigzag crack in the wall!—and how loose the plaster hangs in that part of the ceiling! I really think,—I am quite sure, we ought not to stay ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... by projecting ridges running down from the lower branches to the ground; in color and smoothness resembling the beech; lower branches often much declined, upper going out at various angles, often zigzag but keeping the same general direction; head wide, close, flat-topped to ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... indicated by broken lines in Fig. 42, have probably been excavated along a series of transverse fractures running from north-west to south-east; while fractures which are parallel to the line of strike may be responsible for the zigzag ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... moving-picture. He will enable us to follow the flying words in a talk from Boston to Denver. We will flash first to Worcester, cross the Hudson on the high bridge at Poughkeepsie, swing southwest through a dozen coal towns to the outskirts of Philadelphia, leap across the Susquehanna, zigzag up and down the Alleghenies into the murk of Pittsburg, cross the Ohio at Wheeling, glance past Columbus and Indianapolis, over the Wabash at Terre Haute, into St. Louis by the Eads bridge, through Kansas City, across the Missouri, along the corn-fields of Kansas, and then on—on—on ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... more times than once on the prairies. We were both pretty confident we could run sixteen miles in two hours. But we dared not run straight. We knew that if they found we were keeping a line, they would let the dog go their best pace and gallop alongside; so we had to zigzag, sometimes going almost back upon our own track. We did not do this so often as we should have done if we had ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... and steep, formed a pleasant change to the monotony of the rugged plain. Up this 'berg' our ponies wound their way zigzag between the rough boulders of rock which strewed the path. At the top we met several men with their train of ponies, waiting for us to pass them, the path being only wide enough for single file. Here we waited to give the ponies breath, and admired ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... steered this way and that, sometimes backed, and then sent forward again. After about an hour of this zigzag work Mr. Gibbs ordered ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... with Voltaire, who, to save the honor of his countrymen, as positively denies it. After evening service, the king went out as usual to visit the trenches. He was attended by two French engineers, Megret and Siquier. A heavy fire was kept up by the enemy. Near the head of the boyau, or zigzag, he kneeled down, and, leaning against the parapet, looked toward the fortress. As he remained motionless for a long time, some one approached and found him perfectly dead, a ball having entered his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... enough to cast its lurid reflections on the vacant-staring wrecks of windows and of walls, gaping like the shattered skulls of a civilization which was no more. To the nostrils of the man and woman up floated an acrid, pitchy smell. And birds, dislodged from sleep, began to zigzag about, aimlessly, with frightened cries. One even dashed against the building, close at hand; and fell, a fluttering, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the male and female, being continually to be seen in each other's company. While they search for their food in pools of water along the coast, they nearly always bear each other company, swimming in zigzag, so that every now and then they brush past each other. If one of them is shot, the other flies away only for a short time until it observes that its mate is left behind. It then flies back, swims with ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... precipice drives back from the bed of the river over the mountain spurs, the pathfinder takes his bearings from countless signs. Moss is on the north side of tree-trunks. A steep slope compels a zigzag, corkscrew ascent, but the slope of the ground guides the climber as to the way to go; for slope means valley; and in valleys are streams; and in the stream is the 'float,' which is to the prospector the one shining signal to be followed. ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... faster, striking on and over one another; now they turned to drops; she stopped thinking, absorbed in watching a drop roll down the glass—pause, lurch forward, touch another drop; then a third; then zigzag rapidly down the pane. She found herself following the racing drops with fascinated eyes; she even speculated as to which would reach the bottom first; she had a sense of luxury in being able, in the fortress of her berth, to think of such things ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... excess occurs in sickness as well as in health, and all the more because its determination is so difficult and the evil effects so indisputable. The dividing line in medicine, even between use and abuse, is so zigzag and invisible that common mortals, in groping for it, generally stumble beyond it, and the delicate perception of medical art too often ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... I stood upon the famous zigzag bridge, which is only a single plank with a railing on one side, made of a long, slender sapling. And now, how lovely the scene was that I looked upon! The sun came in dimples and ripples of light through the trees, and the waterfall, with its ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... make the long ascent of Pendhu Cliff three hundred and fifty feet high, from the brow of which it descended between banks of fern past St. Tugdual's Church to the sands of Church Cove, whence it emerged to climb in a steep zigzag the next headland, beyond which it turned inland again to Lanyon and rejoined the main road to Rose Head. The church itself had no architectural distinction; but the solitary position, the churchyard walls ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... century, when Clintonian and Bucktail, gradually absorbing the Federalists, severed the old Republican party into warring factions. In later years, Daniel S. Dickinson spoke of "the tangled web of New York politics"; and Horace Greeley complained of "the zigzag, wavering lines and uncouth political designations which puzzled and wearied readers" from 1840 to 1860, when Democrats divided into Conservatives and Radicals, Hunkers and Barnburners, and Hards and Softs; and when Whigs were known as Conscience and Cotton, and Woollies and Silver Grays. More ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... only attempt at road-making in the province. It is bad enough, as all Turkish roads are, their engineers having not the slightest idea of levelling. They take the country as they find it, apparently thinking that a zigzag, no matter at what slope the angles may be, is the highest triumph of their art. Until our arrival at Blagai, six miles from Mostar, an escort was deemed necessary, though it was really of not the slightest use, since ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... tracks, the strangeness of freezing and the mystery of melting. And they recurred now because for days past I had idly watched scattered flurries of lemon-yellow and of orange butterflies drift past Kartabo. Down the two great Guiana rivers they came, steadily progressing, yet never hurrying; with zigzag flickering flight they barely cleared the trees and shrubs, and then skimmed the surface, vanishing when ripples caught the light, redoubled by reflection when the water lay quiet and polished. For month after month ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... Pop was tired. He decided to rest in the barren field, at its very edge in shade of the woods. He climbed the zigzag fence with some labour and at the expense of a few of his cherries. He sat down upon a little knob of earth, took off his hat, drew a red handkerchief from the inside thereof, and ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... citizens' cemetery and incorporated two years ago, and is now the finest burying place in this section of Pennsylvania. It is situated on the summit of Kernville hill, between six hundred and seven hundred feet above the town. It is approached by a zigzag roadway about one mile and a half in length, and a magnificent view of the valley is obtained from the grounds, making it well worth a visit under any circumstances. Here those whose relatives did ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... slantwise across the window panes, and one watches, absently, the curious behaviour of the drops. They hang bulging and pendulous, in one spot for some seconds. Then, as they swell, suddenly they break loose and zigzag swiftly down the pane, following the slippery pathway that previous drops have made. It is like a little puzzle game where you manoeuvre a weighted capsule among pegs toward a narrow opening. "Pigs in clover," they ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... thus briefly described entails a certain amount of attention on the part of the workmen in the altering of the valves or dampers to reverse the currents. The regenerator now adopted consists of an arrangement of six zigzag flues, three on each side of the setting. These flues run the whole length of the setting. As indicated by the arrows pointing downward in Fig. 3, the waste gases on their way to the chimney stack pass to and fro through the side flues, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... under adequate protection of destroyers and cruisers. At night towing-disks are dropped astern. These are white and enable the rearward vessels to keep their distance with relation to those steaming ahead. The destroyers circle in and about the convoyed craft, which, in the meantime, are describing zigzag courses in order that submarines may not be able to calculate their gun or torpedo fire with any degree ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... attempt to rescue him, they reluctantly, and with ill-suppressed shame and concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then they made a last attempt in his favour, and voted for respiting the execution. These zigzag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with public affairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having attempted to save ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which, there is a kind of proud CURL or overlapping, down to Langensalza in Gotha Country, which greedy Broglio has likewise grasped at! Broglio's friends say he himself knew the faultiness of this zigzag form, but had been overruled. Ferdinand certainly knows it, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... ces veines ont la forme d'un sigma ou d'une M couchee M, ce sont les grandes jambes du sigma, qui ont la direction des couches. Enfin, j'observai plusieurs couches, qui dans le milieu de leur epaisseur paroissoient remplies de ces veines en zigzag, tandis qu'aupres de leurs bords, on les voyoit ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... very zigzag," said Faith, "that I cannot follow it. How are you going to be philosophical, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... size, enabling it to run upon the surface of the aquatic vegetation, as if it were solid ground. It was in the month of January, their breeding season, and at every turn of the boat we started them up in pairs. Their flat, open nests generally contained five flesh-colored eggs, streaked in zigzag with dark brown lines. The other waders were a snow-white heron, another ash-colored, smaller species, and a large white stork. The ash-colored herons were always in pairs, the white one always single, standing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... recognized and correctly described by him. When he was asked to point out either of the figures, he never moved his hand directly and decidedly, but always as if feeling, and with the greatest caution; he pointed them out, however, correctly. A zigzag and a spiral line, both drawn on a sheet of paper, he observed to be different, but could not describe them otherwise than by imitating their forms with his finger in the air. He said he had no idea of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... of the triangle were made up of long lines of blockhouses, strung on a chain of barbed-wire fencing. The blockhouses were of loop-holed stone or iron with iron roofs, and they were separated from each other by only a few hundred yards. The barbed-wire chain which strung together these zigzag lines was five strands wide, and it was edged with a five-foot trench and now and then with an additional length of stone wall. Beyond the fences were the railroad lines, and up and down over the tracks armored trains carrying search-lights were running to and fro, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... from the rivulet towards the forest, was subdivided in inclosures, by numberless fences, constructed in the rude but substantial manner of the country. Rails, in which lightness and economy of wood had been but little consulted, lying in zigzag lines, like the approaches which the besieger makes in his cautious advance to the hostile fortress, were piled on each other, until barriers seven or eight feet in height, were interposed to the inroads of vicious cattle. In one spot, a large square vacancy had been cut into the forest, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... master, and there was comfort in the very miserableness of the cornstalks with their disheveled blades hanging like tattered banners and rattling discordantly in the rising wind. Wandering without purpose, Ralph followed the rows of stalks first one way and then the other in a zigzag line, turning a right angle every minute or two. At last he came out in a woods mostly of beech, and he pleased his melancholy fancy by kicking the dry and silky leaves before him in billows, while the soughing of the wind through the long, vibrant boughs ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... He followed his guide mechanically as they made their way, in zigzag fashion, down the precipitous slopes and over slippery plateaus; and when at last he came in sight of the mighty arch, the long cavern, and the glimmer of sea and shore that could be seen through it, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... direction of Vauxhall-bridge. 'That's right—now pull all on you!' shouts Dando again, adding, in an under-tone, to somebody by him, 'Blowed if hever I see sich a set of muffs!' and away jogs the boat in a zigzag direction, every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time; and the yard is once more clear, until the arrival of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and an immature one above each nipple. On the lower part of the upper arm was a tatu of an edible root, in Penihing called rayong. Over the back of his right hand, toward the knuckles, he had a zigzag mark representing the excrescences of the durian fruit. In regard to the presence of spirits, number of souls, blians, disease, and its cure, restrictions for pregnant women, the child's cradle—the ideas of the Bukats are identical with those of ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Quin good-humoredly allowed himself to be conducted in a zigzag course to the imposing doorway of a large apartment-house ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... ocean on one side and on the other the great water; the ruined chapel with its broken chancel and broken cross, and, near at hand, the place of tombs with its bones of ancient mighty men; athwart all shines the moon, and over all the chill wind with flakes of foam sings shrilly. Zigzag paths lead around jutting points of rock down to the shining levels of the lake, where the ripple washes softly in the reeds, the wild water laps the crags, and many-knotted water-flags whistle stiff and dry. Frozen hills, barren chasms with icy caves, the bare black ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... the knoll, back of the Warrenton road. The two wanderers, breathless, with torn uniforms, swollen faces, halt, gasping, to take their bearings. They can see the turnpike far beyond the stone bridge half-way to Centreville: they see crowds fleeing in zigzag lines over the open fields, see horses plunging wildly, laden down by two and even three men on their backs; they see vehicles overturned at the roadside, whence the horses have been cut or killed by the rebel shells; they see an army, in every sense a mob, swarming behind ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... sangars and streamed down the reverse slope of the hill. They could not face the men who had passed that terrible passage. Forming at the bend of the perpendicular rock, they waited till they had recovered their breath, and then proceeded up the zigzag path leading to ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... being completed, zigzag excavations are made toward the front to cover the passage of men who proceed to dig the second parallel. Meanwhile the batteries have commenced to play, and riflemen have been advanced in trenches at convenient ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the article on the anvil while the other applied the point of the shank of a file—previously rounded—and struck the file with a hammer. The other figures were made with the sharpened point of a file, pushed forward with a zigzag motion of the hand. When the chasing was done the silver was blanched by the process before referred to, being occasionally taken from the boiling solution of almogen to be rubbed with ashes and sand. For about five hours both of the smiths worked together ...
— Navajo Silversmiths • Washington Matthews
... night, the thunder roared, the lightning, darting forth from the dark sky, flashed ever and anon, in a zigzag course, from side to side of the cliffs around the bay, and the howling wind threatened frequently to tear off the sail and carry it away. Still the weary seamen slept, although Harry and young Bass did not for a ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... containing the alphabet, both large and small, the names and dates of birth of both her parents, a harp and willow-tree, the twigs whereof were represented by parallel rows of "herring-bone" stitch, a sharp zigzag spray of rose-buds, and the following stanza, placed directly underneath the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... Eleanor waits on the verandah, with widely-opened eyes, staring along the zigzag path by which Carol rode away. She remembers he turned back to look at her three times, kissing his hand twice. What can have detained him? Surely he knows how nervous ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... National Collection is "The Valentine's Gift, or a Plan to enable children of all sizes and denomination to behave with honour, integrity, and humanity, very necessary to a trading nation: to which is added some account of Old Zigzag, and of the Horn with which he used to understand the language of birds, beasts, fishes and insects," etc., "Printed for Francis Power, (grandson to the late Mr. J. Newbery) and Co., No. 65, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1790, price sixpence, bound in gilt dutch ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... sunshine of morning overhung by not less beautiful shades. We were quite glad to get to this sort of mountain scenery again, which we had so enjoyed at Grasmere, and leave smooth, bare, pyramidal Skiddaw and its "ancient" fellows behind. We at last ascended the steep zigzag which begins Sty Head Pass, confirming our resolution now and then by admiring the plodding industry of our mountain horses. It was indeed pleasant when the last gate was opened and we were safe within the wall of rough stones which headed ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... on amid the gorse and heather till they came to a broad-spreading oak tree, sheltering a farmhouse built in frames of heavy timber, filled up with bricks set in zigzag patterns, with a high-pitched roof and tall chimneys. Barns and stacks were near it, and fields reclaimed from the heath were waving with corn just tinged with the gold of harvest. Three or four cows, of the tawny hue that looked so home-like to the brothers, were being released from the stack-yard ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Dale pursued a zigzag course over the ridges to escape the hardest climbing, but the "senacas"—those parklike meadows so named by Mexican sheep-herders—were as round and level as if they had been made by man in beautiful contrast ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the fort after its capture, I was struck by its strength and extent. It occupied the base of a bluff near the water's edge. On the summit of the bluff there were breast-works running in a zigzag course for five or six miles, and inclosing a large area. The works along the river were very strong, and could easily hold ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... writes: "Our library contains the usual school reference-books. Recently we have added quite a number of books especially adapted to interest and instruct children, such as The Boy Travellers, Miss Yonge's Histories, Butterworth's Zigzag Journeys, Forbes's Fairy Geography, etc. The children are not permitted to take these books away from the building. Pupils are invited to bring such additional facts in geography, or history, as they may obtain by reading. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... after-assistance of a neighbour of somewhat more genial construction,—inasmuch as it at all events stood upright, and did not lean over the opposite way of ladders in general,—the top rung landed him on a little platform, whence a rope and some foot-holes in the rock, and finally a zigzag ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... foliage I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill, appeared Mowbray Langdon. "What is he doing here," thought I, scarcely able to believe my eyes. "Here of all places!" And then I forgot the strangeness of his being at Dawn Hill in the strangeness ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... aspect does the Missouri appeal to the imagination. From Three Forks to its mouth—a distance of three thousand miles—this zigzag watercourse is haunted with great memories. Perhaps never before in the history of the world has a river been the thoroughfare of a movement so tremendously epic in its human appeal, so vastly significant in its relation to the development ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... well as what she can, when the proper men are there and circumstances suit her. She is helpless in a calm. She needs a tow in crowded modern harbours or canals. She can only work against the wind in a laborious zigzag, and a very bad gale generally puts her considerably off her course. But, on the other hand, she could beat all her best records under perfect modern conditions of canvas, scientific metal hull, and crew; and the historic records she actually has ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... lightning, zigzag, through the crowd In search of him—he was not there. Ah, God! I breathed. He was not there! I inly cursed My unbelief, and turned me round to go. There was a sudden murmur near the door, And I beheld ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Jupiter. "Adds a lot to the science of the game. A straight putt is easy, but the zigzag is no ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... top of the road, through the gap was seen Down a zigzag road cut up by rills, The velvet valley cradled between Dark double ridges of 'elm' clad hills; And just beyond, on the sunniest slope, With its windows aglint in the sunset warm, In the spot where he first knew life and hope, Was the dear ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... a very charming design of the Annunciation, and, on the under, another of the Crucifixion, each measuring 7-3/4 by 5-3/4 inches. In both cases the ground is worked with fine gold threads 'couched' in a zigzag pattern, the rest of the work being very finely executed in split-stitch by the use of which apparently continuous lines can be made, each successive stitch beginning a little within that immediately preceding it—the effect in some places being that of a very fine chain-stitch. ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... would that you would have yielded to my prayer; but as you will not, I have no choice." And he took his hand from under the cloak that wrapped him, and held something out; then there came a great roaring out of the pit, and a zigzag flame flickered in the dark. Then in a moment the tall man and the shadow were gone; Anthony could not see whither they went, and he would have thanked the stranger; but the other put his finger to his lip as though ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in zigzag line, And draws along her silken twine, Too soft for touch, for sight too fine, Nicely cementing: And makes her polished drapery shine, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... along the same line. Afterwards other irregular ellipses or ovals are successively described, with their longer [page 2] axes directed to different points of the compass. Whilst describing such figures, the apex often travels in a zigzag line, or makes small subordinate loops or triangles. In the case of leaves the ellipses ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... surface of the glacier. Effort after effort failed. The day was waning. At length a narrow "chimney" was found, more promising than the rest; and by painful and dangerous degrees, wearied, sore and half-frozen as they were, the two slowly worked a zigzag way upward ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... London would be needed to display the wild and zigzag course of one day's journey undertaken by an uncle and his nephew; or, to speak more truly, of a nephew and his uncle. For the nephew, a schoolboy on a holiday, was in theory the god in the car, or in the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... Yet I remember no cold caused by this rude baptism. My mother remained several days with us, and as the weather was fine she accompanied us to the neighbouring heights—the Kirschberg, to which, after the peaceful cemetery of the institute was left behind, a zigzag path led; the Kohn, at whose foot rose the Upper House; and the Steiger, from whose base flowed the Schaalbach, and whose summit afforded a view of a great portion of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the town by a dusty highway, with the remains of little trees which one Europeanizing mayor planted, and which all died; or else by zigzag paths, up which saddle-animals and ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... soft over the wide, sloping upland lay the snow, marked across with the zigzag gray lines of the fences, and spotted here and there with little clumps of woods or patches of bushy pasture. The sky above was white as the earth below, being mantled with snow-laden cloud not yet ready to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... pushing through the ice rather tiresome. An opening of twenty or thirty yards would be found here and there, then a close pack that had to be opened by pushing the smaller bergs aside with poles. I enjoyed the labor, however, for the fine lessons I got, and in an hour or two we found zigzag lanes of water, through which we paddled with but little interruption, and had leisure to study the wonderful variety of forms the bergs presented as we glided past them. The largest we saw did not greatly exceed two hundred feet in length, or twenty-five or thirty feet in height above ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... conviction into fact so nakedly, so coolly, made all the desert and the sky swim before him in kaleidoscopic patches of blue and gray, shot with zigzag flashes. He half reeled in the saddle; his hands gripped the pommel to hold himself in place. It was as if a long strain of nervous tension had come to an end with a crack. Prather's smile took a turn of deeper ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the females, and generally have longer and slenderer tails; but he knows of no other difference in external structure. In regard to colour, be can almost always distinguish the male from the female, by his more strongly- pronounced tints; thus the black zigzag band on the back of the male English viper is more distinctly defined than in the female. The difference is much plainer in the rattle-snakes of N. America, the male of which, as the keeper in the Zoological Gardens shewed me, can at once be distinguished from the female ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... covered their retreat by getting in front of the smock-frocks and charging them suddenly enough to throw their chase into confusion. "What do you confounded fools mean?" shouted Fred, pursuing the divided group in a zigzag, and cutting right and left with his whip. "I'll swear to every one of you before the magistrate. You've knocked the lad down and killed him, for what I know. You'll every one of you be hanged at the next assizes, if you don't mind," said Fred, who afterwards ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to push behind, the rickshaws had brought them up a zigzag hill to a cautious wooden gateway half open in a close ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... phenomenon more truthfully than can be done by a line that zigzags along the exact measurements; because it is less influenced by temporary and extraordinary causes that may obscure the operation of those that are being investigated. On the other hand, the abrupt deviations of a punctilious zigzag may have their own logical value, as will appear in the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... once Magdalen had peeped round the screen, and had seen the old sailor unsteadily keeping his watch, and fancying himself once more at his duty on board ship. "This is an uncommonly lively vessel in a sea-way," he used to mutter under his breath, when his legs took him down the passage in zigzag directions, or left him for the moment studying the "Pints of the Compass" on his own system, with his back against the wall. "A nasty night, mind you," he would maunder on, taking another turn. "As dark as your pocket, and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... which was no longer an impassable barrier to the people of the State. Now the train toiled over a stile-like way connecting east and west, and Noonoon and Kangaroo, divided by a mile and the river, nestled immediately at the foot of the zigzag climb. ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the little mother was wonderful. In spite of the unrest of her life, of continual struggles, and work over the nest, she frequently indulged in marvelous aerial evolutions, dashing into the air and marking it off into zigzag lines and angles, as if either she did not know her own mind for two seconds at a time, or was forced to take this way to work off surplus vitality. During all this time I was hoping to see her mate. But if he appeared at all, as several times a ruby-throated ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... of procedure. Some closed the entrance with wax, leaving only a narrow opening through which the great robber could not penetrate. Others built up before the opening a series of parallel walls, leaving between them a zigzag corridor through which the Hymenoptera themselves were able to enter. But the intruder was much too long to perform this exercise successfully. Man utilises defences of this kind; it is thus at the entrance of a field, for example, he places a turnstile, or parallel bars ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... a quarter of a mile away, Hans Mueller was still in sight, skirting the base of a sharp incline. Through the trembling heat waves he seemed a mere moving dark spot; like an ant or a spider on its zigzag journey. The grass at the base of the rise was rank and heavy, reaching almost to the waist of the moving figure. Rowland watched it all absently, meditatively; as he would have watched the movement of a coyote ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... should be consigned to the waste-basket; yet her eye caught the words in large head-lines as she picked it up idly, "Miss Geraldine Loring's Wedding to Be an Elaborate Affair." There was nothing more readable. The paper was torn in a zigzag line just beneath. Yet that was enough. It reminded her of ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... Baptist and S. Edmund the King (13) until it became the chancel of the parish church of S. Peter the Great, the north transept being used as its nave. Part of the vaulting in it is unlike any other in the building, having the chevron or zigzag ornament cut on the side of the mouldings of the ribs ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... She knew he couldn't but be looking at it. For how, by all that was marvelous, had she for a moment doubted it? Down to its very heart, which was near to black, it was clear fire, and outward toward the facets struck flaming hyacinth hues with zigzag white cross-lights that dazzled and mesmerized. Just the look of it—the marvelous deep well of its ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... of the other salt, nor that she intended to do it, but, all of a sudden, a big tear, oh, as big as the end of your thumb, if you are a little, little girl, ran zigzag across her cheek down to her chin, and, before she could wipe it off, a sudden, sharp sob took her unawares and, plump, right into the pastry, went this big fat tear. Of course, if you are even a little girl you must know that it is as useless to hunt for tears in pie-crust as it is to ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep, Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square, The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air, The revelation of the star-strewn deep, World above world, and heaven over heaven. Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light, High ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Communist leaders have often practiced the tactics of retreat and zigzag. We know that Soviet and Chinese communism still poses a serious threat to the free world. And in the Middle East recent Soviet moves are hardly compatible with the reduction of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the honour of yielding precedence, Chichikov succeeded in making his way (in zigzag fashion) to the dining-room, where they found awaiting them a couple of youngsters. These were Manilov's sons, and boys of the age which admits of their presence at table, but necessitates the continued use ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the east, and spread out, and out, as it sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gradually covered the whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp, and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet. Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and smiling under the unclouded noon—day sun. This continued for half an hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us brightened into a sea of white fleecy ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... whence its bell may be heard at a distance by the mariner at night. It is said to have given the name to the port of Havre-de-Grace, which lies directly opposite, on the other side of the Seine. The road up to the chapel went in a zigzag course, along the brow of the steep coast; it was shaded by trees, from between which I had beautiful peeps at the ancient towers of Honfleur below, the varied scenery of the opposite shore, the white buildings of Havre in the distance, and the wide sea beyond. The road ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... of awaiting his onslaught, tacked towards him and actually cut through the Dutch line. Tromp countered by tacking also, in order to keep his windward position, and this maneuver was repeated three times by Tromp and Monk, and the two great fleets sailed in great zigzag courses down the Dutch coast a distance of forty miles, with bitter fighting going on at close range between the two lines. Early in the action the renowned Tromp was killed, but his flag was kept ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... tatued in the Kayan manner; the figures on the phalanges are known as TEGULUN,[74] representations of human figures or as SILONG, faces, and they are evidently anthropomorphic derivatives. The triangles on the carpal knuckles are termed SONG IRANG, shoots of bamboo, and the zigzag lines ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... little village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan—we make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him meant progress. Success is a question of temperament—it is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... on the line, Each wing envelop and each front confine. O'er all sage Washington his arm extends, Points every movement, every work defends, Bids closer quarters, bloodier strokes proceed, New batteries blaze and heavier squadrons bleed. Line within line fresh parallels enclose; Here runs a zigzag, there a mantlet grows, Round the pent foe approaching breastworks rise, And bombs, like meteors, vault the flaming skies. Night, with her hovering wings, asserts in vain The shades, the silence of her rightful reign; High roars her canopy ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... we must. We are high above the inhabited world, up in cloudland; there is nothing to do but descend as best we can; so we trust to our good driver and steady horses, obliged to follow the sharply-winding road at walking pace. And bit by bit—how we don't know—the horizontal zigzag is accomplished. We are ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... while the right hand is released to take up the baren (fig. 21). Beginning at the left, the baren is rubbed backwards and forwards, a full stroke each time, to the outside limits of the block, with a moderate, even pressure, moving the stroke in a zigzag towards the right end of the block (fig. 22). Once over should be enough. A second rub makes heavy printing of the finer lines. Then the paper is lifted from the block and placed on the ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... it Hibbert never knew; this fear of death somehow called out his whole available reserve force. He rose slowly, balanced a moment, then, taking the angle of an immense zigzag, started down the awful slopes like an arrow from a bow. And automatically the splendid muscles of the practised ski-er and athlete saved and guided him, for he was hardly conscious of controlling either speed ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... a narrow depression in the ridge, commanded on each side by high pine-clad mountains. The approach to it from the Kuram valley was up a steep, narrow, zigzag path, commanded throughout its entire length from the adjacent heights, and difficult to ascend on account of the extreme roughness of the road, which was covered with large fragments of rocks and boulders. Every point ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... breakfast, Maltese boatmen in scarlet caps and sashes, who stood up while handling their oars, rowed us to the shore. Their brightly painted boats had peculiar carved wooden posts erected at prow and stern and white awnings overhead. Walking up a sloping, zigzag pathway, constructed in a passage cut down through the high cliffs, we ascended from the busy docks to the heights above. At the summit a Maltese gentleman kindly directed us on our way to the Queen's Garden located ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... speaks into a phonograph," he said, half to himself, "its modulations received on the diaphragm are written by a needle point upon the surface of a cylinder or disk in a series of fine waving or zigzag lines of infinitely varying depth or breadth. Dr. Marage and others have been able to distinguish vocal sounds by the naked eye on phonograph records. Mr. Edison has studied them with the microscope in his world-wide ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and true as the singing of angels. The Devil and his minions, with one long, baffled, infuriated howl, shot upward into space. Simultaneously a great wind came roaring down the valley, uprooting trees, shaking the sturdy mission. Thunder detonated, lightning cut its zigzag way through black clouds like moving mountains; hail rattled to the earth; water fell as from an overturned ocean. And through all the bells pealed ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Bat was an odd chap. When he was still he liked to hang by his feet, upside down. And when he was flying he sailed about in a zigzag, helter-skelter fashion. He went in so many different directions, turning this way and that, one could never tell where he was going. One might say that his life was just one continual dodge—when he wasn't resting with his heels where ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... ascent, very similar to the first, till we reached a higher level of the same stream. I expected that we were going to continue along it; but instead of doing so Kanimapo led us by a zigzag path till we gained a broad terrace, from whence we could look down into the valley and over the summits of numerous heights beyond. Still the air, though pure and bracing from its dryness, caused no sensation of cold. High as we were, too, there were several ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... George is careful to keep on the right side of it. At the Conference his conduct appeared to careful observers to be traced mainly by outside influences, and as these were various and changing the result was a zigzag. One day he would lay down a certain proposition as a dogma not to be modified, and before the week was out he would advance the contrary proposition and maintain that with equal warmth and doubtless with equal conviction. Guided by no sound knowledge and ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... across. Taking care to avoid mingling with the excited groups and, at the same time, keeping as far from the torches burning in the courtyard as possible, they passed through the gate—which was standing open without a guard—and followed the zigzag road, with towers placed at its corners, each mounting two guns so as ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... crowded on the spreading branches, the rays generally white like big balls of snow. The aster salicifolius has a slender stem much branched above, long and narrow leaves, with violet, violet-purple or rarely white rays, and aster prenanthoides or crooked stem aster, may be told by its zigzag stem, its oblong, saw-toothed leaves and its violet rays. Two other beautiful species found hereabouts are the aster azureus, which blooms from August until after frost, with a slender but stiff and roughish stem, and many bright violet-blue flowers with ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... on the trail, climbing high up above the lake, making for the pass over the range. He walked, leading his horses up a zigzag trail that bore the tracks of recent travelers. Although this country was sparsely settled, yet there were men always riding from camp to camp or from one valley town to another. Wade never tarried on ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... far up in the sky, the doves make wild, uncertain flights above the steeples, and the hoarse trumpet of the steamer again calls for recognition. At the west another bright line falls, zigzag, to a distant hill, revealed an instant, then lost in the shadow of the cloud. Soon there is a low, momentary rumble, and you are assured that the swift, delightful, dangerous shower, that cools the earth without interrupting our pleasures for dreary days, is approaching. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... whimsically to the three horses stringing behind him, Dick Kincaid picked his way down the zigzag, sidling trail which led from the saddleback between two peaks of the Bitter Root Mountains into the valley which still lay far ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart |
