"Ladder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up but not Mr. Jones. One of the servants then procured a ladder and got upon the roof. Mr. Jones was not upon his bed nor under it either. The servant thought he would open the door leading to the staircase and admit the people who were standing outside beyond the door at the bottom of the stairs. There was a number of persons now at the ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... a person who has broken through the ice you should first tie a rope around your body and have the other end tied, or held, on shore. Then secure a long board or a ladder or limb of a tree, crawl out on this, or push it out, so that the person in the water may reach it. If nothing can be found on which you can support your weight do not attempt to walk out toward the person to be rescued, but lie down flat on your face and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... first floor here and you can see the garden at the back of the house and the railings that separate it from the Parc Monceau. It is certain, therefore, that the man came from the Parc Monceau, climbed the railings by means of a ladder and got up to ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... frequently offends the ingrafted white. To snatch an immediate advantage—to get (let us say) a station for his store—he will play upon the native custom and become a son or a brother for the day, promising himself to cast down the ladder by which he shall have ascended, and repudiate the kinship so soon as it shall grow burdensome. And he finds there are two parties to the bargain. Perhaps his Polynesian relative is simple, and conceived ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little way, till he thought he could see the movement of a shadow on the wall of the apartment. Then he remembered that in the stable his groping hand had rested for a moment on a ladder, and he returned with all despatch to bring it. The ladder was very short, but yet, by standing on the topmost round, he could bring his hands as high as the iron bars of the window; and, seizing these, he raised ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... give to a provincial physician. But in that very choice you interest me. My choice has been much thesame,—a small circle, but the first in it. Yet, had I been a man, or had my dear Colonel been a man whom it was in the power of a woman's art to raise one step higher in that metaphorical ladder which is not the ladder of the angels, why, then—what then? No matter! I am contented. I transfer my ambition to Jane. Do you not think ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those guns," observed Adair. "I intend sending you, Rogers, and Desmond, in to-night to bring them off, should I find, as I suspect, that they are undefended," he said to Tom. "You will be supplied with a scaling-ladder, with which you can take a peep in and ascertain the state of affairs. If there are only three or four soldiers, you must secure them; then shut the gates of the fort, to prevent anyone getting in, while you hoist the guns into ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 the ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... to stimulate progress: the processes which these admit are, in the actual state of civilisation, the only ones which attain their end without waste, the only ones logical. From one end to the other of the ladder of life, struggle is the order of the day; but more and more as the higher rungs are reached, it takes on characters ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the result of the shot, and then darted to the companion-ladder, to hurry down into the cabin so as to see what the consequences of the heavy report had been there, for in the hurry and excitement of the preparations he had for the moment ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... saw the group part and General Dashwood himself come quickly down the ladder, and the store of shot and shell and the piles of rifles were as nothing to the brigadier as he saw the boy he thought he had lost for ever lying on the blanket pile, sleeping the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... hurled back by the rolling, it cut in two an unfortunate fifth man, and struck and dismounted one of the guns of the larboard battery. Hence the cry of distress which had been heard. All the men rushed to the ladder. The gun-deck was empty in the twinkling of ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Hoop-la! Here's the circus troupe! Here's the educated dog, jumping through the hoop. See the lady Blondin with the parasol and fan, The lad upon the ladder and the india-rubber man. See the joyful juggler and the boy who loops the loop. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Here's the ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... descending the ladder of the hills; low now it stood above them, the valley in shadow more than half its breadth, a tender flood of gold upon the slope where the new orchard waved its eager shoots; the blessing of a day was passing in the promise of a day ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... to play, The moon does shine as bright as day, Leave your supper, and leave your sleep, And meet your play-fellows in the street; Come with a whoop, and come with a call, And come with a good will, or not at all. Up the ladder and down the wall, A half-penny roll will serve us all. You'll find milk and I'll find flour, And we'll have pudding in ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... father, as nurse said, did never fear, But cried 'Good seamen!' to the sailors, galling His kingly hands, haling ropes; And, clasping to the mast, endured a sea That almost burst the deck.... Never was waves nor wind more violent: And from the ladder-tackle washes off A canvas-climber. 'Ha,' says one, 'wilt out?' And with a dropping industry they skip From stem to stern; the boatswain whistles, and The master calls ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Well, I am very sorry for you, but I must look after my chest." So saying, he disappeared down the gangway ladder. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... gave the following occasion for a very pleasing entertainment. Some bricklayers happened to be at work here, to repair and clean the passage leading to the common sewer; who going to dinner, and leaving the ladder which descended to it, standing, the said unfortunate inhabitant had a sort of an odd notion, that the workmen had been prying into the secrets of the lower world, and therefore (nobody seeing her) she went down the ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... had been unbarred below by Fortemani, who had led the way with a half-dozen of the men; and a huge scaling ladder that lay in readiness in that subterranean gallery was rushed out across the moat, which at this point ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... breaks into the utterance of praise and confidence—to which he has climbed by the ladder of prayer. ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... of the basket of food, and Miss Chuff drew a small rope ladder from a locker under the driver's seat. This she threw deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron spikes. Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall, dropping down into a tangle ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Egyptian days of things that the Sirdar then did and of the resource he would display in unexpected emergencies. One of these yarns about the great War Minister at a stage of his career when he was still mounting the ladder of success deserves to be repeated here.[3] It happened one day, during the operations for the recovery of the Sudan from the Mahdi-ists, that "K." was riding forward with his staff, there being no troops nor transport actually on the move, he ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... coming down the Cut Lane with a load of clover, my mate and me, which we had been to fetch for the governor's horses in the yard here. My mate was driving, and I was sitting on a heap of the clover, stacked up on the hind ladder of the cart. We'd stopped a while after loading up, being a bit tired, to give the horses a drink, and it had got dark, while as we was coming home, me sitting behind as I telled you, and my mate driving in front, all of a suddent, and just as I was half-asleep and smoking my ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... as though it had some strange interest for her. At length, in the distance, light after light began to appear; presently Ellen could see the dim figure of the lamplighter crossing the street, from side to side, with his ladder;—then he drew near enough for her to watch him as he hooked his ladder on the lamp-irons, ran up and lit the lamp, then shouldered the ladder and marched off quick, the light glancing on his wet oil-skin ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... as they drew near in order to cast anchor, a little cutter, looking like a coastguard formidably armed, approached the merchant vessel and dropped into the sea a boat which directed its course to the ladder. This boat contained an officer, a mate, and eight rowers. The officer alone went on board, where he was received with all the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... men raising him up. "They have done for me at last, Hardy," said he. "I hope not," cried Hardy. "Yes," he replied; "my backbone is shot through." Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove immediately: then, that he might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... ran up the gangplank with a paper in one hand and a malacca cane in the other, and I recognized him as Mr. Trego, the man to whom I had been introduced in the bank. He met Harris at the foot of the ladder to the hurricane-deck, and they were right below me, so I could not avoid hearing ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... movement in this part of France than these words of a Republican leader who began his political career, as I have shown, twenty years ago in a hopeless minority of Republicans under the Empire, who has since worked his way up the municipal ladder at Amiens and up the legislative ladder in Paris; and who, after reaching the top of the tree, now finds himself in imminent peril of slipping down again to the point from which he started. The force of the testimony is certainly not weakened ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... impelled to suggest "Locksley Hall," and would have done so, had not his vision gripped him again and left him staring at her, the female of his kind, who, out of the primordial ferment, creeping and crawling up the vast ladder of life for a thousand thousand centuries, had emerged on the topmost rung, having become one Ruth, pure, and fair, and divine, and with power to make him know love, and to aspire toward purity, and to desire to taste divinity—him, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the crisis. A climax is the climbing to the top rung of the ladder. A crisis is the meeting place of possible victory and possible disaster. A single step divides between the two—the precipice-height, and ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... care of living in sin now. How loth wilt thou be to be thrust away from the gates of heaven! And how loth wilt thou be to be deprived of the mercy of God! How unwillingly wilt thou set foot forward towards the lake of fire! Never did malefactor so unwillingly turn off the ladder when the halter was about his neck, as thou will turn from God to the devil, from heaven to hell, when the sentence is passed upon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... out of a book of fashions of that remote period. It was in his initial letters and slight designs that Thackeray showed his best powers. There is much wistful tenderness in the little Marquise's face as she trips down a rope-ladder in an initial letter of Vanity Fair. The bewigged shepherds and powdered shepherdesses of his favourite period are always reproduced with grace, and the children of his drawings are almost invariably charming. In the darker moods, when ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... window and aiming at the Warden repeatedly with a revolver. Upon seeing me, Smith burst into a loud laugh (in which impertinence was mingled with insanity), and appeared to desist. I sent the college porter for a ladder, and he succeeded in detaching the Warden from his painful position. Smith was sent down. The photograph I enclose is from the group of the University Rifle Club prizemen, and represents him as he ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... clear what was to be known, and Lucia hastened to direct their attention to the new grating. Gianbattista returned to work with the men, and the two women and Don Paolo stood looking on, occasionally shifting their position to get a better view of the work. Gianbattista was mounted upon a ladder which leaned against one of the marble pillars at the entrance of the side chapel closed by the grating. A heavy piece of arabesque work had just been got into its place, and was tied with cords while the young man ran a screw through the prepared holes to fasten one side of the fragment ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... he gained the spot, shouting to the men in service to bring a ladder, a number of persons had penetrated to the court, and were now collected around the tree, uttering excited comments upon ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... here with mask and lantern. Ladder of ropes and other moonshine tools— Why, youngster, thou mayst cheat the old Duenna, Flatter the waiting-woman, bribe the valet; But know, that I her father play the Gryphon, Tameless and sleepless, proof to fraud or bribe, And ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... to the accomplishment of the task I found it easier than I had imagined it would be, since I immediately discovered that shallow hand and foot-holds had been scooped in the cliff's rocky face, forming a crude ladder from the base to ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the tree that yields it it is a species of wild fig (Castilloa elastica). It is easily known by its large leaves, and I saw several whilst ascending the river. When the collectors find an untapped one in the forest, they first make a ladder out of the lianas or "vejuccos " that hang from every tree; this they do by tying short pieces of wood across them with small lianas, many of which are as tough as cord. They then proceed to score the bark, with cuts ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... buildings that crack and blacken behind their ill-adjusted fronts of stucco and distemper, he cheapens rapidly in his own view: he feels painfully like the hapless supernumerary whom he has seen mounting an obvious step-ladder behind a screen of rock-work on his way to a wedding in the chapel or a coronation in the Capitol. The difference is, that here the permission to play his role is paid for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... the chair on which the kings are seated when they are crowned; in it is enclosed a stone, said to be that on which the patriarch Jacob slept when he dreamed he saw a ladder reaching quite up into heaven. Some Latin verses are written upon a tablet hanging near it; the sense of ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... listening intently to understand Cleopatra's brief replies, my foreman, who, when the workmen were driven away by the Romans, had concealed himself between two blocks of granite, came to me and said that Proculejus had just climbed a ladder to the scaffold in the rear of the monument. Two servants followed, and they had all stolen down into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... all the Locrians mightiest, Fierce-souled Alcimedon, trusting in his prince And his own might and valour of his youth, All battle-eager on a ladder set Swift feet, to pave for friends a death-strewn path Into the town. Above ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the rate at which it is made. No amount of change shocks—or, in other words, is important—if it is made sufficiently slowly, while hardly any change is too small to shock if it is made suddenly. We may go down a ladder of ten thousand feet in height if we do so step by step, while a sudden fall of six or seven feet may kill us. The importance, therefore, does not lie in the change, but in the abruptness of its introduction. Nothing is absolutely important or absolutely unimportant, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... only result of this affair was that he found it disagreeable to call at the drug store. Besides, it was useless; no practice had come from his assiduous attendance. Finally, he saw one morning that his modest sign no longer waved from the pendent ladder. He did not take the trouble to inquire why ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... regulations, numerous rigorous inspections, retroactive application of new business regulations, and arrests of "disruptive" businessmen and factory owners. A wide range of redistributive policies has helped those at the bottom of the ladder. Close relations with Russia, possibly leading to reunion, color the pattern of economic developments. For the time being, Belarus remains self-isolated from the West and ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... showing signs of more or less prosperous life, with the exception of one, which affords the orthodox "haunted house" belonging to every well-regulated village. The ruined walls of this old mansion, with lichen cropping out from every crevice; the unhinged doors and broken windows; the ladder rotting as it leans against the moss-grown roof, the broken well-sweep and deserted barn, offer an aspect of desolation and decay which should prove sufficient bait to tempt any ghost ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... to be able to reach materially higher rungs on the ladder of civilization we shall, for a long time to come, have in Europe, not a superfluity, but a dearth of people. Under such circumstances, it is an absurdity to yield to the fear of over-population. It must ever be kept in mind that the utilization of existing sources of food, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... aides-de-camp looking on, or disporting with opera-dancers at a Trois Freres banquet, which some old gentleman of his father's age had taken the pains to order. If his lordship Count Almaviva wants a friend to carry the lanthorn or to hold the ladder; do you suppose there are not many most respectable men in society who will act Figaro? When Farintosh thought fit, in the fulness of time and the blooming pride of manhood, to select a spouse, and to elevate a marchioness to his throne, no one dared ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the following little picture: "On fine evenings I was wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it out-of-doors. On the coping of the Orchard-wall, which I could reach by climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the pruning-ladder, my porringer was placed: there, many a sunset, have I, looking at the distant western Mountains, consumed, not without relish, my evening meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of World's expectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me; nevertheless ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... handsome, dark and aquiline, and made a foil for Peggy's blond prettiness. Peter thought her a step above Peggy in the cultural sense, and only learned afterward that as she was not very well off, Peggy was using her as a rung in the social ladder. Mordaunt, Peter didn't fancy, but Gittings, who was jovial and bald, managed to inject some life into the party, which, despite the effect of the cocktails, seemed rather ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... be large, as I've oft heard you say, But your words show a brain that is working; You'll go to the top of the ladder because, You do what you ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... fetch a ladder, and I will set him. Fortune, thou injurious dame, thou shalt not by this villany Have cause to triumph over Prodigality. Why speak'st thou not? why speak'st thou not, I say? Thy silence doth but breed thine own hurt ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... smiling mouth, was "jest like a pictur'." So Tom and Mary duly fell in love, got married,—nobody objecting,—went West, and eight months afterward Mary came home with a coffin. Tom had fallen from a ladder, been taken up and brought home dead, and she had travelled back five hundred miles to bury him in Deerfield, beside his father and mother; for he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Picture-Book, for I have read Mrs. Lovechild's Golden Present so often, that I can repeat it without book. I am very glad to hear it, Peter, says his father, and I wish I could afford to buy you books as fast as you can learn them. I have been saving a penny a week these five weeks, to buy the LADDER to LEARNING for you: well then, says Peter, I have got a penny, which was given me this morning by Miss Kitty Kindness, so that will make sixpence: O dear, I should like vastly to have the Ladder to Learning, and you shall ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... well with food and water, and pulled the ladder up on board, and settled themselves each man to his oar, and kept time to Orpheus' harp; and away across the bay they rowed southward, while the people lined the cliffs; and the women wept, while the men shouted, at the ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... forms or sand-wall forms, as the case might be, and moved the traveling gantry into position. This was done in the afternoon, and required about 3 hours. They also took out, cleaned, repaired, and set all ditch forms, all passenger forms, circuit-breaker forms, and did all other repair work. The ladder forms, the refuge-niche forms, and overhead conductor pocket forms were attended to by one man, who set, removed, cleaned, and repaired them. The carpenters on the night shift set the arch centers and gantries, also the manhole forms when needed. The ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... Hannibal fetched the short ladder, and held the head, while Morgan drove in the nail so that the great head with its propped open jaws hung there grinning at the bottom of the garden; the skin soon shrinking away so that the head hung as it were by a skin loop; and before a month was past ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... made him worry still more; the Prince ran away. He had been watching for a long time for an opportunity to possess himself of a certain long ladder made of twisted evergreen ropes, which the Monks kept locked up in the toolhouse. Lately, by some oversight, the toolhouse had been left unlocked one day, and the Prince got the ladder. It was the latter part of the afternoon, and the Christmas Monks were all in the chapel practicing Christmas carols. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... was less of an exact science, and character a more incalculable element, than he had been taught in the schools. In the light of this revised impression, his own footing seemed less secure than he had imagined, and the rungs of the ladder he was climbing more slippery than they had looked from below. He was not without the reassuring sense of having made himself, in certain small ways, necessary to Mr. Spence; and this conviction was confirmed by Draper's reiterated assurance of his father's ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... and inventors want to be sincere, they will agree that, between the thought which they qualify as inspiration, and its tangible realization, a ladder of transformations has been constructed, and that it is only by progressive steps that they have attained what seemed to them the ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... narrow white street, no broader than a Cologne lane, but clean and bright as is no other street in Europe, past the cafes with low balconies, and the little shops—into some there are three or four steps to descend, into others there is an ascent of a diminutive ladder—till the small square or garden is reached in front of the Conversation House, a spacious building with a good ball-room and reading-room, where a kiosque, always in summer full of the fragrant Heligoland ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... appeared, then a rope-ladder. Somehow I was mounting it—a dizzy feat to which only the tumult of my emotions made me indifferent. Bare brawny arms of sailors clutched at me and drew me to the deck. There at once I was the center ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... soon became a moist and blackened heap. Todge, however, was not imaginative, and when night fell, he lay down upon his bed and slept without fear; that is, he slept until his bed began to float, then he awoke and groped his way neck deep in water until he found his ladder and managed by it to climb up into his loft, where he sat shivering, till suddenly he felt the cabin give a lurch, and the water rushed in. It had been lifted clear off the piles, and when it should settle ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... 'em in your mouth and done with it, if you are too lazy to pick 'em up. If the ladder was n't too heavy we could try that,' said ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... seen from an eminence at the side, which you descend by a long and steep path. The rock itself may be ascended by the bold and agile: half-way up is a niche, to which those who are neither can climb by a ladder. A very handsome young officer and lady who were with us did so, and then, facing round, stood there side by side, looking in the niche, if not like saints or angels wrought by pious hands in stone, as romantically, if not as holily, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... opened the door; the barn was pitch dark, but as he entered he could hear the noise of the chain which had been fastened to the elephant's legs being suddenly dragged. He spoke to Chang, and the noise ceased. Then running up a short ladder which was close to the door, he threw himself down on the straw and stared up into the darkness, which to his aching eyes seemed spangled with many colours. Presently he was startled by something warm touching him ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gleaming gold. Through long years Johnson hid in dingy courts and alleys, ill-clothed, ill-fed, an uncouth Apollo in the service of Admetus Cave and his kind, while the marvellous actor was climbing daily higher and higher on the ladder of an actor's fame, the friend of the wealthy, the favored of the great, the admired, the applauded, the well-beloved. Garrick deserved his fame and his fortune, his splendid successes and {43} his shining rewards; but the grand, rough writer of books did not ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hat, he rose from the table, and mounting the ladder, "On second thought," said he, addressing Skysail again, "I won't throw the cats overboard; the sailors have a foolish superstition about that animal—its d——d unlucky. No; put them alive in a bread-bag, and send them ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as comes here thinks this case the most interesting of all. Peace was such a wonderful man! A great inventor they say he would have been, had he been put in the way of it. Here's his ladder; you see it folds up quite compactly, and makes a nice little bundle—just like a bundle of old sticks any man might have been seen carrying about London in those days without attracting any attention. Why, it probably helped him to look like an honest working man time and time again, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Jack threw back the door, and the bright moonlight pouring down the opening in a flood of silver revealed a narrow, ladder-like stairway descending to an uncarpeted hall. Jack started down with the others at ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... sorry sight at one of the 'secaderos,' or coffee-drying platforms. A young mulatto woman is undergoing 'veinte cinco' on a short ladder: in other words, is being flogged. They have tied her, face downwards, by her wrists and ankles, to a slanting ladder, while an overseer and a muscular assistant in turn administer two dozen lashes with a knotted ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the schooner were rowed to the steamer by one of the crew, who climbed up the ladder at the side of the Polynesia, and spent a few minutes in inspecting the broken shaft. He then came back. His attention was attracted to little Inez, whose childish curiosity was excited by the appearance of a stranger who had but one eye, and who looked so different from the trim-looking ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... reason of the rare "k" in her name regarded herself as the sole genuine in a district full of Proctors) may be described as the dowager of Bursley, the custodian of its respectability, and the summit of its social ladder. You could not climb higher than Mrs. Prockter. She lived at Hillport, and even in that haughty suburb there was none who dared palter with an invitation from Mrs. Prockter. She was stout and deliberate. She ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... the town-council ventured forth from his refuge behind the statue of Trajan—the only image that the priesthood had spared—and to climb a ladder which was used for lighting the hanging lamps, so as to peep out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to speak; indeed, had we not loosened his neckcloth, I believe he would have died of apoplexy, for he was already getting black in the face. We placed them near the companion-ladder, where they could obtain some air; and then, getting off the main hatch, we proceeded to search the vessel. In the hold were several casks of French brandy, immensely strong spirit, intended to be diluted before being sold. From one of these the crew had evidently been helping themselves, and ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... uncommon darkening the window of his bedchamber, ran downstairs into the garden, where he found some of the beans had taken root, and sprung up surprisingly: the stalks were of an immense thickness, and had twined together until they formed a ladder like a chain, and so high that the top appeared to be lost in the clouds. Jack was an adventurous lad; he determined to climb up to the top, and ran to tell his mother, not doubting but that she would be equally pleased with himself. She declared he should not ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... masterful desires. The senses are quickened and alert to the call of kind. And just as the fish and the reptile glimmeringly adumbrate man, so do these yearnings and desires adumbrate what man in himself calls "love," spelled all out in capitals. I repeat, the need is the same. From the amoeba, up the ladder of life to you and me, comes this passion of perpetuation. And in yourself, refine and sublimate as you will, it is none the less blind, ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... go up the narrow stairs, or rather ladder, which led to the upper floor, and then led him into ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... controls, and all the steering and elevating arrangements. Engine-room telegraphs, voice pipes and telephones were fitted up for communication from one part of the ship to the other. The keel could be reached by a ladder from each car, thus providing with the climbing shaft through the hull access to ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... strong sorrow softened him, was a character not amiable. He lacked generosity, and had too keen an eye on his own advancement. He did not inherit the noble strain of his ancestors. He was a prosperous man; yet in spite of his increase in flocks and herds,—in spite of his vision of the ladder, with the angels ascending and descending upon it,—in spite of the success of his beloved son,—in spite of the weeping and lamentation of the Egyptians at his death,—in spite of his splendid funeral, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... wooden shutter, ran down the ladder, and disappeared, as the misty morning gave way to ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... place, I should expect to consider such a matter not as affecting myself only, but in its relation to society—and the community. Our first duty is to Society. We owe it everything, and we must not act selfishly toward it. Consider Oliver's position. He has his foot on the political ladder. Every session his influence in Parliament increases. His speech to-night was—as I hear from a man who has just come from the debate—the most brilliant he has yet made. It is extremely likely ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but pitiably shabby. Keep your seat, Mr. Landor, and keep your temper for once in your life. Let us examine into this pretended mistake in your former dialogue about Laodamia. Well, as you are up, do me the favour, sir, to mount the ladder, and take down from yon top shelf the first volume of your Conversations. Up in the corner, on the left hand, next the ceiling. You see I have given ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... their body. The women are punished in the same manner. Sometimes when they are old they are left to starve to death. Every day during my sojourn in the Isle of France I have seen black men and black women lashed hands and feet to a ladder and flogged for having forgot to shut a door or for breaking a bit of pottery. I have seen them bleeding all over, and having their wounded bodies rubbed with vinegar and salt. I have seen them speechless with excess of pain; I have seen some of them bite the iron cannon ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... in the valley of the Wood Robin, while searching for its nest I found a large cocoon. It was above my head, but afterward I secured it by means of a ladder, and carried it home. Shortly there emerged a yet larger Cecropia, and luck seemed with me. I could find them everywhere through June, the time of their emergence, later their eggs, and the tiny caterpillars that hatched from them. During the summer I ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the aid of several neighbors. With them he returned the following morning and they climbed up into the pagoda. Most of the steps of the stairway were in good condition for the ogre had only destroyed those at the top. But they were able to get up with a ladder, and then the brother fetched down his sister and brought her safely ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... full of ambition. Police work was merely serving its purpose in his scheme of things. He saw advancement in it—advancement in the right direction. In five years he had raised himself from the lowest rung of the police ladder to a commissioned rank, and from this rank he knew he could reach out in any of the directions in ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... procured Pa an engagement for India. He ordered a beautiful colored poster, "The Clifton Family, Trick Cyclists," with a portrait in the corner of his own strong face and bristling mustache—"P. T. Clifton, Manager"—one more rung in the ladder of life ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... into all the same postures for an attack that I had formerly provided, and was just ready for action, if anything had presented. Having waited a good while, listening to hear if they made any noise, at length, being very impatient, I set my guns at the foot of my ladder, and clambered up to the top of the hill, by my two stages, as usual; standing so, however, that my head did not appear above the hill, so that they could not perceive me by any means. Here I observed, by the help of my perspective glass, that they were no less ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... the Viceroy's castle in Wales!' cried the other. 'We're going up the ladder hand over head, Mr. Kearney! A week ago his ambition was bounded on the south by Ship Street, and on the east by the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... my duties," he explained. "The War Office is, for reasons known to itself, moving troops, and I have gradually crept up the ladder at Bastia, till I am nearly at the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... But there were two tendrils. The brother seized the wrong one; it was loose, and he was swung away, whirled by the wind backwards and forwards from one horizon to the other. Tawhaki took the right ladder, and climbed successfully.[1] At the top he met with adventures, and had even to become a slave, and carry axes and firewood disguised as a little, ugly, old man. At last, however, he regained his wife, became ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... The ladder used by one of the party being too short, the young man placed himself on the wall, as if in a saddle, to have a better opportunity of taking aim; when one of the wolves, the largest, strongest, and most exasperated, suddenly bounded at the wall, as if to clear it, but failed; subsequently the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... for the next meal. A very few sticks will thus serve for cooking a large number of the simple native meals. Opening from the kitchen was the front door, leading to the ground by a flight of stairs or a ladder. Thanks to the United States Mariveles is supplied with abundant water, piped from some miles up in the mountains, and some of the better houses of the barrio have a private faucet on the back porch, which is luxury indeed. The main room ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... was opened, and Tom was assisted down the ladder to the bottom of the hold, and then leaving him there, with his hands still tied together behind his back, the soldiers mounted the ladder and put the hatch in place, leaving Tom in ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... blew the corpses one against the other, tossing them to and fro, he thought to himself: "If you are perishing down here by the fire, how those poor things up there must be shaking and shivering!" And because he had a tender heart, he put up a ladder, which he climbed unhooked one body after the other, and took down all the seven. Then he stirred the fire, blew it up, and placed them all round in a circle, that they might warm themselves. But they sat there ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... the officer through a hatch at the bottom of the globe, only to be confronted by a ladder he thought at first he could not climb, for the steps were merely toe holds made to accommodate the long, bare feet of the crew. By snapping on the magnetic power of his space boots, Raf was able to get up, although at a far slower speed than his guide. They passed several levels of cabins ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... be twisted about, and driven in and across the vessel, and turned in spaces to look at which would have broken the heart of an English coachman. And then with a spring they were driven up a bank as steep as a ladder! Ah me! under what mistaken illusions have I not labored all the days of my youth, in supposing that no man could drive four horses well but an English stage coachman! I have seen performances in America—and in ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... the room, or from parts near the window or far from the fireplace which had therefore remained cold—or rooms in summer, where I would delight to feel myself a part of the warm evening, where the moonlight striking upon the half-opened shutters would throw down to the foot of my bed its enchanted ladder; where I would fall asleep, as it might be in the open air, like a titmouse which the breeze keeps poised in the focus of a sunbeam—or sometimes the Louis XVI room, so cheerful that I could never feel really unhappy, even on my first night ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... smoothness of the lake's frozen surface. The Sheep was struggling helplessly in an ice-hole of his own making. Rupert gave one loud curse, and then dashed full tilt for the shore; outside a low stable building on the lake's edge he remembered having seen a ladder. If he could slide it across the ice-hole before the Sheep went under the rescue would be comparatively simple work. Other skaters were dashing up from a distance, and, with the ladder's help, they could get him out of his death-trap without having to trust themselves on the margin of ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... beat. Only those who have been shut up in the dark know what it is to come out into the light. That alone was sufficient to give him a fresh store of courage and hope. So he followed Miguel up a narrow ladder and emerged upon the deck. As he had inferred, the schooner was in a heavy fog, with scarcely any wind and the sails ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pressure; the boiler will last longer, and little or no smoke. There is a drawback to these advantages: there must be a live stoker to keep the automatic stoker up to its work; he has to keep the coals supplied to the "Jacob's Ladder"; he has to regulate the supply of coals to the boxes over each boiler, and regulate the supply of coals dropping down into the fireplace, regulate the speed of the travelling furnace by means of the ratchet, clean out the ash-hole of clinkers every two hours and ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... 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 ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... 'dregs of the populace,' since labor in any form must not be lightly spoken of. But it would be the weakest of euphuisms to affect ignorance of the social position which he occupies, and which, not to increase the misery of his position, is indubitably 'at the bottom of the ladder.' But that which is at the bottom of the ladder may seriously affect its position and standing. There is a fearful and thrilling illustration of this, to be found in a popular cut graphically described in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in December, 1838 and saw twelve of fourteen negroes punished on one plantation, by stretching them on a ladder and tying them to it; then stripping off their clothes, and whipping them on the naked flesh with a heavy whip, the lash seven or eight feet long: most of the strokes cut the skin. I understood they were whipped for not doing ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... him, as he staggered up the trail, and he heard himself muttering. There were no locks in this land, so he entered unbidden. The place was empty, though warm from recent habitation. With his remaining strength he scrambled up a rude ladder to the loft where he fumbled in the dark while his heart stopped. Then he cried hoarsely and, ripping open the box, stuffed them gloatingly into pockets and shirt front. He dropped from the platform and fled out ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... his friend that he had scored absolutely off his own bat and that there was and could be no more question of help or obligation. He was rather surprised by a display of feeling on Quisante's part which seemed to indicate almost an excess of gratitude; but Quisante felt his foot on the ladder, and the wells of emotion were full to overflowing. Dick escaped in considerable embarrassment, telling himself that remarkable men could not be expected to behave just like other men, like his sort of man, but wishing they would. None the less he praised what he hardly liked, ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... indicate that the crest had ever been inhabited, or even previously visited. Nothing daunted by this statement, a few weeks later Mr. Hodge again attempted the ascent in which he had failed the year before. This time he was successful, and scaled the cliff by means of an extension ladder and several hundred feet of rope. But very different were the conclusions reached by him as to the probable authenticity of the tradition; for after having been on the mesa only a short time, he found a piece of ancient pottery, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound. There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... gray-green olive trees that shimmered silver in the sunlight. Little lizards, sunning themselves on warm flat stones, watched him with brilliant eyes, and darted away to safety as he moved. The shadows of the cypress trees barred the white path like rungs of a ladder. And Blagden, drinking deep of the beauty of it ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he was claiming acquaintance with gipsies, bruisers, and shady characters, such as the notorious Thurtell. A more dangerous influence to Borrow than any, perhaps, was that of Sir John Bowring, a plausible polyglot, who deliberately used his facility in acquiring and translating tongues as a ladder to an administrative post abroad. Borrow, as was perhaps natural, put a wrong construction upon his sympathy, and his apparently disinterested ambition to leave no poetic fragment in Russian, Swedish, Polish, Servian, Bohemian, or Hungarian unrendered into English. He determined to emulate ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... fourth day he seemed extremely solicitous for the liberation of his charge, using every expression of distressful anxiety, and every call and invitation that nature had put in his power, for him to come out. This was too much for the feelings of my friend. He procured a ladder, and mounting to the spot where the bird was suspended, opened the cage, took out his prisoner, and restored him to liberty and to his parent, who, with notes of great exultation, accompanied his flight ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... pleasures; she would often climb The steepest ladder of the crudded rack Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, And like Arion on the dolphin's back Ride singing through the shoreless air;—oft-time 485 Following the serpent lightning's winding track, She ran upon the platforms of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Lady Claire, only a couple of steps," said the Colonel as he led me to the side of the steamer farthest from the shore. A ladder was fixed here and a boat was made fast to the lowest rung. Carefully, tenderly guided by my ever trusty henchman I made the descent, took my seat in the stern of the small boat, it was cast loose, and we pushed off ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... list, alphabetically arranged, of directors, promoters, statesmen, capitalists, and others who were in the habit of signing "letters of recommendation" for young men who wanted to do something and begin well up the ladder. ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... idea was absurd. No ladder in the world would reach to the quarter of such a height. Ropes, even if they had had them, could be in no way made available. These might aid in going down a precipice, but for going up ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... fruit in her hands. Sometimes she stopped to straighten a candle stooping with the heat, or disturbed some too rigid arrangement of the chairs. She had reason to suspect that Chailey had been balancing herself on the top of a ladder with a wet duster during their absence, and the room had never been quite like itself since. Returning from the dining-room for the third time, she perceived that one of the arm-chairs was now occupied by St. John. He lay back in it, with his eyes half shut, looking, as he always did, curiously ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... we left port,— when we heard the mate's voice on deck (he turned-in "all-standing,'' and was always on deck the moment he was called) singing out to the men who were taking in the studding-sails, and asking where his watch were. We did not wait for a second call, but tumbled up the ladder; and there, on the starboard bow, was a bank of mist, covering sea and sky, and driving directly for us. I had seen the same before in my passage round in the Pilgrim, and knew what it meant, and that there was no time to be lost. We had nothing on but thin clothes, yet there ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... found a long steep ladder running up the outside of one of the legs of the Control Tower. Only huge slowly circling birds and low-flying clouds came between him and the underside of the control house at the top of the structure. Before beginning ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... They found an upright ladder, weather-beaten but still strong, beside one of the posts. Dunham tied the boat, then began to climb up, Sylvia following, and in a minute more they stood inside the desolate building, where strips of sunlight patched the ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... man—is the highest and divinest motive of labour—a motive possible not only to the sons and daughters of genius, but accessible to the plainest, humblest man or woman who suffers and toils on the lowest round of the ladder ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... who was engaged in cultivating his land in a hamlet, one mile south of the town of Syudpoor. They seized and bound him and took him off to their leader, Maheput, who had him tortured for a month in the usual way. He had him tied up to a ladder and flogged. He had red-hot irons applied to different parts of his body—he put dry combustibles on the open palms of his hands and set fire to them, so that he has lost the use of his fingers for life. For the whole month he gave him only ten pounds of flour to eat; ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... cadets snapped their backs straight, stood rigid, and saluted as their superior officer strode toward the hatch. His foot on the ladder, he turned and ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... silence. On the altar itself a Holy Lamp burned steadily, and behind, half obliterated by a lonely, upright figure, the great three-headed god stretched out ghost-like arms into the sunshine that descended in a narrow ladder of pure light to mingle with the ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... a greasy plate. They will act as little in general intercourse upon the proposition that "the man's the gowd for a' that," as they will upon the proposition that "man is a spirit" when it comes to the alternative of jumping over a cliff or going down by a ladder. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... concealed it from the duke her father, and told him, that, despairing of ever being able to obtain his consent, he had prevailed upon Silvia to leave her father's palace that night, and go with him to Mantua; then he showed Proteus a ladder of ropes, by help of which he meant to assist Silvia to get out of one of the windows of the palace after ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... rigging is universally taut and trim; and it is easy to perceive that the officers of the Gentile understand their business. The swinging-boom is rigged out, and fastened thereto, by their painters, a pair of boats, a yawl and gig, float lovingly side by side; and instead of the usual ladder at the side, a handy flight of accommodation steps lead from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... 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 came in through ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... while yet a girl in her teens, in a little Western town ("Oh!" thought Missy), that Miss Carson mounted the first rung of the ladder she has climbed to such enviable heights. She had just graduated from the local high school ("Oh! oh!" thought Missy) and, already prodded by ambition, persuaded the editor of the weekly paper to ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... inconvenient moments you would go out through the house to find her a bit of fish or to open the cellar door. You recognized her right to appear at night on your bed with one of her long-suffering kittens, which she had brought in the rain, out of a cellar window and up a lofty ladder, over the wet, steep roofs and down through a scuttle into the garret, and still down into warm shelter. Here she would leave it and with one or two loud, admonishing purrs would scurry away upon some errand that must have been like one of the ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said, 'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied, 'Very well, Mr. M—— ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... consider a very remarkable genius should have faith in itself. Let your moral take care of itself, and remember that an author's writing-desk is something infinitely higher than a pulpit. What I call "care of itself" is shown in that noble passage in the February number about the ladder up to heaven. That is grand preaching and in the right way. I am sure that "The Minister's Wooing" is going to be the best of your products hitherto, and I am sure of it because you show so thorough a mastery ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... cowboys to go to the head of the open place in the cliff and let down lassoes. Then, with little waste of words, he urged the women toward this rough ladder ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... glow faded in the West and Night settled down, he came swinging sturdily across the street, his ladder hung on his right shoulder, his wax taper in his left hand. Quickly, unerringly he placed the ladder against the iron post that sent its metallic ring into the clear night air as the ladder struck, and was three rounds up almost before it settled into position. ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright |
