"Overhead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every day, and at night you can see their lights moving overhead in the darkness. Sometimes they fly so low that you can hear the whir of their engines. For the moment you don't know if they're Russian or ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... mind which so fluent and serene a current of prosperity may be thought to have generated. Too common a course I know it is, when the stream of life flows with absolute tranquillity, and ruffled by no menace of a breeze—the azure overhead never dimmed by a passing cloud, that in such circumstances the blood stagnates: life, from excess and plethora of sweets, becomes insipid: the spirit of action droops: and it is oftentimes found at such seasons that slight annoyances and molestations, or even misfortunes ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... to grow more sentient. Through the thick air the peaks stood out against the eastern sky, in saffron that flushed to rose and then paled to gray. The ricefields, already flooded for their first working, mirrored the glow overhead so glassily that their dykes seemed to float, in sunset illusion, a mere bar tracery of earth between the sky above and a sky beneath. Upon such lattice of a world we journeyed in mid-heaven. Stealthily the shadows gathered; and as the hour ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... presently he missed the road to Pyecrafts—if ever he had been on the road to Pyecrafts at all—altogether. He found himself upon a highway running across a flattish plain, and presently discovered by the sight of the Great Bear, faint but traceable in the blue overhead, that he was going due north. Well, presently he would turn south and west; that in good time; now he wanted to feel; he wanted to think. How could he best help England in the vast struggle for which the empty silence and beauty of this night seemed to be waiting? But indeed he was not ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... overhead. Dark sheets of rain in the horizon looked like walls of carbon reared against the sky. The lightning was sharp and frequent. There came a vivid flash followed by a peal of thunder ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... it. There were men in our army who, half-starved, marched through the Southern swamps in a state of exaltation. They imagined they were walking through floral gardens, with birds flitting about and singing overhead. But it was an unnatural, morbid state. So priests deprived themselves of food, and reduced themselves to the lowest extent physically, and then saw visions; and were in an exalted mental state. But it was morbid. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... their horses between two rocks, where the thickly woven vines overhead made almost a dark ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... the portrait had been taken from one of his private rooms and placed in the armoury, the veil covering the canvas of late removed. Guns and spears and swords overhead and about, the youthful figure of Adiante was ominously encompassed. Caroline stood with Patrick before the portrait of her cousin; she expected him to show a sign of appreciation. He asked her to tell him the Church whose forms of faith the princess had embraced. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... candle mould for three candles, hanging from the wall on a frame-work just in front of the fire-place, in company with a rifle, long strings of dried pumpkins and other articles of household property. On retiring I was conducted to the room overhead, to which I ascended by stairs out of doors. My bed-fellow was the county sheriff, a young man of about my own age. And as we lay together a fine field was had for astronomical observations through the chinks of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... "Troup!" The scene that followed was indescribable. The two parties occupied separate sides of the chamber. Those voting for Troup rose simultaneously from their seats, and one wild shout seemed to lift the ceiling overhead. Again, with increased vim, was it given. The lobby and the galleries joined in the wild shout. Members and spectators rushed into each others' arms, kissed each other, wept, shouted, kicked over the desks, tumbled on the floor, and for ten minutes this maddening excitement suspended the proceedings ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... came, and the seas were longer and deeper, for we were far on the wide sea. All day long was it the same, wave after wave, gray sky overhead, and the steady breeze ever bearing us onward. Once it rained, and I caught the water in the bailer and drank heartily, giving his fill to Beorn, and with it I ate some of my loaf, and he took half of his. Then slowly came night, and at last I waxed lonely, for all ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... Prince while he was threading green tracks in the lower valleys of the wood; and though the stars came out overhead and displayed the interminable order of the pine-tree pyramids, regular and dark like cypresses, their light was of small service to a traveller in such lonely paths, and from thenceforth he rode at random. The austere face of nature, the uncertain issue of his course, the open sky ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... edition of "The Coaster's Sailing Directions," in another; while in an adjoining state-room, nearly large enough to accommodate an arm-chair, if the chair could have but contrived to get into it, I caught a glimpse of my friend's printing press and his case of types, canopied overhead by the blue ancient of the vessel, bearing, in stately six-inch letters of white bunting, the legend, "FREE CHURCH YACHT." A door opened, which communicated with the forecastle, and John Stewart, stooping very much, to accommodate himself to the low-roofed passage, thrust in a plate ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... bound with an elastic, went flying through the air, to fall with a rustling plop into the half-empty caldron. An inquisitive senior going out to investigate spied only the deserted stairs, and heard nothing but four scampering feet on the corridor overhead. Saint Valentine, with a voice that dropped lower and lower into a muffled murmur, read her own name fifteen times in succession, and blushed rose-pink, from gray beard to powdered hair, while the other seniors ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... Coldwater River, the upper portion of the Yazoo. In this part of the route, which never exceeds one hundred feet in width and often narrows to seventy-five or less, the forest of cyprus and sycamore trees, mingled with great cottonwoods and thickly twining wild grape-vines, formed a perfect arch overhead, shutting out the rays of the sun; and, though generally high enough to allow the tall smoke-stacks to pass underneath, sometimes grazed their tops and again swept them down to the deck as the swift current ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... even, when the children Had been safely tucked in bed, There was such a rush and bustle In the dark clouds overhead! ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... coast, we at length shaped a course across the Bay of Biscay. That bay, famed for turbulent seas, did not lose its character with us. What a dark mass of troubled waters were around us! how gloomy the sky overhead! I could not help fancying that disasters were about to overtake us; and, indeed, the aspect of affairs on board was sufficiently discouraging. I never, indeed, had before felt so low-spirited. The second mate predicted shipwreck; the doctor, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!— O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... Baltimoreans, both! Joe, with his cheeks like lady-apples, and his eyes like black-heart cherries, and his teeth like the whiteness of the flesh of cocoa-nuts, and his laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattling overhead, as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay times! Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the College heavyweights, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, lots of pluck, good-natured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... coquettishly on the swelling foam, was warping to the gangway-ladder, high overhead, on the deck of the Roland, the band struck up a lively, resolute march in a martial yet resigned strain, such as leads soldiers to battle—to victory or to death. An orchestra like this, of wind instruments, drums and cymbals was all that lacked to set the young ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... children. I want to go to France, and I should like to know what the children have to do with it? They're not babies NOW—are they? But you've always thrown the children in my face. If Miss Prettyman— there now; do you hear what you've done—shouting in that manner? The other lodgers are knocking overhead: who do you think will have the face to look at 'em to-morrow morning? I sha'n't—breaking people's rest ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the hags, while he curses them, saying, "Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is a heathen, damned of God and fettered through the Redeemer's blood." Also he brings ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... was naturally reflective, carried with her to the loft overhead that night a new idea: that it was not the place, but the manner in which lives ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... sudden went; Ere half the night was sped, The winds were hushed, the waves were spent, And the stars shone overhead. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... signally. The current was as saucy as strong. Now it swept them into the very shade of the trees, and as hope rose hot in the boy's heart and he began to stab the water with the oars, sent them skipping for the midriver. Occasionally a fish jumped to show how easy it was, and high overhead an eagle passed statelily in the wake of a cloud. After the eagle came a V of geese flying south, moving through the treacherous currents and whirlpools of the upper air as steadily and directly as a train upon its track. It ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... until the fire night did he summon up courage to sneak home. He had no money left and could buy no more liquor. He stole into Lanier's back door to return the civilian suit and recover the cavalry blouse and trousers left hanging in Rafferty's room. He could hear the lieutenant moving about overhead. He had to strike a light; he struck several matches; found the clothes, slipped out of the "cits" and into his own. He was cold and numb. He knew there was liquor on the sideboard in the middle ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... folding table, with the electric lights aglow overhead, there was little indication among the party of aviators that they were in one of the most modern of skycraft, sailing a mile above the earth, and shooting along at fifty miles an hour. So easy was the motion of the Abaris, and so evenly and smoothly did she glide along, due ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... brilliant white light is used, rows of overhead lights being supplemented by tiers, or "banks," of side-lights, so that there is no shadow on any part of the set unless it is the specific purpose of the director to have a shadow in a ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... nature of the malignant spiritual company with which she had long consorted in the under-world, was pleasing herself with the thought that Myrtle was in due time to bring her news from the Satanic province overhead, where she herself had so long indulged in the profligacy of embonpoint ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... flowers were out along the Bois, the leaves were overhead, And I saw a regiment of the line that swung in blue and red; The youth of things, the joy of things, they made my heart to beat, And the quick-step lilting and the tramp of feet! Flic flac, flic flac, the tramping ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... times almost seemed to meet overhead, then widened, we crossing and re-crossing the torrent by wooden bridges which shortly are to be replaced by iron ones. The colouring was so beautiful, the chasm being generally in shade with the mountains above standing out in glorious sunshine, covered as they were in many places, ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... there was no such thing as a ghost, and he wasn't going to be fooled by any noises whatsoever, but anybody would admit it was an unpleasant position to be in, pinned in a dark unfamiliar cellar without a flash light, and steps coming overhead, where only a dead man or a doped man was supposed to be. He cast one swift glance back at the cobwebby window through which he had so recently arrived, and longed to be back again, out in the open with the bells, the good bells ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... forward to where the tongue of flooring ended. Here, upon a stage, flanked with huge carven figures, a group was gathered. At first he was unable to discern what was being enacted there, so brilliant was the light that glared overhead. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... there was little to remind one of the dismal weather, save for the roar of the falling rain on the canvas overhead. Straw had been piled all about on the ground inside the two large tents, and only here and there were there any muddy spots, though the odor of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... west, blotting out the light from the setting sun. Over all a heavy silence had settled down, so that in all the woods there was no sound of living thing. Lashing his pony into a gallop, heedless of the obstacles on the trail, or of the trees overhead, Brown crashed through scrub and sleugh, with old Portnoff following as best he could. Mile after mile they rode, now and then in the gathering darkness losing the trail, and with frantic furious haste searching it again, till at length, with their ponies foaming and trembling, and their ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... his confrere, Dan Hicks, appeared over McGuffey's shoulder and grinned knowingly at him. Immediately, Flaherty hurled defiance at his enemies and came up on deck, and once more to Captain Scraggs came the dull sounds of apparent conflict overhead. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the children's voices overhead aroused her; she went upstairs, and helped Susan to dress them. Returning to the everyday duties of life had a soothing effect upon her. She made a violent effort and managed to put her trouble behind her for the time being. Whatever happened, her mother must not see any ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... dark corridor, which led them to a similar room with small windows overhead. "Who goes there?" shouted several voices, and Taras beheld a number of warriors in full armour. "We have been ordered ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 6 P.M., a cloud nearly overhead assumed the shape of a section of our fortifications, the segment of a circle, with the triangle penetrating through from the north. These shapes were distinctly defined. Could the operations beneath have produced ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... sufficient for all his army to stand upon,—men placing themselves on his right hand, and the spirits on his left. When all were in order, the east-wind, at his command, took up the carpet and transported it, with all that were upon it, whither he pleased,—the army of birds at the same time flying overhead, and forming a canopy to shade them from the sun. It is related that when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, he had built, against her arrival, a palace, of which the floor or pavement was of glass, laid over running water, in which ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... stepped to the door and snapped off the overhead light, and tilted the shade on the lamp until Randal's couch was ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... answered? Would help come? If so, from where? And if so, would it be in time? These were questions that the castaways asked themselves. As for Tom, he sat at the key, clicking away, while, overhead, from the wires fastened to the dead ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... left to putrefy in the close and heavy air, emitted an insupportable stench, to which every court and passage poured forth a contribution of its own. Many parts, even of the main streets, with their projecting stories tottering overhead and nearly shutting out the sky, were more like huge chimneys than open ways. At the corners of some of these, great bonfires were burning to prevent infection from the plague, of which it was rumoured that some citizens had lately died; and few, who availing ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... What a scene of wild sky splendour! Overhead the moon, now at the full, raced through clouds of pearl-grey, lightening to milky whiteness, and the wind played among the trees as though with giant hands, bending them to and fro like reeds, and rustling through the foliage with a swishing sound like that of falling water. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... plenty of time to think and write, and here the better part of "Walden" and "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers" were written. He had no neighbors, no pets, no domesticated animals—only the squirrels on the roof, a woodchuck under the floor, the scolding blue jays in the pines overhead, the wild ducks on the pond, and the hooting owls that sat on the ridgepole ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... peeped out from behind the screen, when they had all retired, and saw Biddy counting her beads, with her eye still fixed upon the spot where she had last seen the smiling Patrick, she laughed outright, in spite of the crevices in the roof overhead, and she laid her down and looked up at the stars which came twinkling in upon her, 'till those great black eyes gradually diminished in size, and her little brain was busily engaged among the familiar scenes of the home which she had left ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... creeping across the prairie when she and Miss Schuyler pulled up their horses in the gloom of the birches where the trail wound down through the Cedar bluff. The weather had grown milder and great clouds rolled across the strip of sky between the branches overhead, while the narrow track amidst the whitened trunks was covered with loose snow. There was no frost, and Miss Schuyler felt unpleasantly clammy as she patted her horse, which moved restively now and then, and shook off the melting ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the long streets are a sight, With garlands of soft-colored lanterns alight— Blue, yellow, and red twinkling high overhead, Like thousands ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but 'those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping overhead',—what would ye say to our six months out ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... It was a beautiful sight, and one to make the blood run in a man's veins, and his heart beat happily because he was alive to see it. Mile upon mile of grass-clothed veldt beneath, bending and rippling like a corn-field in the quick breath of the morning, space upon space of deep-blue sky overhead with ne'er a cloud to dim it, and the swift rush of the wind between. Then to the left there, impressive to look on and conducive to solemn thoughts, the mountains rear their crests against the sky, and, crowned with the gathered snows of the centuries whose monuments they are, from aeon to aeon ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... men stepped aside, and I led my horse forward. The movement brought me more into the open, and face to face with Kirby. By some trick of fate, at that very instant a star-gleam, piercing through the screen of leaves overhead, struck full into my eyes. With an oath he thrust my hat back ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... thicket, the other horses following. After they had traveled for ten or fifteen yards, the undergrowth thinned until they were going on pine-needle- covered ground as soft as moss. The silent forest with its sentinel pines, spreading a canopy overhead, seemed like another world from the bright glare of the ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky; No birds were flying overhead— There were ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... summer storm outblown—the drip of the grateful wheat. I hear the hard trail telephone a far-off horse's feet. I hear the horns of Autumn blow to the wild-fowl overhead; And I hear the hush before the snow. And what is ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... glittered in the sun on the verge of the marshy plain. Then the water was alive with cormorants, geese, ducks, divers, teal, coot, that swam about in amazing numbers, or, startled at the slightest noise, flew generally at a cautious distance overhead. Birds of prey were of course likewise numerous—hawks, kites, vultures; and whole flights of large, black crows went by now and then, cawing vociferously. We could see also prodigious numbers of the ghatta or red-legged partridge ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... he had reported that two more trips would mend the trouble, there was a sudden bumping of boats against the yacht, on the shoreward side, which had been left without watchers, it seemed, and there was a rush of feet overhead. Bessie cried out in joy, and the next instant a dozen men tumbled down the steps and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... took up a book, and there was silence only broken by the rattle of loose shingles overhead and the soft thud against the windows of driving snow, while the girl sat dreaming over her sewing of the brighter days in far-off England which had slipped away from her for ever. Five years was not a very long time, but during it her English friends had forgotten her, and one who had ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Santa Claus, here's A thrice three cheers For garlands green and berries of red, And mistletoe clustering overhead, For the joy of our Christmas festival! But our beautiful tree, it is best of all! And circling still in a merry ring We'll still clasp hands as we dance and sing To the blessed tree and the blessed night When the Christ-child walks ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... her dappled ass— He well-pleased such friend to know— And right merrily they pass The armorial chateau; Down the long, straight paths they tread Till the forest, overhead, Whispers low its leafy love; In the archways' green caress Rides the wondrous dryadess— Thrills the grass beneath her press, And ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Roman prince, Whose mighty worth mov'd Gregory to earn His mighty conquest, Trajan th' Emperor. A widow at his bridle stood, attir'd In tears and mourning. Round about them troop'd Full throng of knights, and overhead in gold The eagles floated, struggling with the wind. The wretch appear'd amid all these to say: "Grant vengeance, sire! for, woe beshrew this heart My son is murder'd." He replying seem'd; "Wait now till I return." And she, as one Made hasty by her grief; "O ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... old man was most imposing, and, notwithstanding the paint on his face, I began to feel some respect for him. While he was speaking we heard the music overhead, the singing provided for the entertainment of the guests, and out on the square the horses of the municipal guards shaking their curb-chains. Our party must have been a very brilliant affair from outside, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... stared openly around the strange kitchen. The joists and rafters were uncovered by laths or plaster. Muslin, that had once been white, was tacked to the beams overhead for a ceiling. The smoke from the cookstove had stained it to a deep brown color above the stove and to a lighter, ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... posting a letter in a pillar-box was the only figure in the street. The stars shone overhead with wonderful brilliance, and a little bell jangled softly close at hand. All the houses were tall and secret, with high white steps and flat faces. A cat slipped across the street; ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... supper table the Colonel spoke his mind. The rain was dripping through the canvas fly overhead, and the Colonel wore his broad-brimmed hat to help keep the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... going later to where the Sixth Missouri crossed, I found that they were under the bank, and had dug in with their hands and bayonets, or anything in reach, to protect themselves from a vertical fire from the enemy overhead, who had a heavy force there. With great difficulty they were withdrawn at night. Next day arrangements were made to attempt a lodgment below Haines's Bluff: This was to be done by Steele's command, while the rest of the force attacked again where we had already tried. During the day locomotives ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... later she went for a walk along the springy turf of the valley. The sun shone overhead, but from her spirit the mist had not quite lifted. Suddenly a small white ball came scudding towards her feet. She looked round and saw herself amid little flags sticking in the ground. Distant voices came to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... she said, and led the way into an octagonal room, lit by a skylight overhead and walled around with ancient books which were very ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... night, December 4th, we arrived below Hong Kong, dropping anchor in Typhoon Bay, where, among the dark shadows of the cliff-like shore, we watched the stars overhead and the long bright wake cast by the light-house, counted the small dancing lights in the native settlements on the shore, and wondered what Hong Kong ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... she was grazing placidly amid the stumps, with nothing in her demeanor to suggest her brief relapse into youthful agility. The girls picked flowers and ferns, explored the ravine and made friendly advances to a family of gray squirrels who chattered angrily at them from the boughs overhead, apparently under the impression that they were the owners of the wood which these noisy human creatures were invading. Then they drove home in the golden light of the sunset, and sang all the way. And Lucy Haines carried into ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... color, a fragrance like fresh red raspberries, an alluring alighting place all fringed and crested, and with the prospect of hospitable entertainment in the nectary beyond. So in she goes, between the platform and the column overhead, pushing first her head, then brushing her back against the stigma just below the end of the thick column that almost closes the passage. Any powdery pollen she brought on her back from another pogonia must ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... on a grassy woodland road and lay down, panting. They could see a strip of stars overhead; and the world was dark, silent, in the inscrutable night of autumn. Carl said nothing. He tried to make out where they were—where this road would take them. It might run deeper into the woods, which ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... explained, "doing a lot of telegraphing that was necessary." He was in vast spirits, delighted with himself, volubly boastful, so full of animal health and life and of joy in the prospect of food and sleep that mental worries were as foreign to him as to the wild geese flying overhead. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... distance were the blue shadows of mountains; the river swept along between green-verdured hills; a steamboat with lowered stacks was passing beneath the bridge that hung like a black line connecting the east and west sides of the town. Overhead shone the midday sun in a sky of cloudless blue, but nature spread her canvas all in vain for Laura. Another time she would have paused to drink in the beauty of the scene, to follow with admiring eyes the movements of the boat which, brave in a new ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... there was a sudden rushing overhead, and an instant later the barrage began falling beyond the crest of the ridge. He looked at his watch, blinked, and looked again. That barrage was due at 0550; according to the watch, it was 0726. He was sure ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... immemorial East. In plain English it was a one-storied, ten-roomed, whitewashed, mud-roofed bungalow, set in a dry garden of dusty tamarisk trees and divided from the road by a low mud wall. The green parrots screamed overhead as they flew in battalions to the river for their morning drink. Beyond the wall, clouds of fine dust showed where the cattle and goats of the city were passing afield to graze. The remorseless white light of the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and now the track became more distinct, and it led downwards. An owl in a tree overhead hooted as Cuthbert passed by, and something of a cold shiver ran through the young man's frame; he stumbled over the outspread root of a gnarled old oak, and fell, making ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Then, through the dim darkness he saw a figure coming toward the prostrate form, and stooping over to touch him. It showed white against the darkness and it paid no heed to the shell that suddenly whistled overhead. It half lifted the head of the fallen officer, and then straightened up and looked toward Cameron; and again, although there was no sound audible now in the din that the battle was ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... flew up from his path, as he advanced; among others, the beautiful argus-pheasant, that almost rivals the peacock in the splendour of its plumage. These rare creatures would whirr upward, and alight among the branches of the trees overhead; and, strange to say, although nearly as large as peacocks, and of a most striking and singular form, Caspar could never get his eyes upon them after they had ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... of a mile farther from Rome, on the same road. On descending into that of S. Saturninus by a steep flight of steps of modern appearance, but perhaps restored only, we soon pass under the road and hear carriages passing overhead; we then continue to descend to the depth of about fifty feet, divided into five corridors, only four of which can at present be seen; but we pass the entrance to the fifth on one of the stair-cases, and see the opening to it. The two lower corridors of this catacomb have tombs or cubicula ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of Golf is that there are so many ways of going wrong, and so many things to think of. A person of very moderately active mind has his ideas diverted by the landscape, the sea, the blossom on the gorse, the larks singing overhead, not to mention the whole system of the universe. He forgets to keep his eye on the ball, in devoting his energy to holding tight with his left, and being slow up. Or he remembers to keep his eye on the ball, and forgets the other essentials. Then an awful moment comes when he loses ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... hour later the two ships had closed to within musket shot of each other, the Adventure having the weather gage, when crash came the whole of the Spaniard's broadside, great guns and small; but so bad was the aim that every shot flew high overhead, and not so much as a ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... sea gives up its dead, There they lie in quiet sleep, And the voices of the deep Sound unheeded overhead, Till the sea gives ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... swiftness than anyone shows in mounting a ladder, transports thought to the distant past, when the ancestral stock, disembarking from the rude canoes at nightfall, sought an evening meal on the edge of the palm-forest, bowed beneath the weight of green and yellow nuts a hundred feet overhead. What wonder if in lands of perpetual summer the syren song of some "long bright river" should lure the storm-tossed mariners from the perilous seas to the comparative security of inland life! The stern environment of Northern poverty stands out in ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... out far, and dips, a rocky precipice, into the bosom of the deep.[155] Low in the depths of the gorge the mad torrent dashes over its rocky bed in sheets of foam, its banks fringed with oleander, which it bathes with its spray. Above rise jagged precipices of white limestone, crowned far overhead by many a convent and village.[156] The course of the Nahr-el-Kelbis about equal to ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... the common pariah kite (Milvus govinda) is found on the Nilgiris. This useful bird usually sails in graceful circles high overhead, looking for food. Its cry is not heard so frequently on those hills as in the Himalayas, the reason being the different configuration of the two ranges. The Nilgiris are undulating and downlike, hence the kites are able, while hovering higher than the summits of the hills, to see what is happening ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... aware that the performances had begun. Below him, indeed, on the arena from which he had not once raised his eyes, nothing was to be seen on the yellow sand but the scented fountain and a shapeless body, by which a second and a third were soon lying; but overhead something was astir, and, from the right-hand side, bright rays flashed across the wide space. Above the vast circle of seats, arranged on seven tiers, suns and huge, strangely shaped stars were seen, which shed a subdued, many-tinted radiance; and what the youth saw ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of playing at living. The sky shone brightly overhead; around the town stood hills which no romantic scene-painter could have bettered; the air of the man with water-cart, of the auctioneer's man with bell, and of the people popping in and out of the shops, was the air of those who did these things for love ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... except for the light splash of the waves and the soft sound of escaping steam from an engine overhead. Rex was not certain in which direction he ought to go to reach the ferry. There seemed to be water on both ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... out, and when she is flattered she does the like, for then it is not too presumptuous that she should name Henrietta Chillon's wife. In my ears, husband has the sweeter sound. It brings an angel from overhead. Will it bring him one-half hour sooner? My love! My dear! If it did, I should be lisping "husband, husband, husband" from cock-crow to owl's cry. Livia thinks the word foolish, if not detestable. She and I have our different opinions. She is for luxury. I choose poverty and my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they found themselves seated alone in a third-class compartment, she forgot her promise, being lost in wonder at this funny mode of travelling. She examined the parcels' rack overhead. ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... approach is straightforward. It allows the Federal Government to reduce overhead. It allows states to manage more flexibly and more efficiently. It moves power and decision-making closer to the people. And it re-enforces a theme of this Administration: appreciation and encouragement of the innovative power of "states ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tombstones, may be observed crowns of immortelles and chandeliers, vases, flowers, black discs set off with gold letters, and plaster statuettes—little boys or little girls or little angels sustained in the air by brass wires; several of them have even a roof of zinc overhead. Huge cables made of glass strung together, black, white, or azure, descend from the tops of the monuments to the ends of the flagstones with long folds, like boas. The rays of the sun, striking on them, made them scintillate in the midst of the black ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... face. 5 But, courage! for around [1] that boisterous brook The mountains have all opened out themselves, And made a hidden valley of their own. No habitation can be seen; but they Who journey thither find themselves alone [2] 10 With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites That overhead are sailing in the sky. It is in truth an utter solitude; Nor should I have made mention of this Dell But for one object which you might pass by, 15 Might see and notice not. Beside the brook Appears [3] a straggling ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... the boardwalk that ran along the street. Overhead the maples and elms met, making a cool tunnel. In this green canopy nest-building was being carried on, on a great scale and with tremendous commotion. The doctor picked his way carefully along the undulating surface of the sidewalk, for the boards were damp and rotten, and ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... Overhead the stars blazed in the rich sky of Morocco; the riding-lights of Admiral Herbert's fleet sprinkled the bay; and below them rose the hum of an unquiet town. It was the night of May 13th, 1680, and the life of every Christian ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... would take our seven-acre potato field and put in an overhead sprinkler system, and put plenty of manure on it next year, we could increase the yield from 1400 ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... woman shifted their hands accordingly, tightly gripping the sides of the car, and Jerry slowly and carefully released the brake. The drum began to revolve as the endless cable passed round it, and the car slid slowly out into the chasm, its trolley wheels rolling on the stationary cable overhead, to which ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... from what has been previously said in relation to the conditions under which the majority of the plants of the Cactus family grow when wild, that during their season of growth they require a good supply of moisture, both at the root and overhead; and afterwards a somewhat lengthened period of rest, that is, almost total dryness, accompanied by all the sunlight possible, and generally a somewhat high temperature. The growing season for all those kinds which require to be kept dry when at rest is from the end of April to ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... busy making measurements and taking notes, while Mr Burne smoked on peaceably, and the Turk, who had led them here, crouched down and stared at the scarlet and yellow turban as if it fascinated him, while overhead the sun poured down its scorching beams and there was a stillness in the air that was broken by the low buzz and hum of flies, and the deep murmur of ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... the fiscal year 1947 are expected to continue the slowly rising trend which began in 1943. This category includes a great variety of items—not merely the overhead costs of the Government. It includes all the expenditures of the Cabinet departments, other than for national defense, aids to agriculture, general public works, and the social security program. It includes also ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... are more impressive than a forest at night. That low deep roar, born of silence itself—the sad sighing of the wind—the tall, column-like trunks, resembling huge sentinels keeping guard over the mysteries of ages—the silent sea of foliage overhead, that seems to shut in a world of its own—all have an influence, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... before. Occasionally sea-birds flew overhead, and huge fish were seen swimming by, or breaking the calm surface as they poked up their noses ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans all round them, there's the noise of the seas about and overhead, confusing Cloete, and he hears the other screaming as if crazy. . . Ah, you don't believe me! Go and look at the port chain. Parted? Eh? Go and see if it's parted. Go and find the broken link. You can't. There's no broken link. That means a thousand ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... in my narrow bunk, bringing my cranium in violent contact with a beam overhead, which has the effect of knocking me flat down in my berth again. After recovering as much consciousness as is necessary to appreciate my position, I roll out of bed, jerk savagely at my boots, and snatching up my cap and pea-jacket, make a rush at the companion-way, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... my moonlight keen Their tallow dip and kerosene? Match their low walls, plaster-spread, With my blue dome overhead? ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... Sir Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of the keeper. The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with faces. There was the trampling of myriad feet, and the low buzz of voices. A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the boughs overhead. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... lake to the woods beyond; or walk through a pine-forest, where the needles sink as a carpet beneath your feet, and the air is full of the pungent odor of the pine, and the gently swaying tree-tops overhead croon you a lullaby—can you enjoy all this without an exquisite melancholy, and a joy that hurts, piercing your soul? It's homesickness, that's all; you want to go home and tell some one how happy you are. Give me solitude, sweet ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... full of pride and lust of living, and the spirit must needs keep watch and ward, seizing every opportunity to mortify and deject its adversary. Goodwife Allen is still gaping with the crowd at the fort, and your man and maid have not yet come, but I shall be overhead if you need aught. Mistress Percy must want rest after ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Overhead circles the lapwing slow, Waving his black-tipped curves of wings, Calling so clearly that I, as I go, Call back an answering "Peewit," that brings The sweep of his circles so low as he flies That I see his green plume, and the doubt ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... is, too, with all them lathes and things goin', belts whirrin' overhead, and workmen in undershirts about as thick ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... course of the following night, Lisbeth hearing overhead some preparations for suicide, went up to her pensioner's room, and gave him the schedule and a ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... All's the set face of a child: 130 But behind it, where's a trace Of the staidness and reserve, And formal lines without a curve, In the same child's playing-face? No two windows look one way O'er the small sea-water thread Below them. Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead! First, out a cloud of curtain blew, Then a sweet cry, and last came you— 140 To catch your lory that must needs Escape just then, of all times then, To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds, And make me happiest of men. I ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... didn't scrub their house (I think they all forgot), And the fairies like their home so scrup'lous clean; There are fairy dusters hanging from the sumach as you pass; Tiny drops are dripping still from overhead; Broken fairy-brooms are lying near the fir-tree on the grass, Though the fairies went an hour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... the Tories, of Scotland through that time; and the strife between the parties was all the fiercer because, Scottish autonomy being lost, it was the only native strife left for Scotsmen, and they were battened down to it, as an indulgence among themselves, by a larger and unconcerned rule overhead. General Assemblies of the Kirk being no longer allowed, it had to be conducted in Provincial Synods and Presbyteries only, or in sermons and pamphlets of mutual reproach. The exasperation was great; Church-censures and threats of such passed and repassed; ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... never been so far from home before, murmured, for they expected to meet not only human enemies, but monstrous serpents, lions, elephants, asses with horns, and dog-headed monsters, to have a scorching sun overhead, and a noisome marsh under their feet. However, Regulus sternly put a stop to all murmurs, by making it known that disaffection would be punished by death, and the army safely landed, and set up a fortification ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... a big catering. I found one plate yesterday—the last of a full pattern I had fifteen years ago. About every ten years is a complete turnover of china. Glassware goes faster, and of course, the linen is the greatest overhead. Yes ma'am, as I was telling you, catering is slack because of clubs. So many women take their parties to clubs now. Another thing, the style of food has changed. In those old days, the table was loaded with three four meats, fish, half dozen vegetable ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... his vessel was exposed to a variety of tempestuous weather. In one instance he had been driven off the land by a furious storm, which lasted two days, and which would have been dangerous in the highest degree, had it not fortunately happened that it was fair overhead, and that there was no reason to be apprehensive of a lee-shore. In the course of the bad weather which succeeded this storm, the Adventure was separated from the Resolution, and was never seen or heard of through the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... immensity which we generally are only able to associate with the sea, has always had an extraordinary charm. I have seen it at all times of the year, early in the morning, and at, or just before, sundown—nay, even once or twice by moonlight, or with the marvellous blue vault overhead, that seems so much higher and greater there than elsewhere, studded with planet and star, luminous beyond all that we know in our little island, where the blue is so pale by comparison, and the atmosphere laden with moisture ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street |
