"Slippery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Civilis with Rome contains a remarkable foreshadowing of the future conflict with Spain, through which the Batavian republic, fifteen centuries later, was to be founded. The characters, the events, the amphibious battles, desperate sieges, slippery alliances, the traits of generosity, audacity and cruelty, the generous confidence, the broken faith seem so closely to repeat themselves, that History appears to present the self-same drama played over and over again, with but a change of actors and of costume. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam's arms with the grasp of a drowning man. 'How slippery it ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... highest revel we knew. Above all the public heaps of them, the high-piled receptacles at every turn, touched the street as with a sort of southern plenty; the note of the rejected and scattered fragments, the memory of the slippery skins and rinds and kernels with which the old dislocated flags were bestrown, is itself endeared to me and contributes a further pictorial grace. We ate everything in those days by the bushel and the barrel, as from stores ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of the peasants; "we found him under Pfaffenwand. He must have been coming from Engstlensee Alp; how much farther the good God alone knows. The paths are slippery this wet weather, and he had no guide, or there was no guide to ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... Ardan, turning with a smile to M'Nicholl; "no use in trying to catch Barby; slippery as an eel, he has an answer for everything. Still I have a theory on the subject myself, which I think it no harm to ventilate. It is this: The Selenites have never sent us any projectile at all, simply because they had no gunpowder: being older and wiser than we, they were never such fools ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... of "Down with autocracy!" which the Social Democrats were anxious to make the watchword of the movement, but he has thereby been drawn from his strong position of "No politics," and he is standing, as we shall see presently, on a slippery incline. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... seen directing the unloading from the bridge. He greeted Cap'n Mike cordially. The captain introduced the two boys and Lake shook hands without taking his eyes from the unloading operation. Rick saw a scoop drop into the hold and come up with a slippery half-ton of menhaden. Then it sped along a beam track into the big shed, paused over a wide conveyer belt, lowered to within a few feet of the belt and dumped its load. A clerk just inside the door marked the load on a board. ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... not to those gay flies Gilded i' the beams of earthly kings, Slippery souls in smiling eyes, But to poor shepherds' homespun things; Whose wealth's their flock, whose wit to be Well ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... to do his own cooking, but in three days every dish in the house was dirty; the teapot was full of leaves, the stove full of ashes, and the floor was slippery. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... sorry. She could hear its webbed feet going pad pad over the slippery stanes. Presently though, she came to a wee bit housie on the moor. It was empty, but she slippit through the yard-gate and flew along the path and in at the door. The Kelpie came flying ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... like, I never saw; for not even on Christmas Day, which was the last day I spent there, was it uncovered. Everything in it was kept in bibs and pinafores. Even the carpet was covered with a cold and slippery sheet of brown holland. Mr. Hetheridge never entered that room, and therein was wise. James remonstrated once. She answered him quite kindly, even playfully, but no change followed. What was worse, she made very wretched tea. Her father never took tea; neither did James. ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... resentment of it," as an unpardonable insult. "And all this," adds Clarendon, "in a choler very unnatural to him, which exceedingly troubled the Chancellor and made him more discern, though he had evidence enough of it before, that he stood upon very slippery ground." [Footnote: Life, iii. 25.] It was no part of Clarendon's character to take such a rebuke in silence or to leave it to pass gradually from the mind of the King. His conscience, he said, had not reproached him; but since his Majesty thought his behaviour so bad, "he must ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... curiosity. Well, like the eggs. It's not entirely to make you stronger. It's to see whether the things I've always heard about milk and eggs are really so. See how it works—not altogether for the good of the works, you see? Oh, I don't know. Motives are slippery things, don't you think so? Mine seem particularly athletic. They hop from their pigeon holes and turn hand-springs and do all sorts of stunts the minute I turn my back. So I never know for sure why ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... side, and all her spars and sails were gone. She swayed a little with the swell, but she was held fast by sand and rocks. Robert, laying his clothes and rifle on the beach, waded out to her, and, without much difficulty, climbed aboard, where he made his way cautiously over the slanting and slippery deck. ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the vital portions of the documents. The latter were connected with company business. He had hoped they would be personal so that he might learn something more of this manager's affairs, possibly more of his secret antagonism for Sorenson and his friends. Any intrigue appealed to the thin, slippery lawyer's soul, but most of all some one's else intrigue into which he might profitably put a finger. However, from these papers he was ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told only half the story. Above Marie and Emil, two white butterflies from Frank's alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out among the interlacing shadows; diving and soaring, now close together, now far apart; ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... who had endeavoured to be of service to her was he whom she had treated with unexampled perfidy. Other men had petted her, had amused themselves with her, and then thrown her over, had lied to her and laughed at her, till she had been taught to think that a man was a heartless, cruel, slippery animal, made indeed to be caught occasionally, but in the catching of which infinite skill was wanted, and in which infinite skill might be thrown away. But this man had been true to her to the last in ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... not die alone there in the dark—and besides he had heard that the mad could see as well in the dark as in the light. Or was it the blind who could see in the dark? No doubt it was the blind. However, he could find his way, he thought triumphantly, and ran on, dragging his hand along the slippery stones of the wall—he could find his way. Only he must call out, to tell them who it was that was lost. So he called himself by name, aloud and sternly, and after that he kept on quietly enough, serene in the conviction that he had regained ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... "bakshish." Some grabbed the soldiers' sticks, others their boots and leggings. After much remonstrance, and an occasional hard knock or kick to some too enthusiastic native, the party, in its stockinged feet, eventually passed within the entrance. The passage was narrow, low, steep, and extremely slippery. With an Arab to each hand—as a precaution against a nasty fall—the soldier, breathing a muggy atmosphere, sweating at every pore, and filled with repulsion at the close proximity of his yelling conductors, made a crab-like and painful progress through ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... sure," repeated Tom. "Annie darling, why have I been unable to see more of you? I have fairly haunted your house, and seen the whole lot of your sisters, especially Imogen, but somehow or other you have been as slippery as an eel. I have always asked for you, but you ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... I want you to take some of it and go down there at the head of the path they follow when they leave us and grease those rocks. Don't cover them all, but put enough on them so that the rocks will be slippery." ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... my look slid off the self-conceited face, like rain off a particularly slippery duck's back. He ought to have known then, if he hadn't before, that I considered him a mere It, but I can just imagine his saying to himself: "This is Paris, and I've paid five pounds for a return ticket. Must have something to tell the chaps. What's ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... present moment it was certainly a bleak place for a tryst. There was snow yet clinging to the trunk of the tree, and a film of ice on its bark; the adjacent wall was slippery with frost, and fringed with icicles. Yet in all there was a ludicrous suggestion of some sentiment past and unseasonable: several dislodged stones of the wall were so disposed as to form a bench and seats, and under the elm-tree's film of ice could still be seen carved on its bark ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the slippery ice ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was tear splotched so that her lips were slippery with them, and while the ague of her passion shook her, Alma, her own face swept white and her voice guttered with restraint, took her mother into the cradle of her arms, and rocked and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... judge it was about three miles. But we had no guide to direct us, and lost our way in the darkness, getting entangled first in the wood, and afterwards among a network of small, deep streams, too broad to jump, and dangerous to wade on account of the steepness of their banks and the slippery boulders with which their beds were strewn. So long did it take us to extricate ourselves out of these difficulties that when the sun rose we found ourselves close to the Phouzdar's camp, and within full view of his ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... Through the dimly-lit streets, slippery with ice, and wind-swept, they made their way to the two rooms up two flights of stairs, where the Widow Clemm mended the fire with a few coals at a time and sewed by a single candle, as she waited for them—the lion of the most ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... run it through a strainer, and bottle it off. It will be ready to drink in five or six days.—Boniclapper is another article suited to the state of sickly and weakly persons. Boniclapper is milk which has stood till it has acquired a pleasant sourish taste, and a thick slippery substance. In very hot weather this will be in about twenty-four hours from the time of its being milked, but longer in proportion as the weather is colder. If put into vessels which have been used for milk to be soured in, it will change the sooner. New milk must always be used for this ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... use the fat as an aperient, swallowing a dose of 4 to 6 lbs! Captain Hutton's friend testified that trucks to bear the sheep-tails were sometimes used among the Taimunis (north of Herat). This may help to locate that ancient and slippery story. Josafat Barbaro says he had seen the thing, but is vague as to place. (Aelian Nat. An. III. 3, IV. 32; Amoen. Exoticae; Ferrier, H. of Afghans, p. 294; J. A. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... ready. One says "All right, Bowers, go ahead," and Birdie leads his big animal forward, starting, as he continues, at a steady pace. The horses have got cold and at the word they are off, the Soldier's and one or two others with a rush. Finnesko give poor foothold on the slippery sastrugi,[1] and for a minute or two drivers have some difficulty in maintaining the pace on their feet. Movement is warming, and in ten minutes the column has settled itself ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... panic to seize the horses, many of which in their fright turned and trampled down the men behind. Rapidly the panic increased as the showers of missiles came tearing down, and soon the whole army was in a state of wild terror and confusion—a condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable halberts and scythes, down the mountain-side rushed, with the fury of their native avalanche, the heroic Confederates; and falling on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... fundamental obstruction to literary justice in America! But your hasty conclusion will show that you have thought but little on written constitutions. I agree with the Count de Maistre, that such instruments are of all things the most slippery. What is easier than for Congress to evade its restriction, and make the limited time exactly the years of Methusaleh! Such a limit would be about as good as "to one's heirs for ever." But there is yet another facility in written constitutions: "a breath unmakes them, as a breath has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... open more or less lamely, for it is hard to attack or oppose something which is going to be set forth after you have finished talking. Here, however, as in the case of written arguments, it must be remembered that burden of proof is a vague and slippery term; "he who asserts must prove" is a maxim that in debate applies to the larger issues only, and the average audience will give themselves little trouble about the finer applications of it. If you are proposing a change in present ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... moon looks to me like an oyster with a candle behind it, and as smooth and slippery as if I could jest swallow it down. You may think it is queer for me to think such things as that, Phil, but since I've come to know myself jest as I am, ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... house, they saw an old hall, very black and having an upright gable, whence issued a great smoke; and on entering, they found the floor full of puddles and mounds; and it was difficult to stand thereon, so slippery was it with the mire of cattle. And where the puddles were a man might go up to his ankles in water and dirt. And there were boughs of holly spread over the floor whereof the cattle had browsed the sprigs. When they came to the hall of the house, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... table in past times had so liberally presented, now appeared under the covers of these dishes a preparation more suitable to Timon's poverty, nothing but a little smoke and lukewarm water, fit feast for this knot of mouth-friends, whose professions were indeed smoke, and their hearts lukewarm and slippery as the water with which Timon welcomed his astonished guests, bidding them, 'Uncover, dogs, and lap'; and before they could recover their surprise, sprinkling it in their faces, that they might have enough, and throwing dishes and all after them, who now ran huddling ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the starboard bow under the drive of a wind from the north-east. The ashen cliffs of Dover came to meet the packet reluctant and inhospitable. By the harbour-entrance, a petulant squall of rain beat upon them as though to shoo them away. The landing-stage was slippery and slimy with rain, soot, and petrol drippings from the motor-cars shipped to and fro. Customs-house officers eyed them with tired suspicion; porters took their money and hastened away with the curtest of acknowledgments; an engine panted sullenly as it ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... a ribbon; one sleeve was rolled up, the other had been sacrificed in a scuffle in the sheep-pen. The new candidate for immersion stood bleating and trembling, with her fore feet planted against the slippery bank, pushing back with all her strength, while ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... of the rock He has covered my head, When the tempest was wild in the desolate land Through a pathway uncertain my steps He has led, And I felt in the darkness the touch of His hand Leading on, leading over the slippery steep, Where came but the echoing sound of the shock, And, clear through the sorrowful moan of the deep, The singing of birds in the ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... and white on the slippery haircloth sofa in Mrs. Slater's musty parlor she heard them discussing ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... which none but a bosom friend can acquire, could have been justified in making these avowals? Such a one, himself a pure spirit, having accompanied, as it were, upon wings, the pilgrim along the sorrowful road which he trod on foot; such a one, neither hurried down by its slippery descents, nor entangled among its thorns, nor perplexed by its windings, nor discomfited by its founderous passages—for the instruction of others—might have delineated, almost as in a map, the way which the afflicted pilgrim had pursued till the sad close of his diversified ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... on with no thought of surrender, for we knew that capture would mean death by walking the plank. Four of the English on our side were killed, besides seven or eight of those of other nationalities, whilst many were wounded. The decks were slippery with blood, and a gathering mist made it impossible to ascertain the extent of our losses. Captain Bland now placed himself beside me, and together we held ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... to leeward like a thunder-cloud, orders given in quick succession, then rally of men at the clew-lines, then a rush aloft and out on the straining yard, every movement of the vessel intensified, your feet sliding on the slippery foot-rope, with nothing to hold on to but the flapping sail, which threatens to knock you overboard every moment. The weather earing is passed, and then, "Light out to leeward;" you have your point barely tied when the yard gives a terrible swing, and you faintly hear the order, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Gloucestershire dialect is an "oont" or "woont." A barrow or mound of any kind is a "tump." Anything slippery is described as "slick"; and a slice is a "sliver." "Breeds" denotes the brim of a hat, and a deaf man is said to be "dunch" or "dunny." To "glowr" is to stare—possibly connected with ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... through the rarefied atmosphere, their feet crushing over the scoriae and black-glazed volcanic sand, until they stood in the region of perpetual snow, amidst the glittering, treacherous glaciers and crevasses, with vast slippery-pathed ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... ground on which I tread, Count Lesle. Believe me, it is slippery and marshy soil, and a single incautious step may ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... peculiar about brute creatures and a correct understanding of them has not yet been arrived at. Believe me, Effi, this is another wide field. When I think how a person has an accident on the water or on the slippery ice, and some dog, say, one like your Rollo, is at hand, he will not rest till he has brought the unfortunate person to the shore. And if the victim is already dead, the dog will lie down beside him and bark and whine till somebody comes, and if nobody comes he will stay by the corpse till he himself ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... name meant "Walkers in Unfrequented Places," asked us to join them in a walk up Palola Valley to the site of an extinct crater well up in the mountains. These walkers in unfrequented places proved to be real walkers, and gave us all and more than we had bargained for—more mud and wet and slippery trails through clinging vines and rank lantana scrub than was good for our shoes and garments or for the bodies inside them. It was a long pull of many miles, at first up the valley over a fair highway, then into the woods on the mountain-side along a trail that was muddy and ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... he had chosen to look through, there was a cellar door, from which a pile of seaweed, placed upon it to keep the frost out of the cellar, had just been removed. The adventurous inquirer crept up the slippery boards, and gained the coveted position. He could not only see the committee and the squire, but he could hear all they said. He was perfectly delighted with the manner in which the captain put the question ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... years, knew his path so well that he could take it blindfolded. The darkness did not worry him, but he walked somewhat more slowly than usual, for he knew that under the thin covering of fresh-fallen snow there lay the ice of the night before. He walked carefully, watching for the slippery places. ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... wrong with me from the very first. The candle tumbled out of the candlestick before my hand was off the lock. It kept on tumbling out of the candlestick, and every time I picked put it up and put it in, it tumbled out again: I never saw such a slippery candle. I gave up attempting to use the candlestick at last, and carried the candle about in my hand; and, even then, it would not keep upright. So I got wild and threw it out of window, and undressed and went to bed in ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... but as she neared them they were only bushes or leaning, wind-beaten pines. She was drenched and her clothes seemed intolerably heavy. Oh, how David would laugh at her hat! She put up her hand, in its soaked and slippery glove, and touched the roses about the crown and laughed herself. "He won't mind," she said, contentedly. She had forgotten that he had stopped loving her. She began to sing under her breath the old tune ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... for wonderful and devious are the ways of man, and who can fathom them? Presently a tempting tangle of honeysuckle attracted him, and he clambered up the bank in search of it. The bank was dry and slippery, and the honeysuckle was difficult to reach, but Malcolm was not to be conquered. He had just caught hold of the branch, when the far-off click of a gate attracted his attention, and still holding the branch he ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had defied, That wrought out from fortune what favor denied, Standing aloof from the world in his pride; The niche he has carved on fame's slippery wall Friends are proclaiming with heraldry-call. His Croesus-bright scepter has magical sway, Yester's indifference solicits to-day. His daring his triumph, how daily he fares, Every one knows, ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... exhausted, still marched courageously forward, hoping every moment to meet with a sudden angle which would set them in the first direction. What was their disappointment, when, after trudging nearly two miles, having reached an elevated point composed of slippery rocks, they found themselves again stopped by ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... along the slippery matting of copper, stumbling this way and that, and presently emerged where the land dropped down to the shore. The lad paused. He had no mind to scramble through the tall salt grass or sink ankle deep in the stretch of sand that adjoined it. But Achilles compelled. ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... coast; In clambering o'er the rocks no time they lost, Altho' their small bottines got somewhat wet, And their incautiousness some duckings cost, But over soaking hose they didn't fret, For, jumping slippery rocks, what could they hope ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... slippery chap. He denied knowing anything about Lyman, but declared that unless the cattleman appeared shortly and took up his work on the cattle concession the grant would be taken from him. That is like South American justice. Lock a man up and then deprive him ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... which an abundant supply of raw and half-putrid walrus' flesh in no small degree contributed. The passages to these are so low as to make it necessary to crawl on the hands and knees to enter them; and the floors of the apartments were in some places so slippery, that we could with difficulty pass and repass, without the risk of continually falling among the filth with which they were covered. These were the dirtiest, because the most durable, of any Esquimaux habitations we had yet seen; and it may be supposed they did not much improve during ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... became a sea of blood; It seemed as if the earth was covered o'er With crimson tulips; slippery was the ground, And ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Nizam has been obliged to dismiss the French troops in his service, and to send a portion of his army to act in connection with our own against Mysore, he is in no way to be trusted; being as slippery as the rest of these Indian princes and, like the Mahrattas, would assuredly join Tippoo if he saw his way to doing so. This is so certain that nothing would be gained by sending another agent ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... of the Monaco forces thought the best way would be to settle the thing by means of a game of chance of the odd-man-out class. He knew a splendid game called Slippery Sam. He could teach them the rules ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... pitchforks fell back, and my child cried aloud for fear; and when we were come to the place where the great waterwheel turned just below us, the driver fell with his horse, which broke one of its legs. Then the constable jumped down from the cart, but straightway fell too, on the slippery ground; Item, the driver, after getting on his legs again, fell a second time. Hereupon the sheriff with a curse spurred on his grey charger, which likewise began to slip as our horses had also done. Nevertheless, he ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... to allow itself to be ungrateful, and it was so for all services that did not date from the imperial period. I tendered my resignation, for when you have gained your epaulets on the battle-field, you do not know how to manoeuvre on the slippery grounds of the salons. I have hung up my sword, and cast myself into politics. I have devoted myself to industry; I study the useful arts. During the twenty years I served, I often wished to do so, but I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... past, thou hast the choice of two different routes. One of these will bring thee to the Wandering Isles, which stand, front to front, with steep slippery sides of rock, running sheer down to the sea. Between them lies a narrow way, which is the very gate of death. For if aught living attempts to pass between, those rocky jaws close upon it and grind it to powder. Only the doves which bear ambrosia to ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second son—a mean, boastful rascal—on his way home on foot from hunting, saw the light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a lantern, for the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But all was silence in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not yet reached home. For a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be dead, fallen over into the stone pits. And from that came the decision that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and make tea and it smell good. It good for de fever and chills. Us git slippery elm out de bottom and chew it. Some chew it for bad feelin's and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... found herself once more upon the dark, still river, watching the slippery writhings of the moonbeams' path. She was alone, save for the ten stalwart rowers and two officers; but in one hand was her faithful umbrella, while in the other she felt the welcome weight ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the time kept by the trains. Collisions have sometimes occurred from carriages having been blown from a siding on to the rails by a high wind; and the slippery state of the rails, or the fracture of a break, has sometimes occasioned collisions at terminal stations. Collision has also repeatedly taken place from one engine having overtaken another, from the failure of a tube in the ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... The stench of those places was foul beyond description. Never in my life before had I been in a place so horrid to the eyes and nose as Benton Barracks. The path along the front outside was deep in mud. The whole space between the two rows of sheds was one field of mud, so slippery that the foot could not stand. Inside and outside every spot was deep in mud. The soldiers were mud-stained from foot to sole. These volunteer soldiers are in their nature dirty, as must be all men brought together in numerous bodies without special appliances for cleanliness, or control and discipline ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... is of a granular texture and is not slippery. It is of course rigid and noisy for steel tired vehicles. It is an excellent automobile road and its low tractive resistance makes it a desirable surface for horse drawn vehicles. It possesses a high degree of durability if properly constructed. It is likely to crack indiscriminately but ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... a hideous dungeon, into which we were thrust, the officer following us with a couple of guards, one of whom carried a lantern. The light discovered a long and narrow prison, the ooze dripping from the walls, and the floor slippery with slime. A single slit in the wall, no wider than three fingers of a man's hand and about a foot in length, let in light and air. For the rest, a stone bench and a jug full of foul water completed the furniture ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... the blackness, these slippery little savages of Titan, their half naked bodies crowding him and stifling him with their sweaty nearness. Again and again Carr struck out, but it was like fighting a horde of squirming and clawing feline creatures that swarmed over him and bore him ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... mystery would have continued may not be said.... Now accidents may not have brought the world about, yet the world could not get along without accidents. To illustrate. A woman one day, wanting water for her household, let a bucket down one of the wells of the cistern, and drew up a sandal slippery and decaying. A sliver buckle adhered to it. Upon inspecting the prize, a name was observed graven on its underside. The curious came to see—there was discussion—at length an examiner blessed with a good memory coupled ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... instilled into all disaster! It shows formidable as we approach it, but there is at last no rough rasping friction, but the most slippery sliding surfaces. We fall soft on a thought; Ate ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to the tree, which rose like a great pillar of smooth glass, so slippery that not even an ant could crawl upon it ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... tried to show the animal her danger; to his horror, he found that her feet were close to the precipice. He had just time to throw himself off, and clear his feet from the stirrups, when over she went down the cliff, and was dashed to pieces, leaving him on the slippery sward close to the edge of the precipice. The spot where the accident ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... gang of thieves, called "The Ugly Mug." When asked a disagreeable question, he always answered, "I'll ask my wife, my memory's so slippery."—Edward Stirling, The Courier ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the sanctuary of God.' What place was that? Why there where he might inquire of God, and by him he resolved of this matter; 'Then,' says he, 'understood I their end.' Then I saw that thou hast 'set them in slippery places,' and that 'thou castedst them down to destruction.' Castedst them down, that is, suddenly, or, as the next words say, 'As in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors'; which terrors did ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fast—and as Jack thought very unpleasant—walking. The sleepers on which the rails for the corves, or little waggons, were laid, were very slippery. Pools of water stood between them and often covered them, and blocks of coal of all sizes, which had shaken from the corves, lay in the road. When it was not water it was black mud. Sometimes a line of ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... well as their spurs in the understanding of their horses, and of certain natural laws, which the more artificial riders of civilization are apt to overlook. Hence there was no hesitation or indecision communicated to the nervous creatures they bestrode, who swept over crumbling stones and slippery ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight, and made a stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an actual collision, almost impossible. Closing together they avoided the latter, and holding each other well up, ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... heaving line, and Nelson and Bowen, with life-lines about them, bent the stubborn end of it around the windlass. It was heavy work, even for two men, on the tumbling, slippery deck, and, that done, they turned, anxiously, to see how the man in the stern of the tug was making out. He was there, back to, bending the thick stubborn bight about the towing bitts with slow, heavy motions. They saw one great sea break over him; and another: but when the seas ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... and in a few moments nearly everybody on board stood upon the upper deck, breathing the outer air and gazing about them in the pure sunlight. The deck was almost flat, and surrounded by a rail. The flooring was wet, and somewhat slippery, but nobody thought of that; they thought of nothing but the wonderful place in which they ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... he sent those three brothers to the sea to fetch a turtle. So off they went, and when they had found a turtle, the eldest said to his two brothers, "Let one of you take the turtle for our father's sacrifice; I cannot take it, as it is all slippery with slime." When the eldest said this, the two younger ones answered him, "If you hesitate about taking it, why should not we?" When the eldest heard that, he said, "You two must take the turtle; if you do not, you will have obstructed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours down the lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery bare slate, worn here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and Elsley slips back half of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, oozes out of his heels. Moreover, those dark trees above him, tossing their heads impatiently against the scarcely less dark sky, strike an awe into him,—a sense ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... And soften'd milky clouds of hardned rain; So quick the melted snows to rivers run, That soon a deluge from the mountains sprung. But thus you'd think 'twere done by fates decrees, For the flood stopt, and billows rising freeze, And yielding waves but now are rocks of ice. The slippery passage now their feet betray, When soon in miserable heaps o' th' way, Men, horse, arms, in wild confusion lay. Now pregnant clouds, with whirling blasts are torn, And, bursting, are deliver'd of a storm: Large stones of hail the troubl'd heavens shoot, That by tempestuous ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... By some instructed querist sleeping on the sand, Impatient of all answers, straight became A stealing brook, and strove to creep away Into his native sea, Vex'd at their follies, murmur'd in his stream; But disappointed of his fond desire, Would vanish in a pyramid of fire. This surly, slippery God, when he design'd To furnish his escapes, Ne'er borrow'd more variety of shapes Than you, to please and satisfy mankind, And seem (almost) transform'd to water, flame, and air, So well you answer all phenomena there: Though madmen and the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... who broke the silence caused by the inner tumult. In a dreamy voice, his eyes very eager and intent, he told us how at one time he had gone up a hill that faced the house in which he lived. A hard rain was driving, he fell at every step up the slippery steepness, but at every step the beauty of it became more and more wondrous, hardly bearable. The little village sank lower and lower, and about him were soft hills, graceful and verdant, a stretch of water lying dark under the clouded sky, and the mountain gray and watchful in the distance. It ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... that he had not suffered much, he hastened to look at the spot where his kind Grandpapa had slipped and fallen. It was a little bit of the path, perhaps about three paces long, covered with the water which was issuing from the fountain, and which being of clay, had become very slippery. ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... It seemed a long journey from one end to the other. Above, the scurrying clouds, below, the angry river, all around, the drizzling storm, it was a sorry scene; and a sullen welcome to the soil of Virginia, that was then as often before and afterwards, a slippery, sticky mud. ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... desire in the world to try swallowing it again. In fact, he felt just then as if he never, never wanted to see another fish so long as he lived. But Grandfather Frog's hands are not made for grasping slippery things, and the tail of a fish is very slippery indeed. He tried first with one hand, then with the other, and at last with both. It was of no use at all. He just couldn't budge that fish. He couldn't cough it up, ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... Carbonel came to the conclusion that no one could be more stupid or awkward than Master Hewlett, but that he was an honest man, and tried to do his best, such as it was, while his relation, Dan, though cleverer, was much more slippery, and could not be depended upon. Dora asked Master Hewlett what schools there were in the place, and he made answer that the little ones went in to Dame Verdon, but she didn't make much of it, not since ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... across the Mexican, Rojas's last ally, Gale had evidence of the terrible execution of the .405. He did not pause. On the first part of that descent he made faster time than had Rojas. But he exercised care along the hard, slippery, ragged slope leading to the ledge. Presently he came upon Mercedes and the Yaqui. She ran right into Dick's arms, and there her strength, if not her courage, broke, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... comfort. [Rodenbeck, i. 354.] During the retreat itself, Retzow Junior had come, as Papa's Aide-de-Camp, with a message to the King; found him on the heights of Klein Bautzen, watching the movements. Message done with, the King said, in a smiling tone, "Daun has played me a slippery trick to-day!" "I have seen it," answered Retzow; "but it is only a scratch, which your Majesty will soon manage to heal again."—"GLAUBT ER DIES, Do you think so?" "Not only I, but the whole Army firmly believe it of your Majesty."—"You are quite right," added the King, in a confidentially ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... is made towards a river, across which Nature, the first of bridge-builders, many a generation ago afforded an easy, dry passage by throwing down a huge tree. It spans from bank to bank, and the wood is worn to slippery smoothness by the passing of shoeless feet. Thence it leads through forest and jungle and mangrove belts to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... slippery wreck Of the Long Serpent's deck Sweeps Eric with hardly a check, His lips ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... surprised that the cuttlefish could move so fast, and his repugnance gave way to excitement as he started running after the writhing eight-armed creature. He was just about to grab it when he tripped on a rock, covered with slippery seaweed, and fell headlong, the fall throwing him immediately upon the octopus. For a moment the boy was staggered, and he never knew whether he had grabbed the cephalopod or whether it had grasped him, all he knew was that he was lying on the ground ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... turning his eyes upon Pipes, who by this time had penetrated into his apartment, and addressed him with the usual salutation of "What cheer?" "Ahey," cried he, "are you there, you herring-faced son of a sea-calf? What a slippery trick you played your old commander! But come, you dog, there's my fist; I forgive you, for the love you bear to my godson. Go, man your tackle, and hoist a cask of strong beer into the yard, knock out the bung, and put a pump in it, for the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Hopkins. Its Jupiter is self. Its lesser gods are princes, dukes, earls, counts, an' barons. Its angels are actors an' tenors. Its baptism is flattery. Poverty an' work are its twin hells. Matrimony is its heaven, an' a slippery place it is. They revel in the best sellers an' the worst smellers. They gossip of intrigue an' scandal. They get their lessons if they have time. They cheat in their examinations. If the teacher objects she is promptly an' generally insulted. She has to submit or ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... it? Come back home with me, and cease to punish thyself. It is scant gain, this obstinacy. Why seek to cure evil by evil? Mercy, remember, is by many set above justice. Many, also while pushing their mother's claims have forfeited their father's fortune. Power is a slippery thing—it has many suitors; and he is old and stricken in years—let not thy own inheritance ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... invited me to his kraal, some way up the hills. I jumped at the prospect of seeing the Wa Taita at home, so presently off we started on our heavy climb, my Indian servant, Bhawal, coming with us. After a couple of hours' steady scramble up a steep and slippery goatpath, we arrived at M'gogo's capital, where I was at once introduced to his wives, who were busily engaged in making pombe (a native fermented drink) in the hollowed-out stump of a tree. I presented ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... of the see-saw, and Dot and Twaddles made the simultaneous discovery that hay was slippery. They found this out because Twaddles had climbed to the top of a pile of loose hay and was intending to reach an open window when his foot slipped and he gently slid down to ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... heaped together pushed, screamed, and vainly endeavoured to penetrate the living mass, which always increased as the mules and donkeys became more frightened, and the muddy banks of the stream more slippery and broken. Several times, driven to despair by hours of patient waiting, we went in search of another road, or some other ford, where the crush and crowd might be less. It was only late in the afternoon ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... Mr. Sharp prayed fervently, "keep him up, spare his strength a little longer, a little longer!" A moment more and he reached the rope and clung to it desperately, while teacher and boys drew the two in over the slippery edge, out of the horrible, seething waters, and took them in their arms. But they were both silent and motionless. Mr. Sharp spoke Guy's name, but he did not answer. Would either ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... Deflowered and stained in unlawful bed. Why stay I? men point at me for a whore, Shame, that should make me blush, I have no more." This said; her coat hoodwinked her fearful eyes, And into water desperately she flies. 80 'Tis said the slippery stream held up her breast, And kindly gave her what she liked best. And I believe some wench thou hast affected, But woods and groves keep your faults undetected. While thus I speak the waters more abounded, And from the channel all abroad surrounded. Mad stream, why dost our mutual joys defer? ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe |
