"Ladder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or JACOB'S LADDER.—Is also a beautiful perennial, and claims the notice of the gardener. Its variety, with white flowers, is also ornamental. It is raised from seeds, which are sold in plenty in ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... going forward to Carlisle, climbed the ladder and took seats behind Robbie. It was too dark to see who or what they were except that they were men, that they were wrapped in long cloaks, and wore caps that fitted close to their heads and cheeks, being tied over their beards ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... bustle we are in! and what a world of trouble is here!" cried Simon, when he came to Gray's house, and found him on the ladder taking off the decayed thatch; whilst one of his sons, a lad of about fourteen, was hard at work filling a cart from the dunghill, which blockaded the window. His youngest son, a boy of twelve, with a face and neck red ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... life-boat station, and at other times prowled about the unfrequented corners of the city, now passing an afternoon along the water front, watching the departure of a China steamer or the loading of the great, steel wheat ships; now climbing the ladder-like streets of Telegraph Hill, or revisiting the Plaza, Chinatown, and the restaurant; or taking long walks in the Presidio Reservation, watching cavalry and artillery drills; or sitting for hours on the rocks by the seashore, watching the ceaseless roll ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... the services were just commencing. The attendant who admitted us intimated that we must remove our boots and put on the slippers provided. N—— did so, but I objected, and the man was satisfied with my wearing them over my boots. We were conducted up a steep, ladder-like staircase to a small gallery, with a low front only a foot high, with no seats but sheepskins on the floor, where we were expected to curl ourselves up in Turkish fashion. Both my slippers came off during my climb up stairs, and were rescued in their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... her!—and—now another shout of exultation! The modern Cyclop, in one word the Assessor, stood in a window of the second story, and, amid the whirlwind of smoke, was seen a white form, which he pressed to his bosom. A ladder was quickly raised, and Jeremias Munter, blackened and singed, but nevertheless happy, laid the fainting but unhurt Gabriele in the arms of her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... down the step-ladder her thoughts were not on the curtains which she adjusted mechanically, nor on the song which she was humming in the same way. She was composing the letter which she intended sending to the Girls' Winter Camp in Florida, applying for the vacant position, and she wanted to make it perfect of its kind. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the brain and instant death. Very soon I had an opportunity of putting my plan into execution. A significant shaking of the little curtain at the foot of the berth showed that it was being used as a scaling-ladder. I lay perfectly still, quite as much interested in the sport as if I had been waiting, rifle in hand, for big game. Soon the intruder peeped into my berth, looked cautiously around him, and then proceeded to walk stealthily across my feet. In an instant he was shot upwards. First ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... said, ef he'd had a fair show, And a big enough town for his talents to grow, And the least bit assistance in hoein' his row, Jim Bowker, he said, He'd filled the world full of the sound of his name, An' clumb the top round in the ladder of fame; It may have been so; I dunno; Jest so it might been, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept "bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from the Opera Bouffe, but never changing the air. In the small space which was then a whole world to the travellers, he represented to the life ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... shouted the boys, who with Ben were hastening up the ladder leading to the raised stern. It did not look, however, as if they could reach there before the professor was carried overboard like the tail of a kite, by the huge bird he ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... hose-carts, with a small ladder, arrived with eclat, native gendarmes clearing the road, and Frenchmen and natives shouting the danger of death by these formidable engines. They were of no purpose, the water-taps which were conspicuous in the main streets being absent here, and no water under pressure was available. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the top of the ladder, as I shall, am I the man to refuse you a helping hand, an influence, a signature? We shall want, we young roues, a faithful friend on whom to count, if only to compromise him and make him a scape-goat, or send ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... scow in the wake of a liner," said Bobby, as we tumbled into seats. When the bus man came up the little winding ladder and jingled his punch, Hawkins paid our fares with a heavy wink, and the guard said, "Thank you, sir," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Wolfe come down the ladder!" said Gerald. "That was the most wonderful thing I ever saw. Just as she stepped out on the window-sill, the fire caught the hem of her skirt. I thought she was gone that time. I was just going to drop you and run, when she stooped ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... the guyin' I mind," said Sandy; "it's me wooden head. Them little shavers that can't see a hole in a ladder can beat me figurin'." ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... recollection the communication of Judy Malony, that he had been impressed. The 'tween decks of the cutter appeared deserted, unless indeed there were people in the hammocks slung over his head; and Newton, anxious to obtain further information, crawled under the hammocks to the ladder, and went ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... did all in his power to live according to his rank in society, for he had married a lady of good family (they had thirty-six quarterings between them), and, like most men in a similar position, he was unwilling to adopt the only safe plan, which is to take boldly a lower place on the ladder. At Halifax he lived in a large house (Hopwood Hall), which belonged to his father-in-law, and there his wife and he received the Halifax society of those days, at what, I believe, were very pleasant entertainments, for they had the natural ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... A. D. that he makes an appearance on the stage of literature. In that year the Flavian amphitheatre was consecrated by the Emperor Titus, and Martial celebrated the fact by the publication of his first book, the Spectaculorum Liber. It is of small literary value, but it was his first step on the ladder of fame. Titus conferred on him the ius trium liberorum, although he seems not to have entered on the enjoyment of this privilege till the reign of Domitian.[640] He thus first came in touch with the imperial circle. From this time forward we get a continual stream of verse in fulsome ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... her pink finger-tips on her chin, studying him meditatively. To do him justice, she had to admit that he did not even pretend much. He wanted her because she was a step up in the social ladder, and, in his opinion, the most attractive girl he knew. That he was not in love with her relieved the situation, as Miss Balfour admitted to herself in impersonal moods. But there were times when ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... you though? Well, if I thought'—but he gave me no time to think; for calling on me to follow him, he began climbing up the Giant's Stairs as asy as I'd walk up a ladder to the hay-loft. Well, he was at the top afore you could cry 'trapstick,' and it wasn't long till I was at the top too, and there we found a gate opening into the hill, and a power of lords and ladies waiting to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... especially in the first-named work, we seem to witness the crowning-point of those generations of striving for the advancement of the art which have indissolubly linked the name of Bach with the history of music. Bach himself stood on the top step of the ladder: with him the vital forces of the race exhausted themselves; and further power of development ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... robbed of breath as they burst on one—the fine snow beat in behind the wind guard, and ten paces against the wind were sufficient to reduce one's face to the verge of frostbite. To clear the anemometer vane it is necessary to go to the other end of the hut and climb a ladder. Twice whilst engaged in this task I had literally to lean against the wind with head bent and face averted and so stagger crab-like on my course. In those two days of really terrible weather our thoughts often ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Prefecture, where the party breakfasted or rather lunched. In the afternoon the fort with its gigantic ramparts and magnificent views was visited. There was a State dinner in the evening, in the French ship Bretagne. The Emperor received the Queen at the foot of the ladder. The dinner was under canvas on deck amidst decorations of flowers and flags. The Queen sat between the Emperor and the Duke of Cambridge; the Empress sat between the Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales. The speechmaking, to which one may say all ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... deck was as great as that of Captain Miggs, when, on looking through the glass, he ascertained beyond all doubt that both of his employers were in the fishing-boat. He at once ordered the mainyard to be hauled back and awaited their arrival. In a few minutes the boat was alongside, a ladder thrown down, and the two Girdlestones were on the deck of ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... opportunities for well-doing. The Schnorrer felt no false shame in his begging. He knew it was the rich man's duty to give him unleavened bread at Passover, and coals in the winter, and odd half-crowns at all seasons; and he regarded himself as the Jacob's ladder by which the rich man mounted to Paradise. But, like all genuine philanthropists, he did not look for gratitude. He felt that virtue was its own reward, especially when he sat in Sabbath vesture at ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the nest in which lie the golden eggs. And I climb and climb, but the trunk is so thick and smooth, and it is so far to the first branch. But I know that if I could only reach that first branch, then I should go right on to the top as on a ladder. I have not reached it yet, but I am going to, if it only ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... a slight rustling on a haymow overhead, that was reached only by a ladder. Up that ladder rushed the submarine boy, springing ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... exactly what's required for an elopement," answered Kongstrup merrily. "Even to a ladder, which he's dragged up to the girl's window, although it's on a level with the ground. I wish he were only half as thorough ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... love of your soul companion and the lovely form of Nu-nah for your wife. My Rathunor, are you satisfied? If a pang of disappointment cross your heart, our darling child here may blot that out as he grows and learns our mystic lore and become also a soul companion of his fathers in climbing the ladder to higher wisdom ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... a dramatic narrative of the unaided rise of a fearless, ambitious boy from the lowest round of fortune's ladder to wealth and the governorship of his native State. Tom Seacomb begins life with a purpose, and eventually overcomes those who oppose him. How he manages to win the battle is told by Mr. Hill in a masterful way that thrills the reader and holds his attention and sympathy ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... who became provincial presidents as a rule resolved to remain so in their own districts all their life long, and sympathized with the joys and sorrows of the district. Today the post of provincial president is the lowest step in the ladder of the higher administration, sought after by young "assessors" who have a justifiable ambition to make a career. To obtain it they have more need of ministerial favor than of the goodwill of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Anglo-American races. This feeling had been planted by national animosity, and nursed and fomented by priestcraft. Events that have since taken place had already cast their shadows over the Mexican frontier; and Florida and Louisiana were regarded as but steps in the ladder of American aggrandisement; but the understanding of these matters was of course confined to the more intelligent; but all were imbued with the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... He had earned as much in other ways, but he was quite anxious to try his luck as a teacher. That might be his future vocation, not teaching a district school, of course, but this would be the first round of the ladder that might lead to a college professorship. The first step is the most difficult, but it must be taken, and the Ledge Hill School, difficult as it probably would be, was to be the first step for the future President ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... they was too busy hiding behind their women folks to fight," declared the fireman, "but you ain't going on no such trip young feller." He made a dive for Jim but that worthy was not to be detained and was half way up the little iron ladder before Bill Sheehan had recovered his balance. "Come back," he cried, poising a bit of coal in his hand, "or I'll bring you back." This bluff did not disturb Jim who was now on top of ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... approval answered him. Winford sighed with relief, then stared abruptly through the window and gave a shout. The others below swarmed up the ladder and crowded into the ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... answered her husband. Then Peder took the ladder that led up to the hayloft and set it against the cow's neck, and he climbed up and slipped the rope over her head. When he had made sure that the noose was fast they started for the palace, and met the king himself ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... expressions as toadstools, paddock-stools, &c. The thorns of the eglantine are said to point downwards, because when the devil was excluded from heaven he tried to regain his lost position by means of a ladder composed of its thorns. But when the eglantine was only allowed to grow as a bush, out of spite he placed its thorns in their present eccentric position. The seed of the parsley, "is apt to come up only partially, according as the devil takes his tithe of it."[3] In Germany "devil's ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... went to was a housewarming. We went about seven miles with the ox team. I thought I would die laughing when I saw the girls go to their dressing room. They went up a ladder on the outside. There were two fiddlers and we danced all the old dances. Supper was served on a work bench from victuals out of a wash tub. We didn't have hundred dollar dresses, but we did have red cheeks from ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... woollen blanket:—that it is seldom entirely safe to open the doors into an adjoining room—at least without great caution—when the house which we are in is discovered to be on fire; but the best way, as a general rule, is, to escape by the scuttle, if there be one, or by a ladder, or by letting ourselves down to the ground, if the distance is not too great, through the windows. This last is often the best way, though not always the most expeditious one. Many sleep with a rope in their bed- rooms to ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... giant. Over the base rise the round pillars which support the dome and inclose the three great pipes already mentioned. Graceful as these look in their position, half a dozen men might creep into one of them and lie hidden. A man of six feet high went up a ladder, and standing at the base of one of them could just reach to put his hand into the mouth at its lower part, above the conical foot. The three great pipes are crowned by a heavily sculptured, ribbed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... as he might, was too spent to obey; and it seemed an eternity to them all before Blanche Farrow reappeared, helping an old man to drag a short ladder along ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... not help thinking of the time when they had met in what might have been deadly affray if Providence had not overruled. And now Andrew Henry was many steps up the ladder of success; and he was down to the very bottom. He ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... not gone up the greasy ladder to the bridge and waited on deck. She had left home without much breakfast, in the dark, and was cold and rather depressed. All was gloomy and strangely flat. The tug looked small and was horribly dirty. Coal-dust covered rails ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... to the floor above. Under the ladder stood a big bed in a boarded recess. What was there upstairs? I never quite knew. I would see the master sometimes bring down an armful of hay for the ass, sometimes a basket of potatoes which the housewife emptied into the pot in which the little porkers' food was cooked. It must have ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... taken his precautions in view of any such contingency. As the windows of the study and those of his bedroom, both of which were at the back of the house, overlooked the garden, he fastened a rope-ladder to his balcony, unrolled it softly and let himself down by it until it was level with the top of the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... stuffed with dirty rags, just beyond the gate which divides the upper from the lower moor. You may know the house at a good distance by the ragged tiles on the roof, and the loose stones which are ready to drop out from the chimney; though a short ladder, a hod of mortar, and half an hour's leisure time would have prevented all this, and made the little dwelling tight enough. But as Giles had never learned any thing that was good, so he did not know the value of such useful sayings as, that "a ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... shouted, "Drat the boys!" And, mounting on a ladder, He sought the cause of all the noise; No farmer could be madder, Which was not hard to understand Because the ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... with the thought of the winter wind and Joan tormenting him? And the snow-bound cabin in the pines? And the ferry and the ladder of icy vine? ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... together of the parts of a ladder having round, tapered rungs let into holes in the two sides is beyond the capacity of the average young amateur; but little skill is needed to manufacture a very fairly efficient substitute for the professionally-built article—to wit, a ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... say it. My Mr. Burnet's father began life at the bottom of the ladder, and ended it near the top; and my Mr. Burnet began life near the top, and is ending it quite at the top. Hard work, Mr. Rowles, hard work, perseverance, honesty, and temperance; that's what does it. Your little girl's father may get to the top of ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... you'll have to lower the accommodation ladder for me, boys," said Mr. De Vere. "I don't believe I can scramble up by way of the chains, as ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... master of the ship and nobody else, and he would like to see anybody else try to be. Then he made use of such fearful language, that I dreaded to approach him; but my fear lest he should again attack the boy, overcame my fear for him in his anger; and I ascended the ladder. He desired, nay commanded, me to retire to my cabin; but I said, 'No, captain, I will not stir hence until you release Frederic, and if you strike him again I will be a witness of your cowardly behavior towards a poor boy whose only fault is want of strength ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... said Mr. Ashmead, with a chuckle; "then why jump off the ladder so near the top? Oh, of course I know—the old story—but you might give twenty-two hours to love, and still spare ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... assured, that books and teaching are but a ladder let down from the heaven of Truth and Love, upon which angelic thoughts ascend and descend, bearing on their ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... pleasant in a writer so little distinguished as a rule by an interest in what we popularly call nature. The 'scale of being' argument may be illogical, but we pardon it when it is applied to strengthen our sympathies with our unfortunate dependants on the lower steps of the ladder. The ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... a ladder through a crowded street had the misfortune to break a plate-glass window in a store. He immediately dropped his ladder and broke into a run, but he had been seen by the shopkeeper, who dashed after him in company with several salesmen, and was ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... be admirals. Those who object to promotion otherwise than by mere seniority should reflect upon the elementary fact that no business in private life could be successfully managed if those who enter at the lowest rungs of the ladder should each in turn, if he lived, become the head of the firm, its active director, and retire after he had held the position a few months. On its face such a scheme is an absurdity. Chances for improper favoritism can be minimized by a properly formed board; such as the board of last June, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... blank of my young experience, never to return. The first time I saw him he was sitting at the table in his library, and Mrs. Tennyson, her very slender hands hidden by thick gloves, was standing on a step-ladder handing him down some heavy books. She was very frail, and looked like a faint tea-rose. After that one time I only remember her lying on ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... scaffolding where I had seen Mr. Lambe and his friends retreating, and in my way I nearly overturned several of the Rump. I assured the High Bailiff that a poll would be demanded, and with great difficulty I was just in time to seize the tail of Mr. Lambe's coat, as he was walking down the ladder of the scaffold. In doing this I was obliged to jostle Mr. Lambton, who appeared excessively indignant at the shake which he received from me. I, however, kept fast hold of Mr. Lambe's coat, and earnestly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... I made to be not by a door, but by a short ladder to go over the top; which ladder, when I was in, I lifted over after me, and so I was completely fenced in, and fortified, as I thought, from all the world, and consequently slept secure in the night, which otherwise I could ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... 24 inches in diameter, and scarcely gives passage to a man (Fig. 1). Mr. Borderes, in the hope of discovering a new grotto, was the first to descend into this well, which he did by means of a rope ladder, and collected a few bones that were a revelation to me. Despite the great difficulty and danger of excavating at this point, I proceeded, and found at the first blow of the pick that there was here a deposit of the highest importance, since all the bones that I met with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... window, he looked at the girls. Keok, with a rifle in her hand, had crept to the foot of the ladder leading up to the attic, and began to climb it. She was going to Sokwenna, to load for him. Alan pointed ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... The next morning, whilst breakfasting, my attention was directed, through the port, to some unusual movement on board our ship; such as a boat being dispatched to the Cleopatra, sending aloft topgallant yards, and unshipping the companion ladder. This last movement was decisive. Sailing orders must be on: and bringing my meal to a hasty conclusion, got on board to find the messenger shipped, and all hands heaving away at the capstan. Soon we had sail on, and I did not get on board a minute too ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... were left unwounded, and many of these had been bruised or otherwise injured. Porter himself was knocked down by the windage of a passing shot. While the young midshipman, Farragut, was on the ward-room ladder, going below for gun-primers, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an 18-pound shot, and tumbled back on him. They fell down the hatch together, Farragut being stunned for some ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... stopped when he was asked to. But, after a while, they were at the side. The officer in the Spanish boat was very much excited and talked very fast. He wanted Captain Sol to put a gangway or a ladder over the side, so that he could get on ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... the crowd in this hushed suspense. But fifty yards along the staithe they passed five or six girls with flushed faces and careless attire, who had mounted a pile of timber, placed there to season for ship-building, from which, as from the steps of a ladder or staircase, they could command the harbour. They were wild and free in their gestures, and held each other by the hand, and swayed from side to side, stamping their feet ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... makes a cold and stern man of science, who regards love as a mere mental disorder which can be cured like other disorders, at last fall desperately in love himself. He forces his way into the girl's room, by a ladder, at dead of night, and breaks into a long and passionate speech: "Everything that touches you becomes to me mysterious and sacred. Ah! to think that a thing so well known as a woman's body, which sculptors have modelled, which poets have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... thing. Suppose one plants a cherry tree. To whom do the cherries belong? To the man who planted the tree practically on his premises. But the limbs extend out on the public highway. If I, the owner, take a ladder out there and pick cherries and an automobile comes running past and throws me down I am practically a trespasser on the public highway. I believe I would not plant along the public highway with the idea of getting any fruit from the trees. I think however when you have ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... that my only remaining effects were a satchel, a bundle of newspapers, a dog, and a bouquet. The weight of these combined articles was of little consequence, but I positively declare that I never handled a more inconvenient lot of baggage. While I was descending a perpendicular ladder to a small boat, some one abruptly asked if that lot of baggage had been cleared at the custom house. Think of walking through a custom house with my portable property! Happily the question did not ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... troupe, in frenzied pleasure, and, nimble as a cat, one rough dark man rushed down the ladder and caught the hanging woman in his arms. Then they all clapped and cheered and shrieked with joy, while the Prince, putting his hands in his pockets, pulled out heaps of gold ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... a chuckle as I reached the ladder; but Ready was no longer in my mind; even Eva was driven out of it, as I stood aghast on ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... be practised. They are the outcome of years of grind. They come, and when they are firmly established we can analyse them. To gain the mastery of the bow one must begin at the bottom and be content to work gradually up to the topmost rung (or thereabouts!) of the ladder. I often meet with amateur violinists who try to begin at the top. The consequences of this proceeding are distinctly more certain, for when starting at the bottom it is not always assured that much upward progress will be made, whereas, by the opposite method the descent will ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... fact, devote himself to study with unflagging zeal, because he had as yet no temptation to turn aside. Was there not, moreover, an open door before his face inviting him to win for himself the honors of a mandarinate? In his native town he placed his foot on the first step of the ladder by gaining the degree of A.B., or, in Chinese, "Budding Genius." At the provincial capital he next carried off the laurel of the second degree, which is worth more than our A.M., not merely because it is not conferred in course, but because it falls to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... to Jane's great-grandfather. It was supposed to be water-tight and in this the Meadow-Brook Girls decided to place all their extra clothing. A rag carpet was found that answered very well to cut up into rugs to lay on the floor. The carpenter made a ladder by which to climb to the upper deck. Then there was rope and an anchor, the latter a piece of an old mowing machine; a rowboat, which Jane rented, and heavy green shades at the windows so that they should have greater seclusion; also a ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... supersession in the control of a matter that has been committed to him. But these are, after all, only instances of embarrassments common {p.263} to life, which increase in degree and in number as one mounts the ladder. Whatever may be said in favour of the fullest discretion to a subordinate out of signal distance—and very much indeed must be said for this—nothing can relieve a commander-in-chief only four miles distant of the responsibility, not for his own reputation—a small matter—but ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... know what to think, mother. Of course I intend to do something. If you had only influence with some one in power who could enable a fellow to get his foot on the first round of any sort of ladder, something might be done, for you know I'm not exactly useless, though I can't boast ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... library, where I had not been for years, I found two members asleep, and, to my surprise, William on a ladder dusting books. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... about Bingo" (Bingo was the poodle's preposterous name) "and Tacks? No? Oh, I must tell him that; it'll make him laugh. Tacks is our gardener down in the village (d' ye know Tacks?). Well, Tacks was up here the other day, nailing up some trellis-work at the top of a ladder, and all the time there was Master Bingo sitting quietly at the foot of it looking on; wouldn't leave it on any account. Tacks said he was quite company for him. Well, at last, when Tacks had finished and was coming down, what do you thing that rascal there did? Just sneaked quietly up behind and ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... the two laborers upon the farm. About noon she sent her youngest son, John, mentioned in the above inscription, to call his father to dinner. On the way to the orchard the lad met the two laborers carrying towards the house his father's dead body. While standing upon a ladder gathering apples from a high tree, Mr. Warren had fallen to the ground and broken his ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... been graduated from college the previous spring and afterwards had been taken into a trust company in which his father was a stock-holder and director and that his mother, who was very proud of him, expected him to climb the ladder rapidly and become an important figure in big financial operations. Henrietta had found him a debonair youth, full of gay humor and high spirits and having, apparently, much of the same kind of good-heartedness and sincerity which she admired ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... appearance of the Presbyterian Parliament of the secluded members, there had been hardly a pretence of suppressing any Royalist demonstrations whatever. On the evening of the 15th of March, the day before the Parliament dissolved itself, some bold fellows had come with a ladder to the Exchange in the City of London, where stood the pedestal from which a statue of Charles I. had been thrown down, and had deliberately painted out with a brush the Republican inscription on the pedestal, "Exit tyrannus, Regum ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... from the other side of the wall; "didn't you hear me? I've been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and I've slipped into the rain-water tank. Luckily there's no water in it, but the sides are slippery and I can't get out. Fetch the little ladder from ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... His rapid rise seemed to me inexplicable till the same man accounted for it with a shrug: "When a man of such ability believes in nothing, and sticks at nothing, there's no saying how far he may go. He has kicked away every ladder. He ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... mantel-piece; bookcases, writing-tables, piano, newspapers, a handsomely furnished saloon. The back-room opens, with very large windows, on the lawn and pleasure-ground; gate, and wall—over which the heads of a cab and a carriage are seen, as persons arrive. Fruit, and a ladder on the walls. A door to the dining-room, another to the ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Linden to himself, as he paced the narrow limits of his apartment, "I do not see what better plan I can pursue; but let me well consider what is my ultimate object. A high step in the world's ladder! how is this to be obtained? First, by the regular method of professions; but what profession should I adopt? The Church is incompatible with my object, the army and navy with my means. Next come the irregular methods of adventure and enterprise, such as marriage with a fortune,"—here ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their keys and set ascents; but man Though he knows these, and hath more of his own, Sleeps at the ladder's foot; alas! what can These new ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and beheld two long rows of books in brown-paper covers, with a short step-ladder, standing near the door of the inner room, by which these shelves might be reached. This pleased him greatly. He had had no idea that there was a ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... the place of execution; there was only the parish priest of St. Louis en l'Ile at his side; as apprehensions were felt of violence and insult on the part of the condemned, he was gagged like the lowest criminal when he resolutely mounted the fatal ladder; he knelt without assistance, and calmly awaited his death-blow. "Everybody," observed D'Alembert, expressing by that cruel saying the violence of public feeling against the condemned, "everybody, except ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... down, and went to borrow a ladder from the door-keeper, after having explained that he had obtained the favors of the old woman by painting the portrait of her ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... upon perfect equality, and commence, under the same auspices, the race of life. Here the sustenance of the mind is served up to all alike, as the Spartans served their food upon the public table. Here, young Ambition climbs his little ladder, and boyish Genius plumes his half-fledged wing. From among these laughing children will go forth the men who are to control the destinies of their age and country; the statesman, whose wisdom is to guide the Senate; the poet, who will take captive the hearts of the people, and bind them together ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... man in the kitchen caught sight of me, he warned his companion, who was busy forcing the lock of the door at the head of the kitchen stairs, and my sister heard them both rushing across the garden, where they had a ladder against the stable-wall. They must have pulled this up after them, and tossed it into the next garden, where it was found, to delay pursuit. The park-keeper had, after sounding his whistle, rushed to our house, got in at the window, and ran to the door ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... heart, you have revealed yourself. What was the meaning of your everlasting talk about the ladder for the rise of capacity? I shall tell you. The capable man is to toil, and to rise just so far as you permit him, namely, till you can possess yourselves of the fruits of his labour: then he is to be thrust down, and the loudest mouth ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... thy rigid father Soundly sleeps bedrench'd with wine; 'Tis thy true-love holds the ladder, To his care thyself resign! Now my arms enfold a treasure, Which for worlds I 'd not forego; Now our bosoms feel that pleasure, Faithful ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... may stay there." In his journey from Erzeroom to Scutari, he says he "became a mere animal"; he could only think of his horse's feet and his horse's footing. He never felt secure, for this reason: that the Tartar's horse, behind whom he rode, in the "ladder road" [Footnote: A "ladder road" is made by the horses all following each other in one track, and each trying to step in the steps made by the first horse.] beside the precipices, through the snow, "fell eleven times with him," and more than once fell over him. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... still more, the logical sequence of our thought—all spring from that one source. So with implements: the saw, the hammer, the plane, the chisel, the file, the spade, the plough, the rake, the sickle, the ladder; all these we have from that same origin. Of our institutions it is the same story. The divisions and the sub-divisions of Europe, the parish, the county, the province, the fixed national traditions with their boundaries, the emplacement ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... by firm-footed Christian, whose one candle just defined the rough walls and the slippery steps. There we found a band of boys, pulling ropes that set the bells in motion. But our destination was not reached. One more aerial ladder, perpendicular in darkness, brought us swiftly to the home of sound. It is a small square chamber, where the bells are hung, filled with the interlacement of enormous beams, and pierced to north and south by open windows, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... earth an' never naught else. I could take him a mile or two along th' drift, and leave him wi' his candle doused to cry hallelujah, wi' none to hear him and say amen. I was to lead him down th' ladder-way to th' drift where Jesse Roantree was workin', and why shouldn't he slip on th' ladder, wi' my feet on his fingers till they loosed grip, and I put him down wi' my heel? If I went fust down th' ladder I could click hold on him and chuck him ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... secured upon a double line of stiff ropes formed in Cyprus of the long twisted wands of myrtle, which are exceedingly tough, and are substitutes for willows in basket-work. When completed, the chain resembles a rope ladder, with the numerous jars sufficiently close together to represent spokes separated by about sixteen inches. This is suspended over the edge of the wheel, and hangs vertically; the lower portion of this necklace-like arrangement being about three feet below the water, or ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Heidelberg; wrote a history of Pelagianism, which brought him disfavour with the orthodox; was made a prebendary of Canterbury through the influence of Laud; was, on some apology to orthodoxy in 1633, called to the chair of History in the Gymnasium of Amsterdam; he was a friend of Grotius; he fell from a ladder in his library, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... eight or nine feet long, bending towards the earth, and extending all round in the form of an umbrella. The trunk is upright, and full of cavities, the vestiges of its decayed leaves, having a flat surface within, adapted to the human foot, and forming a kind of natural ladder, by which a person may easily ascend to the top. The lower part produces a number of stalks or suckers, which diffuse the tree considerably, and form a kind of bushy forest. This illustrates the scriptural term in the history of Deborah. "She dwelt under the palm-tree;" or, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... having brought matters to a crisis, Fandy had been inspired to mount a small step-ladder, and, with many original gestures, address the crowd in ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... ingenious as the way they've used the help you gave them. We had this tribe listed long ago as a very capable one, far behind the rest of its System in development, it's true, but only because it had started late up the evolutionary ladder. It had been doing very nicely on its own, and we didn't want to interfere unless we could give ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... nail my Red Cross on to my left arm, and get down to business. If you saw how useful I am to your brother, you'd thank his lucky stars that I came through myself with nothing worse than getting my ear stepped on. I was hugging the ladder (being canny and careful), and the man above me toed in. Isn't it curious to think that if he'd worn braces in early youth my ear would ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... enough that it will almost break my heart if I have to go away from her and can't see her every day any more. But if I asked her and she should despise me and say no, I think I'd hang myself on the garret ladder. By the Almighty, I couldn't stand it if another man led her off to church; I believe I'd shoot him. But she won't marry, she'll ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Dennis's garret, and flannel nightcap, and red stockings; he gives instructions how to find Curll's authors, the historian at the tallow-chandler's under the blind arch in Petty France, the two translators in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I fear, who contributed, more than any man who ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. It was not an unprosperous one before that time, as we have seen; at least there were great prizes in the profession ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bodily weakness, too. This weakness surprised him, for he did not know how much blood he had lost, and he could not account for the way in which the lights swam before his eyes and his steps reeled, as he was taken down a dark ladder-like staircase and into a low long room with a swinging lamp suspended from the ceiling. It felt close and airless after the coldness of the night, and everything swam in a mist before his eyes; but he heard a voice not altogether unfamiliar say in authoritative ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Joey having placed the ladder, Strap (being loaded with our baggage) mounted first; but, just as he was getting in, a tremendous voice assailed his ears in these words: "God's fury! there shall no passengers come here." The poor ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... earnest; and some of them now would proceed to put Roman shoes on his feet, and to dress him in a Roman gown, to prevent, they said, his being mistaken another time. After all this pageantry, when they had thus deluded and mocked him long enough, at last putting out a ship's ladder, when they were in the midst of the sea, they told him he was free to go, and wished him a pleasant journey; and if he resisted, they themselves threw him ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... help and the last remnant of Andrew's strength they managed to get him to his feet, and then he partly climbed, partly was pushed by Jud, and partly was dragged by the old man up a ladder to the loft. It was quite cool there, very dark, and the air ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... with his impeachment and his imprisonment. Once, it was said, he had escaped; but vengeance might still overtake him, and London might enjoy the long deferred pleasure of seeing the old traitor flung off the ladder in the blue riband which he disgraced. All the members of his family, wife, son, daughters, were assailed with savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm, [807] All who were supposed to be closely connected with ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... foote, and commaunded that the crosse-bowes and harquebusiers shoulde giue the assault, and shoulde beate the enemies from the walles, that they might not hurt vs, and I assaulted the walles on one side, where they tolde me there was a scaling ladder set vp, and that there was one gate: but the crossebowmen suddenly brake the strings of their bowes, and the harquebusiers did nothing at all: for they came thither so weake and feeble, that scarcely they coulde ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... hated the people of that country, he would not lodge with any of them, but took up his lodging in the open air, and laid his head on a heap of stones that he had gathered together. At which time he saw in his sleep such a vision standing by him:—he seemed to see a ladder that reached from the earth unto heaven, and persons descending upon the ladder that seemed more excellent than human; and at last God himself stood above it, and was plainly visible to him, who, calling him by his name, spake to him in ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... with impatience. "If we are to do this," he said, "we had better set about it. I will fetch the ladder." ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... bridge, and some strong towers upon the bridge; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. The fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a scaling ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower wall, but was struck by an English arrow in the neck, and fell into the trench. She was carried away and the arrow was taken out, during which operation she screamed and cried with the pain, as any other girl might have done; ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... to fall, the Master Thief went out and cut down a thief who hung on the gallows, and threw him across his shoulders, and carried him off. Then he got a long ladder and set it up against the Squire's bedroom window, and so climbed up, and kept bobbing the dead man up and down, just for all the world like one that was peeping in at ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... from a distance seemed to belong to a lower story was massive foundation. The door was on a level with the elevated windows; thus the guards in early days could avoid being surprised by the pirates. For ingress and egress they made use of a ladder which they drew up after them at night. Jaime had ordered made a rude wooden ladder by which to reach his room, but he never drew it in. The tower, constructed of sandstone, was somewhat eroded on its exterior by the winds from the sea. Many stones had fallen from their places, and these ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... might have gone far; and, had you devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to the passions of Kitty, you might have held your own, even now, in the circulating library. How Lyddy, perched on a corner of the roof, first beheld her Wickham; how, on her challenge, he climbed up by a ladder to her side; how they kissed, caressed, swung on gates together, met at odd seasons, in strange places, and finally eloped: all this might have been put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister, say Elizabeth, and you would not have been less popular than several ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... could come," cried Mrs. Applegate, as Phil and Mr. Payton climbed the short ladder preparatory to helping the women folk on board. "The Dickensons and Archie Blackstone—we came over with them, you ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Church, and in times of excitement and upheaval it tends to reassert itself. The maturest Greek philosophy regards eternity as the divine mode of existence, while mortals are born, live, and die in time. Man is a microcosm, in touch with every rung of the ladder of existence; and he is potentially a 'participator' in the divine mode of existence, which he can make his own by living, so far as may be, in detachment from the vain shadows and perishable goods of earth. That this conception of immortality has had a great influence upon ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... pigeons were flying about her head with the greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood half-way up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... British joint expedition attacked St. Helena the Dutch never dreamt of guarding the huge sheer cliffs behind the town. But up went a handy man with a long cord by which he pulled up a rope, which, in its turn, was used to haul up a ladder that the soldiers climbed at night. Next morning the astounded Dutchmen found themselves attacked by land as well as by sea and had ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood |
