"Hitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each act be balanced with those which precede and come after, so that order of activity is achieved. Focusing and ordering are thus the two aspects of direction, one spatial, the other temporal. The first insures hitting the mark; the second keeps the balance required for further action. Obviously, it is not possible to separate them in practice as we have distinguished them in idea. Activity must be centered at a given time in such a way as to prepare for what ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... The forest woman's club descended on a lumberjack's head. "And ye, too!" she shrieked, hitting the other man across the bridge of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... rolled into one. All the rest of the room, a space some few yards square, was bare of furniture. In this space a small sweater-clad youth, with a head of light hair cropped very short, was darting about and ducking and hitting out with both hands at nothing, with such a serious, earnest expression on his face that Sheen could not help smiling. On a chair by one of the windows Mr Joe Bevan was sitting, with ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... are adversaries I know very well, nor do I care a straw that it is so. I am not palavering now with you because I want to get out of a difficulty, but simply because I want to send you back to the Kiaja with a sensible answer which I am quite sure you are incapable of hitting upon yourself. Well, I freely admit that I did kill Ali Kermesh, killed him single-handed. Nobody helped me to do the deed. And now I have thrown in my lot with the Janissaries, and here I stand where it has pleased Allah to place me, that I may ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... Fifty-eighth. Two bed-rooms. I want a place to put some of the boys when they drop around my way. And at least one servant's room. Also at least one large room where I can stir about and wave my arms without hitting the chandelier. Are you ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... from their saddles, and others, though wounded, managed to retain their seats. Bullets flew about Rosemary and Floyd, fortunately not hitting them, but coming ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... sociable Robin prefers a pine-tree to an apple-tree, if resolved to begin housekeeping prematurely. The movements of birds are chiefly timed by the advance of vegetation; and the thing most thoroughly surprising about them is not the general fact of the change of latitude, but their accuracy in hitting the precise locality. That the same Cat-Bird should find its way back, every spring, to almost the same branch of yonder larch-tree,—that is the thing astonishing to me. In England, a lame Redstart was observed in the same garden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... on Magdalis. Crooked Hans' jokes were apt to be as crooked as his temper and his poor limbs, and to give much dissatisfaction, hitting on just the sore points no ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... from her needlework; her hands were full with needle and stuff, and a couple of pins protruded from her lips. She glanced at her daughter, who stood by the window in the bright blaze of a brilliant sunset, listlessly hitting the blind-cord and ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... doorway. He got to his feet some way, Corrigan hanging to him, raining blows upon him, and he laughed aloud as, his vision clearing a little, he saw Corrigan's mouth, weak, open, drooling blood, and remembered that when Braman had tripped him Corrigan had hardly been in shape to do much effective hitting. He tottered away from Corrigan, taunting him, though afterwards he could not remember what his words were. Also, he heard Corrigan cursing him, though he could never remember his words, either. He tried to swing his left arm ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... don't," said I, making a hit at the truth, and, I think, hitting it in the bull's eye. ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... indent to the press, and thus turn book-makers, adding to the sin of criticism the sin of ignorance also; whose trade is a bad one, and who are bad workmen in the trade." Indeed there was a good deal of random hitting in the Enquiry, which was sure to provoke resentment. Why, for example, should he have gone out of his way to insult the highly respectable class of people who excel in mathematical studies? "This seems a science," he observes, "to ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... human face upon the vessel's prow, with fifteen thousand Samsons in one bent upon driving her back, and hitting her exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to advance an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and artery of her huge body swollen and bursting under this maltreatment, sworn to go on or die. Imagine the wind howling, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... stooped down, out of sight, and turned herself into a make-believe policeman, by putting on a hat, made out of black paper, with a golden star pasted on in front. George Watson had made that for her. Up popped Sue, the pretend policeman, to make Mr. Punch stop hitting ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... did lose the number of their mess, but fewer were killed than might have been supposed, for round shot and bullets fortunately have a happy knack of making their way between the heads of people without hitting them. ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... simple. These tanks are shocktroops. Theyll cut their way into the middle of the stuff. This will give us entranceways and a central operating point, besides hitting the grass where its strength is greatest. From there—" he paused impressively—"from there we'll throw everything in the book at it and a few that arent. All the stuff they used before we came. Only we'll use it efficiently. And everything ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... became so dark that neither the stars nor the moon could be seen. The mail cart had entered the forest. Prickly pine branches were continually hitting the student on his cap and a spider's web settled on his face. Wheels and hoofs knocked against huge roots, and the mail cart swayed from side to side as ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... remained standing before her, stupefied at his tardy and obscure discovery, confusedly hitting on the cause of his former jealousy and understanding it all very imperfectly, and at last lie said: "I believe you, for I feel at this moment that you are not lying, and before I ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... mother towards Mrs Maidan. So it had looked very well—the benevolent, wealthy couple of good people, acting as saviours to the poor, dark-eyed, dying young thing. And that attitude of Leonora's towards Mrs Maidan no doubt partly accounted for the smack in the face. She was hitting a naughty child who had been stealing chocolates at an inopportune moment. It was certainly an inopportune moment. For, with the opening of that blackmailing letter from that injured brother officer, all the old terrors had redescended upon Leonora. Her road ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... and my mode of life were in some degree changed. It is indescribable how providently Bendel continued to conceal my defect. He was everywhere before me and with me; foreseeing everything, hitting on contrivances, and, where unforeseen danger threatened, covering me quickly with his shadow, since he was taller and bulkier than I. Thus I ventured myself again among men, and began to play a part in the world. I was obliged, it is true, to assume many peculiarities and humors, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... found half the population of South Africa in the water in front of the biggest bathing-house I have ever seen. The handling of the surf-plank requires some care, for it is a short, heavy board, and in the back-wash is apt to fly back on the unwary, hitting them on their food-receptacle, and effectually (to use a schoolboy term) "bagging their wind." You walk out in the shoal water up to your shoulders, and as a big sea comes in, you throw yourself chest foremost on to your plank, and are then carried along on the top ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... nose were at once made to serve in hitting off an indescribable likeness to an orchis blossom, which was rapturously applauded, till Ethel, relaxing the strain and permitting herself to laugh triumphantly at her own achievement, said, 'There! I do pride myself on being of a high order of ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an oft-quoted passage, but can scarcely be quoted too often: "You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat: it sticks up a little, here towards the left—'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke? Well, there is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see: the evil ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... until Friday noon Bud went out to an old calf shed which he had discovered in the edge of the pasture, and gathered his neckerchief full of mushrooms. Bud hated mushrooms, but he carried them to the machine shed and waited until he was sure that Honey was in the sitting room playing the piano—and hitting what Bud called a blue note now and then—and that Lew was in the bunk-house with the other men, and Dave and old Pop were in Pop's shack. Then, and then only, Bud took long steps to the kitchen door, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Headquarters, and from discussions with his colleagues, he said that he thought that we were sitting right on top of a big keg full of loaded flying saucers. "Within the next few days," he told me, and I remember that he punctuated his slow, deliberate remarks by hitting the desk with his fist, "they're going to blow up and you're going to have the granddaddy of all UFO sightings. The sighting will occur in Washington or New York," he ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... praise which preceded the election induce a milder spirit. When the precentor led off, "Howl, ye Sinners, Howl! Let the Heathen Rage and Cry!" each man's look told that he knew well whom the psalmist was hitting at; and when the minister invoked the "blind, stubborn, and stony-hearted" to "depart from the midst," one-half of his hearers looked their astonishment that the other half did not immediately step out in the rain. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... she had edged through the crowd staring at the Vaterland, and got to where Anna-Felicitas stood listening abstractedly to the fireworks of American slang the young man was treating her to,—that terse, surprising, swift hitting-of-the-nail-on-the-head form of speech which she was hearing in such abundance for the ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... conduct in the hazing affair, outpacing the Chronicle by intimating, too plainly for courtesy, that the president's conduct toward Jones was characterized by duplicity, if not wanting in consistent adherence to veracity. "I had a hard time to keep from hitting him," said West afterwards, "but I knew that would be the worst thing I could possibly do." "Maybe so," sighed Mr. Fyne, apparently not with full conviction. Winter went too far in moving that the president's continuance in office was prejudicial ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... stomach near its lower border. Both holes were found to be perfectly closed by the stitches, but the tissue around each hole had become gangrenous. After passing through the stomach the bullet passed into the back walls of the abdomen, hitting and tearing the upper end of the kidney. This portion of the bullet track was also gangrenous, the gangrene involving the pancreas. The bullet has not yet been found. There was no sign of peritonitis ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... judged was midway between a pair of eyes that glowed, and wondering where his foresight might be. It struck him all at once that it was quite impossible to see the foresight—that he must actually touch what he would hit if he would be at all sure of hitting it. He remembered, too, in that instant—as a born soldier does remember things—that in the dark an attacking enemy is probably more frightened than his foe. His father had told it him when he was a little ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... more preposterous miracles. Sir Watkin Williams, at the last Welsh races, convinced the whole principality (by reading a letter that affirmed it), that the King was not within two miles of the battle of Dettingen. We are not good at hitting off anti-miracles, the only way of defending one's own religion. I have read -,in admirable story of the Duke of Buckingham, who, when James II. sent a priest to him to persuade him to turn Papist, and was plied by him with miracles, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... encountered George Von Wiedebach, and unhorsed him so handsomely that the discomfited cavalier's shoulder was dislocated. On the following day he tilted with Michael von Denstedt, and was again victorious, hitting his adversary full in the target, and "bearing him off over his horse's tail so neatly, that the knight came down, heels over ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... your letter to every Englishman in India, with its hard-hitting and its generous tone. Something within us responds to the note which you have struck. We are not representatives of any corporate body, but we think that millions of our countrymen in England, and not a few in India, feel as we do. The reading of your letter convinces ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... exertion requisite for a game of football into a hunt for food, they would have enough meat to last them for many days. It was, of course, utterly impossible to bring them round to my view of sports and games. With regard to the abandoned cricket, they delighted in hitting the ball and in catching it—oh! they were wonderfully expert at this—but as to running after the ball, this ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay. 'Throw it,' he replied, standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.' Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... she disappeared without taking a glance at the brute on the wet planks. Leith picked himself up, gripped a loose backstay with his left hand and swung himself toward me, striking out viciously with his free right hand when he came within hitting distance. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall together; some tie bones to their feet and under their heels, and, shoving themselves by a little picked staff, do slide as swiftly as a bird flieth in the air, or as an arrow out of a crossbow. Sometimes two run together with poles, and, hitting one another, either one or both do fall, not without hurt; some break their arms, some their legs; but youth desirous of glory in this sort exerciseth itself against the time of war." Lord Roberts and ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... old man!" Pentfield cried, slapping Hutchinson on the shoulder. "Whoever wins can be hitting the trail for God's country this ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... the hounds, whose furious onslaughts they witnessed. A bolt was launched against these four-footed guardians of the premises by the bearer of the crossbow, but the man proved but an indifferent marksman, for, instead of hitting the hound, he disabled one of his companions who was battling with him. Finding things in this state, and that neither Nowell nor Potts returned to their charge, while their followers were withdrawn from ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... unusual good fortune that nobody was struck. It was very rare that the guards fired into the prison without hitting at least one person. The Georgia Reserves, who formed our guards later in the season, were armed with an old gun called a Queen Anne musket, altered to percussion. It carried a bullet as big as a large marble, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... young Men, who have no great experience. At the first opening of the Book, he lights on a place in which Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against most of his Men, especially against another John Reed a Jamaica man. This was such stuff as he did not seek after: But hitting so pat on this subject, his curiosity led him to pry farther; and therefore while the Gunner was busie, he convey'd the Book away, to look over it at his leisure. The Gunner having dispatch'd his business, lock'd up the Cabbin-door, not missing the Book, and went ashore. Then John ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... has cut in on one of those animated Automobile Conversations, while the salaried Maniac from France is hitting up 42 miles an Hour, will tell you that the hind end of a Motor Vehicle is no good Trysting ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... pretend to say, but we do know that games were played in a similar manner. Here are some, enjoyed especially by the boys. One boy sat on the ground, and the others, forming themselves into a ring, ran round him, one of them hitting him as they went; if the boy in the centre could seize upon the one who struck him, the captive took his place. This did very well for the smaller boys, but the older ones had an arrangement a little in advance of it. The one in the centre was to move about with a pot on his head, holding it with ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... It's a Puddin' he's got Can only be settled by lifting his pot. Or by taking a stick, A stone or a brick, And hitting him hard on the head with it quick. If he yells, you hit fat, If he doesn't, well that Will prove it's a Puddin' ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... saying," Mme. Verdurin went on, "that he saw fit to utter some most venomous, and quite absurd insinuations against Brichot. Naturally, once he saw that Brichot was popular in this house, it was a way of hitting back at us, of spoiling our party. I know his sort, the dear, good friend of the family, who pulls you all to pieces on the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... were sent thither on purpose for me, that when I was told they were the charming Miss Berrys, I would not even go to the side of the chamber where they sat. But, as Fortune never throws anything at one's head without hitting one, I soon found out that the charming Berrys were precisely ce qu'il me fallait; and that though young enough to be my great-grand-daughters, lovely enough to turn the heads of all our youths, and sensible enough, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... we had a chance to bail. In fifteen minutes we made the three miles and a half mile more, to arrive at a heavy rapid, which we ran and in two miles reached another with fearful waves, which we also ran. In one Jones was overbalanced by his oar hitting the top of a big wave behind the boat and he was knocked out. He clung by his knees and hands, his back in the water, and the boat careened till I thought she would go over. We could not move to help him without upsetting ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... polygonum, being too anxious to defer our examination of the neighbourhood even a few hours. Nearly ten years had elapsed since Mr. Oxley pitched his tents under the smallest of the two hills into which Mount Harris is broken. There was no difficulty in hitting upon his position. The trenches that had been cut round the tents were still perfect, and the marks of the fire places distinguishable; while the trees in the neighbourhood had been felled, and round about them the staves of casks, and a few tent pegs were scattered. Mr. Oxley had selected ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... own capital city, came hither to study the fauna and flora of our district, and incidentally to take back with him a variety of stuffed specimens of our more conspicuous wild beasts for exhibition purposes. Entirely unaware of His Majesty's unerring aim in hitting large surfaces at short range, we welcomed him cordially to our midst, and rather unwisely presented him with the freedom of the jungle, a ceremony which carried with it the privilege of bagging anything he could hit with his slungshot, in season or out of it. The results of His Majesty's visit ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... very beautiful, for in that work he painted the Angel in the air, which had never been done up to that time. But a much more beautiful work is held to be that wherein he made the Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, on which he depicted many beggars, and one among them hitting another on the head with a pitcher; and not only that figure but all the others are wondrously beautiful, for he wrought them with much care and love, out of rivalry with Domenico. There is seen, also, in the middle of a square, an octagonal ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... canvassers, the pit of the stomach—it sets a strong spring in motion, and he fetches his right hand round with a swipe that'll knock them into the middle of next week. It's an awful hit. Griffo couldn't dodge it, and Slavin couldn't stand up against it. No fear of any man hitting ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... my hands on the skunk who threw that stone," declared one, "I'd show him a thing or two. The idea of hitting such a girl as that, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... large man the Honorable Jasper was usually able to handle his weight admirably; but now he clung to the door-knob until he could launch himself at a chair and be sure of hitting it. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... remember after that was their rush together upon me, and my hitting out two or three times—getting in one smasher on the mate's jaw that was a comfort to me—and then something hard cracking me on the head, and so stunning me that I knew nothing at all of what happened until I found myself coming up to the surface of the sea, sputtering salt-water ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... were with him got away, after hitting my brother with a footstool and hurting him quite badly. Here he is. Can I get a doctor ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... in trouble, too. You can hear his faint cries coming from underneath your bed. Determining, at all events, to sell your life dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out right and left with arms and legs, and yelling lustily the while, and at last something gives way, and you find your head in the fresh air. Two feet off, you dimly observe a half-dressed ruffian, waiting to kill you, and you are preparing for a life-and-death ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... The crack of Basil's rifle was heard; and the bear dropping upon all fours, danced over the ground shaking her head and snorting furiously. The light had deceived Basil; and instead of hitting her in the head as he had intended, his bullet glanced from her snout, doing her but little harm. Now, the snout of a bear is its most precious and tender organ, and a blow upon that will rouse even the most timid ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Beresford, 'that Lord Ripon has never read it, and I can't say that sort of thing; so I will resign, and you take in my resignation.' He confessed to Lord William that the world was not big enough for him, that there was 'no king or country big enough'; and then he added, hitting him on the shoulder, 'Yes, that is flesh, that is what I hate, and what makes me wish ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... counsel (who was a very stout man), in which words ran high on both sides, called him out. The other, however, objected. "You are so little," said he, "that I might fire at you a dozen times without hitting, whereas, the chance is that you may shoot me at the first fire."—"To convince you," cried Curran, "I don't wish to take any advantage, you shall chalk my size upon your body, and all hits out of the ring shall go ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... he said, and as he turned toward the children, he saw Jack throwing a stone. The stone flew past him, hitting his sister in the face. Fanny screamed, and the blood started from ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... respectively from Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon. Some of the men cried out and a number of the girls screamed; but, after all, no one was hurt, for the snow was soft and luckily the bob rolled to one side, not hitting anyone. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... the boys came to grief. Or, rather, Purt Sweet came to grief. He managed to catch a most famous crab, and went over on his back, hitting his head a resounding crack upon the handle of Lance's oar, and waving his long ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... sharpened sticks, which had been soaked in salt water, into his flesh. The maidens struck him with willows which left red welts on his white shoulders. The braves buried the blades of their tomahawks in the post as near as possible to his head without actually hitting him. ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... animals. To-day I had a dragon fly brought to me. I find I had seen several of these before but had mistaken them for locusts. The latter have much heavier bodies, but very similar wings. We have just had a visit from a huge beetle which we heard battering the tent, then it gradually got nearer, next hitting the tent pole and falling on the small table on which my candle flickers, the glare of which had attracted him. Kellas caught a moth and kept it for me. It was nothing much to look at, but it is the very first I have seen here. He also describes another moth he saw to-day as fluttering ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... extended him his usual generous hospitality. Barney had been well vouched for and had all the pass-words and countersigns of the great fraternity, but Walker mistrusted him. A week is the usual limit for a pilgrim's stay, and seeing how Sally and Barney were hitting it off the old man gave the chap a hint to move along. He didn't go, it seems, but hung round the neighborhood waiting for a chance to pull off the elopement in which you so kindly assisted even to the extent of bolting ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the next day, and we spent another evening with our soldiers. The captain, Elmas, tried a fine Manton gun belonging to my Friend, and hitting his mark every time was highly ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... test of truth—all that is very well"—here an unpleasant egg broke on Mr. Brooke's shoulder, as the echo said, "All that is very well;" then came a hail of eggs, chiefly aimed at the image, but occasionally hitting the original, as if by chance. There was a stream of new men pushing among the crowd; whistles, yells, bellowings, and fifes made all the greater hubbub because there was shouting and struggling to put them down. No ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... supply of provisions made it unnecessary to secure game now, and at this time of the year the skin would be of no value. The men sent a few rifle shots in his direction, though not with any thought of their hitting him. They had the effect of making him quicken his pace, however, and the trail took him up to the top of the hill where, as he went leisurely along, his big form clearly outlined against the sky, he proved too great a temptation. Suddenly the canoe ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... 'Who's cook?' Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut to give them light, and we all rushed out. But there was no one there. It was the nearest approach to ghost work that I have ever heard, and it must have been a dog which sleeps in that window. He must have shaken himself, hitting the window with his tail. Atkinson thought ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... aboard. They did not appear to be afraid, and what astonished us most was that they seemed ready to take charge of us. They made signs that we should go ashore, and one of them, who appeared to be a chief, attempted to drive Janstins into the sea by hitting him with a kind of hammer with a wooden handle, and at one end a black conch shell. Janstins laughingly disarmed his small antagonist, which seemed to surprise him as well as the others, and brought them ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... area midway between two street lights Honey Tone stopped. He stopped abruptly, like a golf ball hitting the north side of Gibraltar. He bounced back, absorbing his momentum in a twisting motion which left him squarely facing the oncoming pack. ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... to me at last so vile an epithet that, in the heat of the moment, I forgot that I had a sabre in my hand, and, hitting out straight from the shoulder, I landed him on the mouth with the guard of the weapon. This, of course, was flat mutiny, and before I knew where I was I was seized from behind, the sabre whirled in the air, and I was lying all abroad with a sprained wrist. Then I was solemnly marched to the ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... fatal apathy, and in rousing, in its stead, so furious a spirit of hostility, that the result announced itself in a sacrilegious shower of stones, which rained cruelly on the heads of the priestly host, wholly scattering it, and hitting the pope himself on the temples; who shortly died from the effects of the contusion. This catastrophe ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... the singer, must find out how, by a certain adjustment all along the line from the breathing center to the point of issue of the breath at the front of the mouth, he can easily maintain a constant hitting place, to serve as the hammer head; one singing place for carrying the voice steadily through a sustained passage; one place where, as it were, the tone is held in check so it will not break through itself and go to pieces,—a ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... saying everything without being clapt in the Bastile, in a country where it is forbidden to say anything." Wit must also have the quality of unexpectedness. "Sometimes," says Barrow, "an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, gives it being. Sometimes it rises only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange, sometimes from a crafty wresting of obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... away tons of ammunition without hitting anything," said one of the American officers to me. "They didn't know how to use wind-gauges or elevation-sights. They couldn't even pull a ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... be quick as a fish with the hands, and have great strength in the arms of you. And you must have toes to grip, and thighs to brace you against the heeling timbers. But to be walking somewhere for long, hitting the road with your feet like you'd be hitting a wall with your head, it's unnatural to a sailing man. A half ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... there is no porosity in tempered steel, still, the black velvet casing of the handle might have absorbed a considerable amount of Schreiberian bacteria, bacilli, or whatever it is that physiologists assert to be so nasty and so ubiquitous, and so set on finding out our weak places and hitting us there, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... the crier called out some taunting thing in every street, and pointed at him with his stick. The boys threw stones at him, and even persons of more mature age derided him in every possible manner. If he showed himself in pain from any of the stones hitting him, and crouched up, or if he evaded any of the stones by the bars of his prison, every one burst out into an immoderate fit of laughter. Tired of their ill treatment, he cowered on the ground, turning his face downwards, and putting his hands over his head, to guard ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... he iterated, dealing such another blow to the shorter man, which sent him right athwart his prostrate comrade. And then, turning to me, he remarked with perfect coolness, "That, master, I call smart hitting." "Honest lad," whispered one of the women immediately after, "it will be a reugh time wi' us here the nicht: you had just better be stepping your ways." I had already begun to think so without prompting; and so, taking my leave of the gipsies, I failed being, as ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... and we broke through. Crook right flanked the enemy and won the day. In the counter attack two other Crows were on the ridge with me fighting. I raised my coup stick to strike a Sioux and he shot me, hitting my horse and we fell together. I found that I was badly wounded and could not stand up. I raised up as far as I could and fired three shots at the Sioux. There ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... had been growing greater all the time. About this time the people began jumping from the stern. I thought of jumping myself, but was afraid of being stunned on hitting the water. Three times I made up my mind to jump out and slide down the davit ropes and try to make the boats that were lying off from the ship, but each time Long got hold of me and told me to wait a while. He then sat down and I stood up waiting ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... school again, united by a common cause, with all the excitement of a conspiracy on foot that has a master for its victim; though, to confess the truth, the master in our case has generally the best of it, as he has a perfect talent for hitting on one's sore point. Then, too, we know to a nicety when the dear old man is in a particularly vicious mood, which is usually at dinner-time, and we keep looking at each other through every course, wondering on whose devoted head the shell of his ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... that looked on and made pride painful and necessary. One afternoon, after twenty minutes of desperate efforts to annihilate each other according to set rules that did not permit kicking, striking below the belt, nor hitting when one was down, Cheese- Face, panting for breath and reeling, offered to call it quits. And Martin, head on arms, thrilled at the picture he caught of himself, at that moment in the afternoon of long ago, when he reeled and panted ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... challenge which he had received from Mr Gore. The chief supposed it was to try who could send the arrow farthest; Mr Gore, who best could hit a mark; and as Mr Gore did not value himself upon shooting to a great distance, nor the chief upon hitting a mark, there was no trial of skill between them. Tubourai Tamaide, however, to shew us what he could do, drew his bow, and sent an arrow, none of which are feathered, two hundred and seventy-four yards, which is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... calibre, but a satisfactory level was evenly maintained throughout the cast. There were no conspicuous deflections from the adequate standard. The character of whom I have the most distinct recollection was Enobarbus, the level-headed and straight-hitting critic of the action—a comparatively subordinate part, which was filled by one of the most distinguished actors of the Viennese stage. He fitted his part with ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... violets there now," Anne told Marilla, "but Diana says there are millions of them in spring. Oh, Marilla, can't you just imagine you see them? It actually takes away my breath. I named it Violet Vale. Diana says she never saw the beat of me for hitting on fancy names for places. It's nice to be clever at something, isn't it? But Diana named the Birch Path. She wanted to, so I let her; but I'm sure I could have found something more poetical than plain Birch Path. Anybody can ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... starter. If I could perfect some means of stopping a machine in mid-flight, just long enough to drop a hundred pounds of destruction overboard with a ninety per cent chance of hitting the mark, I had it. Well, I got it. The Skyrocket is the first aeroplane that can stop dead still—or was. I showed my model to the proper government officials, but even after I had cut my way through endless red tape I found only a cold ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... following Ongyatasse,—of course, he said afterward that he would have gone to the bottom with him rather than turn back, but I doubt if he could have stopped himself,—and the next thing I knew the Painted Turtle boy was hitting me in the nose for stopping him, and Kills Quickly, who had not seen what was happening, had crashed into us from behind. We lay all sprawled in a heap while the others hugged the banks, afraid to add their weight ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... without violence wins, if it wins, not so much by touching the conscience of the masters as by exciting the sympathy of disinterested onlookers. The spectacle of men suffering for a principle and not hitting back is a moving one. It obliges the power holders to condescend to explain, to justify themselves. The weak get a change of venue from the will of the stronger to the court of public opinion, perhaps ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... aid to airports, hospitals, highways, and our declining mass transit systems—and secured new weapons to combat organized crime, racketeering, and youth delinquency, assisted by the coordinated and hard-hitting efforts of our investigative services: the FBI, the Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Narcotics, and many others. We shall need further anti-crime, mass transit, and transportation legislation—and new tools to fight air pollution. And with ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Two-cornered cat was played by four boys: two to bat, and two behind the batters to catch and pitch. Three-cornered cat was, I believe, the game which has since grown into base-ball, and was even then sometimes called so. But soak-about was the favorite game at school, and it simply consisted of hitting any other boy you could with the ball when you could get it. Foot-ball was always played with a bladder, and it came in season with the cold weather when the putting up of beef began; the business ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... with shame and remorse, but with rage and all that sort of thing. He dropped off to sleep full of half-formed plans for asserting himself. He was awakened from a dream in which he was batting against Firby-Smith's bowling, and hitting it into space every time, by a slight sound. He opened his eyes, and saw a dark figure silhouetted against the light of the window. He sat up ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... Look how much more of him there is than there is of you. Why, you'd be sure to hit him the first shot, while he has not one chance in a hundred of hitting you. He has been chuckling over the way your long legs will look when you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... no other of his plays, there is in Shakspere's 'Hamlet'—the drama richest in philosophy—a perfect wealth of life. Argument is pitted against argument; every turn of a phrase is a missile, sharp, and hitting the mark. In not a few cases, the aim and object is no longer recognisable. Here and there we believe we shall be able to shed the light of day upon some dark passages ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... started on their return. All day they tramped across the moorlands, avoiding all villages and scattered farmhouses. They had, they knew, three-quarters of an hour's start, and as their pursuers would be alike ignorant whence they came or whither they were going, the chances of their hitting the ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... throwing the javelin, of which the first consisted in leaping a certain length, and the other in hitting a mark with a javelin at a certain distance, contributed to the forming of a soldier, by making him nimble and active in battle, and expert in flinging ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... out how this should be done, Colin started off at a run, and picking up a killing club that lay handy, he sped down the village street, hitting a resounding 'whack' on every door as he passed. As he came back, up the other side of the street, the natives were streaming out of their houses and Colin told them all to go to the agent, whereupon those who understood English started ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... wildest consternation the entire party at the table, including even Lewis, who stood transfixed in the act of drawing a bottle of soda-water, and, letting the cork escape him in his amazement, brought affairs to an unlooked-for climax by hitting Miss Wentworth, who had been looking on with interest without taking any part in the proceedings. When the fright caused by this unintentional shot had subsided, Miss Leonora was found to have entirely ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... revelers, who, having at length reached home, cannot tell by what route they got there. Jean de Muris reproved them in turn, saying: "You throw tones by chance, like boys throwing stones, scarcely one in a hundred hitting the mark, and instead of giving pleasure you cause anger and ill-humor." Machaut was born in Rethel, a province in Champagne, in 1284. He was still living in 1369. He was a poet and musician who occupied ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... which he held to his injured face twitched as if the fingers were trying to clench themselves and form a fist for their owner's defence; but the boy did not stir, only sat looking at his cousin, who now struck an attitude, made two or three feints, and then dashed forward hitting out sharply, catching Tom in the chest, and knocking him backward so heavily that it was his crown now that struck the ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... but constant practice at rabbits, prairie dogs and targets had made me fairly proficient. In New Mexico I had a cowboy working for me who was a perfect marvel, a "born" marksman such as now and then appears in the West. With a carbine he could keep a tin can rolling along the ground by hitting, never the can, but just immediately behind and under it with the greatest accuracy. If one tossed nickel pieces (size of a shilling) in succession in front of him he would hit almost without fail every one of them with his carbine—a bullet not shot! He left me to give exhibition ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... to ward off George's vigorous blow, and the next moment the fight was in full swing. Matthew was no coward, and once in for warm work, he played his part manfully. At it the two boys went, each hitting hard, and both coming in for a considerable share of pummelling. For a time none heeded them, every man having enough to do in other quarters. But at length they were surrounded by a small group of the Fairburn men who had now driven off the enemy and remained masters ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... that may be as a mark to know it by, then he takes his hook, and giveth it a private mark—'And the Lord set a mark upon Cain' (Gen 4), saying, Go thy ways, fruitless fig-tree, thou hast spent this season in vain. Yet doth he not cut it down, I will try it another year: may be this was not a hitting[11] season. Therefore he comes again next year, to see if now it have fruit; but as he found it before, so he finds it now, barren, barren, every year barren; he looks again, but finds no fruit. Now he begins to have second thoughts, How! neither hit last year ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Our necessary actions, in the feare To cope malicious Censurers, which euer, As rau'nous Fishes doe a Vessell follow That is new trim'd; but benefit no further Then vainly longing. What we oft doe best, By sicke Interpreters (once weake ones) is Not ours, or not allow'd; what worst, as oft Hitting a grosser quality, is cride vp For our best Act: if we shall stand still, In feare our motion will be mock'd, or carp'd at, We should take roote here, where we ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Presently she saw two men walking slowly toward her from the direction of Westminster. One was tall and slight, handsome and distinguished in appearance; in the other she recognized the rugged awkward man whom she had met at Lady Evenswood's. He was talking hard, hitting his fist into the palm of his other hand sometimes. The handsome man listened with deference, but frowned and seemed ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... yards with very uncertain aim. What a contrast to the "Woolwich Infant" of the present day, with its shot of several hundredweight, whizzing for five miles or more through the air, with almost a certainty of hitting its object at the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... finger tips. Straight and rather slowly it went toward the plate. It looked like the easiest ball that had been sent in so far. Coach Luce, with a calculating eye, watched it come, moving his bat ever so little. Then he struck. But the spit ball, having traveled to the hitting point, dropped nearly twenty inches. The bat fanned air, and the catcher, crouching just behind the coach, ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... him again, because if I had we should have had a big fight and I should have knocked him about horribly and beaten him well, and I don't want to. I'm such a stupid when I get fighting: I never feel hurt—only as if I must keep on hitting; and then all those sailor fellows would have been looking on and grinning at ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Shakespeare, and the various prefaces of Dr. Johnson contain, on Rowe's part, an apology for him as a writer with obvious and admitted shortcomings (very ridiculously ascribed by Rowe to his working by "a mere light of nature"), and, on Johnson's, a good deal of downright hard-hitting criticism. You should also look up the history of the Ireland forgeries, unless, as is very probable, Tolstoy has anticipated you in this. Among nineteenth-century poets Byron and William Morris ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... read it, paid the bill, and told the three to get ready to hit the trail. And the three grinned answer and immediately became very busy; hitting the trail, in this case, meant catching the next train out of Dry Lake, for there were horses bought with the cattle, and much time would be saved by making up ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... Fenley was shot dead at nine thirty this morning, and the bullet which killed him came from the neighborhood of the rock above our heads. One shot was fired. It was so certain, so true of aim, that the murderer made sure of hitting him—at a fairly long range, too. How many men were there in Roxton and Easton this morning—was there even one woman?—capable of sighting a rifle with such calm confidence of success? Mind you, Fenley had to be killed dead. No bungling. A severe wound from which he might recover would ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... over the bank and cried that I was there, but she never stopped—it was terrible. Finally I made a slip-noose and actually managed to fling it over his head—Roger had taught me to do that at school, twenty years ago—and that stopped her, hitting against her cheek, and she opened ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... propeller—like the drone of a giant locust—resounded over the town, people came pouring out from houses and shops to witness the descent. The crowd gathered so quickly that Peggy had difficulty to avoid hitting some of them. However, she managed to bring the aeroplane to a standstill ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... that at any given time many thousands of young children are now being taught to read melody in the Sol-Fa notation in a few weeks. This shows how right Rousseau was in continually declaring the ease of hitting a particular tone, when the relative position of the tone in respect to the key-note is clearly manifested. A singer in trying to hit the tone is compelled to measure the interval between it and the preceding tone, and the simplest and easiest mode of doing this is to associate ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... mines, torpedoes, submarines, and torpedo boats and destroyers. All of these together are efficient for defensive purposes, but they in no way supply the place of a thoroughly efficient navy capable of acting on the offensive; for parrying never yet won a fight. It can only be won by hard hitting, and an aggressive sea-going navy alone can do this hard hitting of the offensive type. But the forts and the like are necessary so that the Navy may be footloose. In time of war there is sure to be demand, under pressure, of fright, for the ships ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... stood a little man with an evil face, hidden partly by an enormous flap-brimmed hat. Both carried rifles, and before Harry could take his own weapon from his shoulder Skelly fired. Harry's horse threw up his head in alarm, and the bullet, instead of hitting the rider, took the poor animal ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... doubling his fist, and bringing it down with the intention of hitting the table by his side to emphasize his resolution; but, unfortunately, he missed the table—a circumstance which seemed to fore-shadow the fate of ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... and go on with you. Mind you, I am sensitive. I will not intrude where I am not welcome. Only you must give me a sounder reason than my diverting conversational powers for shucking me. My logic is even stronger than my hedonistic contempt for hitting the pike." ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... sport, and was attended often with really serious results. But the participants were stout and sturdy Northern lads, used to hardships and trained to physical endurance. They thought no more of these encounters than do the boys of to-day of the crush of football and the hard hitting of the baseball field, and blows were given and taken with equal good ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... know. He keeps hitting the books with a little switch, and screamin' out as if the ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... now," he said. "We was fighting, and I put my foot over the side, and come down here, hitting my head on the stones, and then I turned sick, and I knew I was falling over, and then I went to sleep. I was half off, wasn't I, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... man; "but I saw something move, and let go on the chance of hitting him, but only ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... was vigorous enough, but it could hardly be called (p. 180) profitable. Cooper had now cultivated to perfection the art of saying injudicious things as well as the art of saying things injudiciously. His ability in hitting upon the very line of remark that would still further enrage the hostile, and irritate the indifferent and even the friendly, assumed almost the nature of genius. The power of his attacks could not be gainsaid. But while they ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... under Kilnsey Crag, but though it seemed so near, some visitors who were throwing stones at it did not succeed in hitting it. We were a little more successful ourselves, but failed to hit the face of the rock itself, reminding us of our efforts to dislodge rooks near their nests on the tops of tall trees: they simply watched the stones rising upwards, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... is mine," cried Prudence, hitting him a box upon the ear, "and I warrant it will be as red as thine," and with that she bounded ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... became too tired to row, and they lay down in the bottom of the wet boat, and tried to keep warm by lying close to each other. Joe took the oars, and tried to row without hitting the shore; but he had hardly dipped his oars when the bow grated on the pebbles. He promptly gave up the attempt, and making the boat fast to a tree, joined Tom and Harry, and shared ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... showing off how much he knows by saying Longfellow lives in the United States—as if he lived all over the United States, and as if the country was so small you couldn't throw a brick there without hitting him. Between you and me, it does gravel me, the cool way people from those monster worlds outside our system snub our little world, and even our system. Of course we think a good deal of Jupiter, because our world is only a potato to it, for ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... within three cables' length of the line-of-battle ship, and considering the extreme difficulty of hitting any mark under such disadvantages, a well-directed fire was thrown in by her disciplined seamen. The enemy attempted to return the fire from the weather main-deck guns, but it was a service of such difficulty and danger, that he more than once ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for the breakfast was made up for by the lunch. And Billy had the pleasure of shooting at a target at two thousand yards with the Lee-Metford rifle which had arrived by the same post as himself, and hitting the bull's-eye ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... about him, trying to reach him with their fists and to strike him with their weapons. Their high heels crushed cruelly the flesh of his stockinged feet. The darkness befriended Dave. In the massed melee they dared not shoot for fear of hitting the wrong mark. Nor could they always be sure which shifting figure ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Rock, treading close upon Ford's heels. "And I'll bet fifteen cents," he offered rashly, looking up, "that the person hitting the high places for ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... "No hitting when one is down!" he decided, and Jake drew back. Then, as Will scrambled to his feet again, the battle was renewed, only ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... machine each day, marking each with red chalk, so that I won't include any of the old ones in the next day's count. My best record so far for one day is thirty-seven holes. That shows how close the enemy has come to hitting me. My duties as scout require me to cover various distances each day. The best record so far in one day is ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... to breast a hurricane, then with a long breath would shut her eyes tightly, and surge forward—when the gromet would either drop ignobly at her feet, or go madly flying off to right or left, perhaps hitting poor little Tegeloo on the nose. Mr. Donelson assumed an airy indifference and a careless toss, and lo! the contrary thing went whirling between his feet, aft. Lady Moreham actually burst into laughter ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... through it; What can be miss'd, he's sure to do it. Last Monday he came home to Tooting, Dog-tir'd, as if he'd been a-shooting, And kicks at me to vent his rage— 'Get out!' says he—'I've miss'd the stage!' Of course, thought I—what chance of hitting? You'd miss the Norwich ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood |
