"Off and on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his honesty of purpose, his fidelity of character, his eminent scholarship, his unswerving integrity, and his command of tongue, rendered him alike invulnerable to politicians and to royal minions. He was with Raleigh at Winchester and in the Tower, off and on, as required, from 1604 to 1618, except during the last voyage to Guiana. He was at the same time a pensioner, a companion, and confidential factotum of his old friend the Earl of Northumberland both in the Tower and at Sion for fifteen years. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... got it all ship-shape and proper yet," said Mr. Benn, slowly, "but it's in my mind's eye. It's been there off and on like for some time." ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... every little while, till I threw some things in my grip and started for the depot. There wasn't any train out last night that'd fetch me within fifty miles of here. I went back to my room and went to bed. But it didn't let up on me. Off and on, all night, just about the time I'd doze off a little, I'd seem to hear that voice. I went to the depot this morning, and caught the eight o'clock train out. I'd 'a' made it in here at two this afternoon if it hadn't been for a washout between here and the ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... hadn't been there reg'lar; but he'd been in off and on, and when he comes to think how this old chap, that knew all his whims, and kept track of 'em so faithful, had dropped out without his ever having heard a word about it—why, he felt kind of broke up. You see, he'd always meant to do something nice for ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... in one place of service for three or more years, five remained four years; two, four years and a half; nine, five years; three, six years; four, seven years; two, eight years; one, twelve years; three, fifteen years, and one, "eighteen years off and on;" in all, a total of thirty in 802 cases that were in one place of ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... and wrung the disconsolate one warmly by the hand. "But there, I am sorry I have to hurry you away.... Now that you know where to find me, drop in some evening and have a cigar and a chat. I'm in town a good deal, off and on, and always glad to see ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the hand, however. "I forgot to say that I shall be in Washington off and on—for a day or so. My wife remains here. It is still too cold for her ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... and whistles for the dog. His nest is in a great cluster of mistletoe in the mesquite tree behind the house and every morning he polishes his long curved bill against the ramada roof, preens out his glossy feathers, and does honor to the sun. For two years, off and on, Hardy had heard him, mimicking orioles and larks and sparrows and whistling shrilly for the dog, but now for the first time his heart answered to the wild joy of the bird lover. The world had taken on light and color ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... Noel got very tired. He's a peaky little chap; it comes of being a poet, I think. We had a bun or two at different shops—out of the shillings—and it was quite late in the afternoon when we got to Fleet Street. The gas was lighted and the electric lights. There is a jolly Bovril sign that comes off and on in different coloured lamps. We went to the Daily Recorder office, and asked to see the Editor. It is a big office, very bright, with brass ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... Whalley, poor man, is by no means useless. Fact. Let me explain to you, sir. He stiffens up that old monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough what to do. Why, he must have kept captain's watches in all sorts of country ships off and on for the last five-and-twenty years. These natives, sir, as long as they have a white man close at the back, will go on doing the right thing most surprisingly well—even if left quite to themselves. Only the white man must be of the sort to put starch into them, and the captain ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... ever been there? Well, son, I was there off and on for about ten years, when the government first opened up the land, and you could travel for miles ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... was coming home,—if, as I say, it was Shaw,—rather to the surprise of every body they made one of the Windward Islands, and lay off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the officers were sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-soup before they came home. But after several days the Warren came to the same rendezvous; they exchanged ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... sweep her out of the path of the terrified beast. The cadet made heroic efforts, until it was evident that the horse would dash into the iron fence beyond the road, and then the young fellow was off and on his feet with the agility of a cat, but he still maintained his hold upon the bridle. A second later there was a heavy thud heard above the screams of women and children and the shouts of those vociferating advice. The horse fell heavily in his recoil from ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... not a single acquaintance in Ireland when first I visited that most interesting of countries: before leaving it, however, after about a year and a-half's cruising off and on their coasts, I was on pretty intimate terms with one family at least for every dozen miles, from Downpatrick on the east, to the Bloody Foreland on the west, a range of more than ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... were anywhere near on time. At this storm season the Westbound was frequently behind and the road to town a quagmire. We never looked for Fahey—he was the man I found there as night watchman—before eight o'clock. It had rained and snowed off and on since the month began. In the dark, low rooms the fire burned all day. The dining-room, which had blue-green walls in imitation of Flemish tapestry and weathered-oak furniture, was darkened still more by the pines that gave a cloistered look to the view from ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... done more than most men. I've paid your old bills, your whole family's, your brothers' in college, to the tune of five thousand a year (worthless scamps!) and put 'em in business. You've had all of 'em at Newport and Paris, let alone their living here off and on nearly twenty years. Now you think I can shell out two hundred thousand and a London house as ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... dress factory, but ..." and I regaled him with the vast amount of experience in other lines that was mine, adding that I had done a good deal of "private dressmaking" off and on, and also assuring him, almost tremblingly, I did so want to land a job—that I was the ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... absence of corroborative testimony, Mark and Luke destroy each other as witnesses. The author of Acts agrees with Mark as to the place, but differs both from Mark and Luke as to the time. He declares that Jesus spent forty days (off and on) with his disciples before levitating. This constitutes another difficulty. Mark, Luke, and the author of Acts must all leave the court in disgrace, for it is too late for them to patch up a ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... never been intended to stand rough usage, proved to be a better survivor of the crash than most of the other installations. Power purred along a network of lines, activated beams, turned off and on a series of fixtures in those coffin-beds. For five of the sleepers—nothing. The cabin which had held them was a flattened smear against the mountain side. Three more half aroused, choked, fought for ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... records of antiquity, are the remains of an apostolic Father. He tells us, in his preface, that the subject has been before him "for nearly thirty years;" and that, during this period, it has "engaged his attention off and on in the intervals of other literary pursuits and official duties." Many, we apprehend, will feel that the result is not equal to such a vast expenditure of time and labour; and will concur with friends ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... raising her hand. "Tell your mistress to get you a French coffee-pot, and if you don't know how to use it, I'll come and teach you. I shall be here off and on as long as Mrs. Drane stops in this house." And then, seating herself, La Fleur proceeded to put Molly through an elementary ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... seemed to take an interest in getting me on my feet. There's an awful nice undertaker there. I forget his name; but he knew Henry de Spain well; said he'd done a good deal of business for Henry, off and on—when he could get the coffins. He sent some flowers over to me at the hospital with his card. I sent back my own card—wrote: 'Not yet.' When we were leaving I went over to thank him and tell him I was sorry I hadn't been able to throw him a job. Even then, I didn't feel I could ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Mr. Merewether—he is still at Bludston—asking who his visitor was that year and what had become of her. So she found out it was I. I've known her off and on ever ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... some time, and from what we have heard of God, off and on, we don't believe he is going to let no ordinary man, bald-headed and appoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the tail of ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... it was between four and five in the afternoon, and we had had nothing to eat, the most of us, since the night before, and were soaked with rain into the bargain. It had drizzled off and on all day, but for the last few hours we had not had a thought to spare either upon the weather or our hunger. Now we began to look round and tighten our waist-belts, and ask who was hit and who was spared. I was glad to see Jim, with his face all blackened with ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for the General what he wanted to know. Thanks for your news. As to poor Mr. Innes Cross of our regiment, who is missing, I know nothing. The other or 2nd Battalion might tell you something. A machine gun has been going hard at my trench for some time, off and on.... ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... almost from the water's edge, looking huge and barren across the sea. We sped onward past Guantanamo Bay, where we saw the little picket-ships of the fleet; and in the afternoon we sighted Santiago Harbor, with the great war-ships standing off and on in front of it, gray and sullen in ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... taken to plug the damaged French lines. There was a reserve battalion near by, and outside this village a group of men were at work, putting up tents for a hospital. Some thirty miles ahead was the front, and you heard the guns off and on, a low sullen roar, punctuated with hammer-strokes f big fellows. Millions of dollars every hour were being blown to nothingness in that fearful inferno; a gigantic meat-mill that was grinding up the bodies of men and had never ceased ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... bait. Most cougars that are killed by still-hunters are shot by accident while the man is after other game. This has been my own experience. Although not common, cougars are found near my ranch, where the ground is peculiarly favorable for the solitary rifleman; and for ten years I have, off and on, devoted a day or two to their pursuit; but never successfully. One December a large cougar took up his abode on a densely wooded bottom two miles above the ranch house. I did not discover his existence until I went there one evening to kill a deer, and found that ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Off and on, he checked the hole into the other world. There was nothing but the slow progression of alien stars across the sky. Finally old Tom grew bored and left to investigate the hole under the lean-to. Shortly there were scutterings and ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... to the injustice done to women by a lecture given near Wilmington, Ohio, by John O. Wattles in 1841. He devoted most of his time to lecturing on Woman's Rights, The Sin of Slavery, The Temperance Reform and Peace. I heard him on all these subjects, off and on, till 1844, when we were married.... Seventy-nine summers with their clouds and sunshine, make it fitting I should greet you by letter rather than personal presence. May the cause never falter till ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the early afternoon of that day and found a letter waiting for him with an English postmark. Peg had eyed it curiously off and on for hours. She had turned it over and over in her fingers and looked at the curious, angular writing, and felt a little cold shiver run up and down her as she found herself wondering who could be writing to ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... "Off and on for a long time," said Granfa. "It's been a terr'ble experience, and I ban't likely to be ever the ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... re-delivered the anti-coercion speech which he has been making off and on for the last forty years. Mr. DEVLIN was a little more up-to-date, for he introduced a reference to the Belfast riots and drew from the CHIEF SECRETARY an assurance that the Bill would be as applicable to Ulster as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... workin' with him, off and on, pretty much the hull time since he come; and he says he ha'n't begun to know how to spell ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... they got nearly to Hythe, and met with the red-whiskered man who got up suddenly out of the hedge and said he'd been hanging off and on expecting them for nigh on a week, Mr. Beale sent Dickie into a field to look for mushrooms—which didn't grow there—expressly that he might have a private conversation with the red-whiskered man—a conversation which ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... for a moment or two. Sixth Avenue was a deserted highway, on which red and green lights blinked off and on in the usual routine, signaling to drivers who were non-existent. There were vistas of deserted streets and avenues. There were some few living things—policemen in uniform, standing in pairs and larger groups, all concentrated in an area covering no more ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... flat-topped stand, about the height of his waist, with a curious box-like arrangement on it, in which was a powerful light. For several minutes, he occupied himself with the adjustment of this machine, switching the light off and on and focussing the lenses. ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... shivering of lances. He tells her, in his heat, that her notions are formed from deference to models in fashionable life, and that she has no idea of adaptation,—and she tells him that he is domineering, and dictatorial, and wanting to have everything his own way; and in fine, this battle is fought off and on through the day, with occasional armistices of kisses and makings-up,—treacherous truces, which are all broken up by the fatal words, "My dear, after all, you must admit I was in the right," which of course is the signal to fight the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... Lieutenant ——, as he descended the companion way, after giving some orders on deck; "a regular gale this, by Jupiter; but we are spinning away ten knots, off and on." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... midst of his protestations a clever scheme occurred to him. He lowered his voice in shame. There was a man, a young man, who used to come to see Jennie off and on. "Jennie asked me not to tell." Peter hesitated a moment, and added his master-stroke. "Jennie explained to me that she was a free-lover; she told me all about free love. I told her I didn't believe in it, but you know, Sadie, when Jennie believed in ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... meat-drying well, which will be of vast advantage to us; to lose the flesh of another animal as we did the camel's would indeed be a serious loss. Our two patients Maitland and Kirby deadly sick; whatever can be wrong with them I can't imagine; the latter has been ailing off and on for some time and has got dispirited in the rough country. Busy this morning cutting up the flesh of the horse and tying it on the lines to dry; had he been in good condition it would take a good judge to distinguish his flesh from beef; it makes most excellent hash and soup. One of our ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... of the way of most of the parish, isn't it? I never could see, exactly, what put it into his head to come so far. Not but what he makes out to do his duty as a pastor, pretty prompt, too. I don't hear any complaints. He's rather off and on about settling, though. I guess he's a man that keeps his intentions pretty close to himself—and all his affairs, for that matter. Of course he's a perfect right to. But I will say I like to know ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... expedition. I met Prof. Neilson the following day. The sum required was $400.00 and he agreed to guarantee the sale of $400.00 worth in the U.S. at least. The next day I met Rev. Crath at the Exhibition display. We met off and on for two or three days. I could see no flaw in the project, so I raised the $400.00 by a bank-note. The banker thought I was crazy—and the missionary was on his way by the end ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... the tropics, I think you told me?" he said to Evadne, with exaggerated preciseness. "Ah! now, I have been, off and on, several times. The heat is very trying. I knew a lady, the wife of a Colonial Governor, who used to be so overcome by it that she was obliged to undo all her things, let them slip to the ground, and step out of them, leaving them looking ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... two armies here; drums beating, trumpets sounding, thunder and lightning. They fight off and on several times. Some fall. GRIZ. and ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... never saw Cornwall—and certainly never saw or heard of this contrivance—until I came and settled here, eight years ago: whereas I've been dreaming this, off and on, ever since ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... extremely from constipation. Walked and talked early. No convulsions. Menstruated first several months ago. Sometimes complains of severe headaches. One observer reported that the girl had been subject to slight melancholia within the last year. Choreic movements have been present off and on for about a year, but have not been marked until a little while previous to the incident which brought her to us. The diagnosis had been made that it was a case of mild St. Vitus dance. During all the year Nellie ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... one of your Common Sense Medical Advisers, and found it worth five times what I gave for it; I have helped others to get it and the "Medical Discovery" and "Favorite Prescription" have brought relief to many through me I use the "Prescription" off and on; it has given me strength; I think I should have been an invalid long ago ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... which we had experienced, rejoined us early in the morning, when Captain Lyon returned to her to prepare a boat for his intended excursion. We then stood in under all sail for the land, and at eleven A.M. Captain Lyon left the Hecla, while the ships tacked off and on to await his return. At nine P.M. Captain Lyon returned, acquainting me that he had met with a small bay having no stream of tide, and being at present clear of ice, he thought it might answer our purpose, but he wished me to see it before ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... was through her, indirectly, that all this trouble had occurred. Until her arrival there had never been a moment when he had seriously worried over Mary. She had scolded, of course, about his gambling and drinking and they had had their bad half hours, off and on; but never for an instant had there been the suggestion of a break in their business affairs. About that, at least, she had always been reasonable; but now she was capable of anything. It would not surprise him to get a telegram from Stoddard that he was coming out to ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... in this way I became the owner of the buckskin steed, not as my own property, however, but as a government horse that I could ride. I gave him the name of “Buckskin Joe,” and he proved to be a good second Brigham. That horse I rode off and on during the summers of 1869, '70, '71, and '72, and he was the horse that the Grand Duke Alexis rode on ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... and initial), is this. The masses represented by filled bookcases are set one in front of another; and, in order that access may be had as it is required, they are set upon trams inserted in the floor (which must be a strong one), and wheeled off and on ...
— On Books and the Housing of Them • William Ewart Gladstone
... wait to ensue. Then abruptly he began his interrogation. He had been thinking over the circumstances, off and on, since last night, and had determined on his line. Ordinarily he would have called for witnesses of various sorts, but this would have been not at all for the purpose of piling up evidence against the accused. That is the civilized fashion; and is superfluous ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... would be possible to devise a much more entertaining set of toys for an infant than is at present procurable, but, unhappily, they would not appeal to the intelligence of the average parent. There would be, for example, one or two little boxes of different shapes and substances, with lids to take off and on, one or two rubber things that would bend and twist about and admit of chewing, a ball and a box made of china, a fluffy, flexible thing like a rabbit's tail, with the vertebrae replaced by cane, a velvet-covered ball, a powder puff, and so on. They could all be plainly and vividly ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... seemed nothing, in respect of his willing mind, for the commoditie of his Prince and Countrey,) with two little Pinnesses prepared of purpose, passed twise thorow them to the East shore, and the Ilands thereunto adiacent: and the ship, with the two Barks lay off and on something further into the sea, from the danger ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... asked, "when you came here yesterday, did the Vixen follow you closely, or did she stand off and on, as seamen say, and take note of your course indifferently? What I want to know is this: Did the driver seem anyway excited when you ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... is called a wig," Major Kitchener explained. "It was made for him at Cairo; he can take it off and on. Take ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... But I don't like this off and on kind of business. When I make an agreement, I'm up to the mark, and expect the same from everybody else. Will you let my ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... straightway. An evil enough place it looked, perilously narrow and with mighty seas that broke in thunderous spray to right and left of it; insomuch that heedful of Adam's warning (and all too late) I was minded to bear up and stand away, plying off and on, until the waves should have moderated. But in my folly I had sailed too near and now, swept onward by some current, the boat, responding no more to her helm, was borne on at ever-increasing speed. So thus helpless and at mercy of the seas we drove straight ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the second day on which they were on board her, the felucca drew near land, from which she held off and on until the shades of night covered her movements, when she approached close to the shore, and a boat was lowered over ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... started work at the library the first thing and has been off and on ever since, and is now going to do it permanently, besides teaching a class in the Sunday-school, looking after the choir-boys, running errands for ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... the year 1854 that I first met Mameena, and my acquaintance with her continued off and on until 1856, when it came to an end in a fashion that shall be told after the fearful battle of the Tugela in which Umbelazi, Panda's son and Cetewayo's brother—who, to his sorrow, had also met Mameena—lost ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... whose rosy cheeks and plump figure elicited from me a gratulatory comment upon her robust appearance, indignantly informed me that she was "by no means strong, and had been doctorin' off and on for a year past ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... and make typewritten copies of things for the faculty, put on dress braids (that's how I met the B's), mend stockings, and wait on table off and on when some one's maid leaves suddenly. We thought it would be cheaper and pleasanter to board ourselves and earn our money in different ways than to take our board in exchange for regular table-waiting; but I don't know. ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... "see, here are the keys. They slip off and on this spring swivel; the old man always wore them there. The key of that door; the key of the iron chamber; the key of the steel chest. Gentlemen, I shall remove the keys. Mr Capel, they are yours, now. ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... there, too—off and on everyday; but he kept me as much in the dark as Sarah. He always persisted in speaking French to me—that I might fail to recognize his voice, I dare say; and he spoke it as fluently as a Frenchman. But he was really an agreeable companion, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... little girl, very near to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. She carded and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She made her own soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had eight children, too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to go there off and on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful amusement. Anyhow, she told me the world was going to ruin, and the women were poor 'doless' creatures, who couldn't spin a hank of yarn, or gin a pound of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... assembled crowd down the stairs and to scream at all the officers in attendance for having allowed all this crowd to gather. Then he would sit down and go through the same performance from the beginning. I was there off and on for more than two hours, and I know that in that time he did not do four minutes' continuous, uninterrupted work. Had it not been for the poor frightened people and the general seriousness of the situation, it would have been screamingly funny and ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... under our top-sails, standing off and on, with the wind steady, but light, at the southward. Next morning, the duty of the ship went on as usual, until the men had breakfasted, when we stood again into the bay. This time, we hove-to so as to get one of the buoys, when we dropped the stream, leaving the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... some things,—I never saw an Ashby that wasn't,—and I dare say he was aggravating. They were clearing a piece of woodland that winter, and the old man was laid up in the house with the rheumatism, off and on, and that made him fractious, and he and John connived together, till one day Joseph and Susan Ellen had taken the sleigh and gone to Freeport Four Corners to get some flour and one thing and another, and to ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of the group; "there's a man by that name has been around here off and on for the last two or three months; but I didn't know he was interested in mines to any extent, though he seems to have plenty ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... the day when Major Duplay went to Fairholme, the two sat together in the garden after dinner. It was nine o'clock, a close still night, with dark clouds now and then slowly moving off and on to the face of a moon nearly full. They had been silent for some minutes, sipping coffee. Cecily pointed to the row of windows in the left ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... understand she was loving a dream. So I say it might do her good if somebody that knew, could tell her, but I swear to gracious, I never could. I've heard her out at the edge of that quagmire calling in them wild spells of hers off and on for the last sixteen years, and imploring the swamp to give him back to her, and I've got out of bed when I was pretty tired, and come down to see she didn't go in herself, or harm you. What she feels is too deep for me. I've got to respectin' her grief, and I can't get over it. Go home ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... business, and I suppose he remained in that harness off and on for the succeeding quarter of a century, but so far as my knowledge goes he was only a lawyer in name, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... was fine, and the water smooth, on the morning when the Aspasia arrived at the reef, which, although well known to exist, had been very incorrectly laid down; and Captain M—- thought it advisable to drop his anchor in preference to lying off and on so near to dangers which might extend much farther than he was aware. The frigate was, therefore, brought up in eighteen fathoms, about two miles from that part of the reef which discovered itself ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... seen a good many of such pictures, he grows quiet. Stops whistling. He learns how to worry, and he worries off and on till it hurts. Then, to get some relief, he makes a contract with one of those companies, which provides him with what we call insurance, for an ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... Cassidy. "Our people had that case from the start—I worked on it myself off and on, up until three days ago." From memory he quoted: "Medium height, slender, dark-complected, smooth-faced and about thirty-one years old; a good dresser and well educated; smokes cigarettes constantly; has one upper ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... I ain't either!" Skinny declared. "If you two ain't willing to take turn about with the widow and love her off and on between you I'll be everlastingly hell-tooted if I'm going to stand for a whole one by myself all of the time! I'll go on strike first ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... Griffin nonchalantly, as she started up the stair again, dragging the board after her. "The March Hare originated it back in the dark ages, and we've been doing it off and on—when the authorities don't get on ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... wave drove against a sharp rock his naked body, which it gashed and tore, and wanted little of breaking all his bones, so rude was the shock. But in this extremity she prompted him that never failed him at need. Minerva (who is wisdom itself) put it into his thoughts no longer to keep swimming off and on, as one dallying with danger, but boldly to force the shore that threatened him, and to hug the rock that had torn him so rudely; which with both hands he clasped, wrestling with extremity, till the ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... CORVIN); Rentsch, pp. 389-422; Michaelis, i. 304-313.] Almost from boyhood, he had learned soldiering, which he had never afterwards leisure to forget. Great store of fighting he had,—say half a century of it, off and on, during the seventy and odd years he lasted in this world. With the Donnybrook we spoke of; with the Nurnbergers; with the Dukes of Bavaria (endless bickerings with these Dukes, Ludwig BEARDY, Ludwig SUPERBUS, Ludwig GIBBOSUS or Hunchback, against them and about them, on his own and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... same with myself, sir,' said Barker. 'I'm in Plymouth half my time, I may say. And off and on I dream of my father's old home ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... my back to our Shippes, farre off though they lay.... But my good intents were prevented; for, on a sodaine, came rushing in vpon me a Spanish Horseman, whose name as afterwards I was informed was Don Juan of Cales, a Knight.... Five or sixe Skirmishes wee had, and for a pretty while fought off and on.' As the fight went on Peeke got the better of Don Juan, who 'fell on his knees and crying out in French to me, Pardone moy, je vous pree. Je suie un buon Chrestien.... Having a Soldier's minde to Rifle ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... "We'll stand off and on near where I place the shore line till we have daylight enough to see what we are about. Anyhow, I don't suppose there will be any lights, or if there are, they will likely be misplaced, to lure somebody ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... her fingers; slipped it off and on her little fingers; held it so the rays of the sun fell through the window upon it and danced before her eyes in all their ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... before him, and was sufficient sign of his occupation; while a long white beard, reaching well nigh to the ground, completed the singularity of his appearance. This latter appendage was, however, conveniently made to take off and on at pleasure. He was fabulously reported to be a hundred and twenty years old; and there was little doubt that he, and also his wife who sometimes accompanied him, were on the eve of celebrating their centenary, if they had not already done so. When Mrs. Lyth met him, she was ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... arrow to my bow, and was preparing to shoot, when, unfortunately, the bull detected the noise of my approach, and rushed straight at me. I confess it was rather a trying moment, but I never lost my head, feeling confident of my skill with the bow—which I had practised off and on ever since I had left school at Montreux. I actually waited until the charging monster was within a few paces, and then I let fly. So close was he that not much credit is due to me for accurate aim. The arrow fairly transfixed his right eye, causing him to pull up ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is: a' shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat; how swiftly will this Feeble ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... that you expect me to retract!" cried Joseph, impetuously. "Never will I retract what I have said or done, for I act from conviction, and conviction does not slip off and on like a glove! But let us speak no more on this subject. If your holiness will write down your canonical objections to my proceedings against the church, I will lay them before my theologians for examination. My chancellor shall reply to them ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... always in the ascendant. Formal anything—formal dress, formal manners, formal religion, formal this and that—always counts for more than the informal, the spontaneous, the original. It is easier, it can be put off and on. ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... "Cocopah" started again and towed a barge out to the ship. But the hot wind sprang up and blew fiercely, and we lay off and on all day, until it was calm enough to tow her back to the slue. By that time I had about given up all hope of getting any farther, and if the weather had only been cooler I could have endured with equanimity the idle life and knocking about from the ship to the slue, and from the slue to the ship. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... reason to believe exactly true. The English last year carried on a very valuable whale fishery on the coasts of Brazil, off the River Plate in South America, in the latitude 35 south, from thence to 40, just on the edge of soundings, off and on, about the longitude 65 from London. They have this year about seventeen vessels in the fishery, which have all sailed in the months of September and October. All the officers and almost all the men belonging ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... thinking after all," she continued, "that it is better to be up. The committee man, Mr. Bills, who hired you, will call, and you can't see him and the young men here. I'm a respectable woman, and have boarded the teachers off and on for twenty years,—all, in fact, except Ruby Ann, who has a home of her own,—and I can't have my character compromised now by inviting men folks into a bedroom. You must come down to the parlor. There's a bed-lounge there which ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... created by an attempt to fasten the stupid names of Fairport or of North Elmira on the village in central New York that, off and on for fifty years, had been called Horseheads, caused an inquiry as to how that singular name chanced to be adopted for a settlement. In 1779, when General Sullivan was retiring toward the base of ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... got ours in retaliation. Off and on, through all of yesterday, after the ventilator tragedy, there were noises beneath the cabin floor or deck. We heard them under the dining-table, under the steward's pantry, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... good fellow, how can you wonder if our friends suspect you? Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkeydom and The Cause, like a donkey between two bundles of hay? Have you not neglected our meetings? Have you not picked all the spice out of your poems? And can you expect to eat your cake and keep it too? You must be one thing or the other; and, though Sandy, here, is too kind-hearted ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... villain! The wench, I doubt, a vile wench. At last concerned for her own safety. Plays off and on ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... within a month or so, the date when it began to hurt him. But it had been hurting him, off and on, for some weeks, when one night, tacking out towards the fishing-grounds against a stiffish southerly breeze, as he ran forward to tend the fore-sheet his leg gave way under him as if it had been stabbed, and ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... soap and plenty of small hand towels. The lady's personal maid and one or two assistants if necessary, depending upon the size of the party, but one and all of them as neatly dressed as possible, assist ladies off and on with their wraps, and ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... one of them was to say, 'Richard Marston, I arrest you for——' It hardly mattered what. I felt as if I should have tumbled down with sheer fright and cowardliness. It's a queer thing you feel like that off and on. Other times a man has as much pluck in him as if his life was worth fighting for—which ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to all of us. He's got his cigar chawed down to a rag, stuck in one corner of his mouth, and he's saying, 'Gabe—this is the fight of my life. This is the last time I'm going to ask my friends for help.' General, I've heard that now, off and on, first and last, from old Lige at every city, state, county, and lodge election since the war closed, and I can see how Gabe is twisting and wiggling trying to get away from it. He's heard it too. Now ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... between 1829 and 1836, Garrison had leaned on his health as upon a strong staff. It sustained him without a break through that period, great as was the strain to which it was subjected. But early in the latter year the prop gave way, and the pioneer was prostrated by a severe fit of sickness. It lasted off and on for quite two years. His activity the first year was seriously crippled, though at no time, owing to his indomitable will, could he be said to have been rendered completely hors de combat. Almost the whole of 1836 he spent with his wife's family in Brooklyn, where his first child was born. This ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... respects, I am very fond of this Place, which I have known and frequented these forty years; till the last three years in company with my Sister Kerrich, who has helped to endear it to me. I believe I shall be here, off and on, some while longer; as my Brother Peter (who has lately lost a capital Wife) is coming to sail about with me. Should I be at Woodbridge for some days I will let ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... and order him to make all sail for Burlington, and see what old Carroway is up to. You be off for Whitby, and as far as Teesmouth, looking into every cove you pass. I shall stand off and on from this to Scarborough, and as far as Filey. Short measures, mind, if you come across them. If I nab that fellow Lyth, I shall go near to hanging him as a felon outlaw. His trick ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... conveyance, and we saw him drive out of the long street that then composed most of the city of Hudson, at a slapping pace, about one o'clock in the morning. This important duty discharged, Mr. Hardinge and I returned to the sloop in which Neb had been standing off and on, in waiting for us, and again made sail down the river. When I turned in, the Wallingford was getting along at the rate of about five miles the hour; the wind having freshened, and come out at the westward, a quarter that just enabled her to ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... falseness—the first time I ever, in my own experience, heard that word which rhymes to glove and comes as easily off and on (on some hands!)—it was from a man of whose attentions to another woman I was at that time her confidante. I was bound so to silence for her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that was in me—and in fact my uppermost ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett |
