"Somersault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then climb valiantly several steps higher, get his legs round his shoulders, and behold! be up on the giddy height! Then the man would take him round the waist, swing him over, and after a mighty somersault in the air, he would land unscathed on his feet upon the floor. It was a composite kind of treat, of three successive stages: first came the lofty and comfortable seat, then the more interesting moment, with a feeling, nevertheless, of being on the verge of a fall, and then ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... event elsewhere deaf the somersault to resound they were shouting at the top of their voices I started reading again ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... down—now describing gyrations, now imitating a pendulum—now trying to be so steady with his fluttering wings, that he looks like a star twinkling in the day-time—in short, playing all sorts of droll antics, indulging in every imaginable pirouette and somersault, in all the world (in his case above the world) like a school-boy beginning his holidays; certainly appearing to put himself to a great deal of unnecessary trouble and exertion. But he is unmistakably, with his winning ways, about something, ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... whether to thrash around blindly or lay down his sword and straighten out the helmet. The problem was solved for him by the crang! of a sword against the back of his helmet. The blow flipped him into a somersault, but also knocked the helmet completely ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... following the reading of Angela's piece of poetry was rendered remarkable by two events, of which the first was that the weather suddenly turned a somersault, and became beautifully warm; and the second that news reached the Abbey House that, thanks chiefly to Lady Bellamy's devoted nursing—who, fearless of infection, had, to the great admiration of all her neighbours, volunteered her services when no ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... eyebrows in, and crush'd the bone; Before him in the dust his eyeballs fell; And, like a diver, from the well-wrought car Headlong he plung'd; and life forsook his limbs. O'er whom Patroclus thus with bitter jest: "Heav'n! what agility! how deftly thrown That somersault! if only in the sea Such feats he wrought, with him might few compete, Diving for oysters, if with such a plunge He left his boat, how rough soe'er the waves, As from his car he plunges to the ground: Troy can, it ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... which my versatile friend challenged himself. Having shaken hands with himself, he then grasped himself in the most approved catch-as-catch-can manner, struggled desperately to throw himself and finally triumphed by flinging himself in the air, turning a somersault and coming down on the carpet with a bump. Getting up and falling exhausted into a chair, he was greeted with loud cries ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... also seeing another man, evidently the mate of the first, approaching with a second bear, they all went back to the highway. The bugle blew again, and one of the bears, at a command from the man, turned a clumsy somersault. ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... encouraging remarks, however, Patty did not succeed this time. I suppose she forgot to keep her neck thrown back, or to draw in her breath properly; at any rate, up went her heels, and down went her head, and she seemed suddenly to turn a kind of somersault in the water. Instantly all the members of the class dived to her rescue, so bent on putting into performance the life-saving which they had practised, that they almost pulled her to pieces ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the limbs of the beeches the water broke, and a mink rose to the surface with a fine perch twisting in her jaws. Straight toward the boy she swam till within reach of his rod, when she recognized the human in him, turned a back-dive somersault, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... live! I ain' stole one on 'em sence las' mont'," protested Zeke, as he turned a somersault into the road, "en dat warn' stealin' 'case hit warn' wu'th it," he added, rising to his feet and staring wistfully after the wagon as it vanished in ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... recalls his air visits. "You must have seen my head, for I never took my eyes off the house...." Or, after an aerial somersault that filled all those down below with terror: "I am wretched to know that my veering the other day frightened maman so much, but I did it so as to see the house without having to lean over the side of ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... an awful moment for Ruth Fielding and her two companions. Jennie's intermittent squeal turned into a sudden shriek— as keen and nerve-racking as the whistle of a locomotive. Isadore Phelps "blew up" with a muffled roar as he turned half a somersault in the air and landed headfirst ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... said, "I'm not going to allow you to make a somersault into heaven over my head. In any case, these little mites ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... grandfathers, in no way troubled him, but that either or both of them should be older than evolution itself seemed to him perplexing; nor could he at all simplify the problem by taking the sudden back-somersault into Quincy Bay in search of the fascinating creature he had called a horseshoe, whose huge dome of shell and sharp spur of tail had so alarmed him as a child. In Siluria, he understood, Sir Roderick Murchison called ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... his assistance, but getting no reply to his shouts, he began to fear lest his companion might be unable to render any help. Perhaps, indeed, he might be dead! The thought roused him to still greater exertions, and at last by a heroic effort he succeeded in turning a kind of somersault in his cold prison, which had the happy result of putting his head where his heels had been. To scramble out altogether was then an easy job, and in another instant he ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... few cables-lengths to port had taken a flying leap from the flashing sea, turned a complete somersault ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... down the bank, which luckily for me had not been immediately under the fence, but it could not be done, so we took a somersault into the brook, most alarming for the people in the ford to see. However, as the water was deep where I landed, I was not hurt, but had fainted ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... vicious and untamed animal on the frontier. But, though it did its best to unseat the rider and trample him underfoot, there was no moment when the issue seemed in doubt save once. The horse flung itself backward in a somersault, risking its own neck in order to break its master's. But he was equal to the occasion; and when Steamboat staggered again to its feet Bannister was still in the saddle. It was a daring and magnificent piece of horsemanship, and, though he was supposed to be a desperado and a ruffian, his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... chargeless, and with an exclamation of baffled rage I hurled the useless weapon full at the advancing brute. Almost at the instant we struck, my horse went down with the impetus, while over us both, as if shot from a cannon, plunged our pursuer, his horse turning a complete somersault, the rider falling so close that I was upon him almost as soon as he struck ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... caught sight of her. And, fascinated by the novelty of the situation, she stood a moment watching his antics, which were similar to those of a monkey upon a pole. Again and again he climbed the post, indulged in various acrobatic performances upon the foot-board, and then turned a double somersault right into the centre of the great feather-bed. And all the while his villainous little iron-bound heels made woful work, leaving countless dents and scratches upon the fine old mahogany, and catching in the meshes ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... wind in his silky ears. Away went the geese, the cocks, the hens, and the whole family of Johnson. Lucy clung to her mamma, Jane saved Emily by the gathers of her gown, and Tony saved himself by a somersault. ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... acrobat who has mastered every branch of his art, from the spidery contortions of the India-rubber man to the double somersault and the flying trapeze, is to the well-developed individual of ordinary muscular habits, so is the language of Rueckert in this work to the language of all other German authors. It is one perpetual gymnastic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... by a somersault, whirling, Whirling from cushion to floor; Waked from a wild rush of ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... what marvellous vigilance, activity, and efficiency he conducted, from that centre, the diplomatic affairs of the commonwealth. At the restoration of the monarchy, he made the quickest and the loftiest somersault in all political history. It was done between two days. He saw Charles the Second at the Hague, on his way to England to resume his crown: and the man who, up to that moment, had been one of the most zealous supporters of the commonwealth, came out next morning ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... much vim and vigor into his easy-going personality. After chopping the air with his hoofs for a second or two, he succeeded in righting himself, and was on his feet in less time than it takes to tell it. There he stood, as meek as Mary's lamb, trying to look as if he had never turned an undignified somersault in ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... may, thanks to them, soar very high, but—modern Icarus—may not also some adverse fortune, an unexpected loss of popularity, or, perhaps, some revolution fatal to your philosophy, bring you down with a somersault, and then you would not be sorry to find in your quiver the means of gaining your bread. Agreed that you have now an invincible repugnance to the practice of medicine, it is evident from your last two letters that you would have no less objection to any other profession by which ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... spurred on by Michael's teeth already sunk into the fleshy part of his shoulder. Michael missed his calf as he uprose, but tore the other leg of the trousers to shreds and received a kick that lifted him a yard above the deck in a half-somersault and landed him ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... ring, the Sweetener. 'May be,' said he, 'since it changes to sweetness whatever I eat and drink, it will sweeten my voice also, so that the Plough will obey.' So he put the ring between his lips and whistled; and at the sound his heart turned a somersault for joy, for he felt that out of his mouth the farmer's magic had ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... this as the Igorots could spare, killing its rather high flavour with cayenne peppers picked beside the trail, and continued our journey. In descending a steep hill my horse stumbled and while attempting to recover himself drove a sharp stone into his hoof and turned a complete somersault, throwing me over his head on to the rocks. When I got him up he was dead lame, and I walked the rest of the way to Ambuklao, where ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... of me. Yesterday, when I got on Briquette and made that fire-eater jump the two rain-barrels put end to end Dinky-Dunk told me I was too old to be taking a chance like that. So I promptly and deliberately turned a somersault on the prairie-sod, just to show him I wasn't the old lady he was trying to make me out. Gershom, who'd just got back with the children and was unhitching Calamity Kate, retreated with his eyebrows up, toward the stable. And on the youthful face of Pauline Augusta ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... getting off this queer speech, he was swinging and tumbling along up the great limb that reached out toward the window at which Sukey sat. By the time he had finished it, he was standing on the window-sill, where he had alighted after a giddy somersault. He laughed heartily—so heartily that Sukey laughed, too, though she could not tell why. Then he took off ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... thick, damp, cool moss, and that soft carpet under his feet made him feel absurdly inclined to turn head over heels as he used to do when a child, so he took a run, turned a somersault, got up and began over again. And between each time he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail—undoubtedly though not evidently—between ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... its position. For hardly was he safe on the turf again when he heard a sharp cry. Throwing a look behind, he saw his pursuer totter, clutch at the slipping timber, and, still clutching at it, turn a somersault and disappear. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept is called Marha from Marhai, the goddess of cholera, and the members worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the Kulhantia sept means somersault, and these turn a somersault before worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some of the territorial groups worship objects with similar names. Thus the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town of Mahoba, have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... steps, I rushed for him and kicked out with all my strength, when his face was level with my knees. The toe of my heavy shoe caught him solidly in the neck, and he went over backward almost in a complete somersault, landing with a crash upon the main deck just outside the window of Mr. Trunnell's room. He was stunned by the fall, and I hastened down to seize him before he could recover. Just as I gained the main deck, ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... sermon, almost going to sleep. And when he walked with the earl after church to the gate over which the noble peer had climbed in his agony, and inspected the hedge through which he had thrown himself, he was quite at home with his little jokes, bantering his august companion as to the mode of his somersault. But be it always remembered that there are two modes in which a young man may be free and easy with his elder and superior,—the mode pleasant and the mode offensive. Had it been in Johnny's nature to try the latter, the earl's back ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... even if I did, I don't see why you should have turned a somersault. I could dance the Highland Fling in a canoe and not upset. Oh dear! all my flowers are gone!" They put their hands on the upturned craft and ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... life;" also, "the Concord novelist was a handsome, bulky character, with a soft rolling gait; a wit said he seemed like a boned pirate." From these more or less contemptuous views of mankind at large Mr. Channing turns with a kind of somersault to an intense admiration for Thoreau. Could he but write of him in his own style—supposing him to have a style—he would have been in danger of producing a sensible book, and nous autres would have lost one delight; but it is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... about the time of the Twentieth Dynasty. A fragment in the Museum of Gizeh contains studies of ducks or geese in black ink; and at Turin may be seen a sketch of a half-nude female figure bending backwards, as about to turn a somersault. The lines are flowing, the movement is graceful, the modelling delicate. The draughtsman was not hampered then as now, by the rigidity of the instrument between his fingers. The reed brush attacked the surface ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... antagonist in his own element, but I knew the slack, thus sure to occur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went. He was caught very lightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle and somersault would break the hold. Presently I saw a place in the rocks where I thought it possible, with such an incentive, to get down within reach of the water: by careful manoeuvring I slipped my pole behind me and got hold of the line, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... an exciting tussle with your refractory pedal extremities, you again get them beneath the surface, your hands fly out with the splash and splutter of a half-dozen flutter wheels. If, on account of your brains being heavier than your heels, you chance to turn a somersault, and your head goes under, your heels will pop up like a pair of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... Bobtail by so much, a finger's breadth; I knew that he would miss. The hare was no common rogue; he made as if straight for the field, and after him the pack of hounds. The rogue of a hare I Once he knew that the dogs were in a bunch, pst! he went to the right, with a somersault, and after him the stupid hounds; but again, zip! to the left, in just two jumps. The dogs after him, zip! to the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... which was instantly jerked back and again slowly and inquiringly brought forward. Then the mantis suddenly flew in Cartucho's face, whereupon Cartucho, with a smothered yelp of dismay, almost turned a back somersault; and the triumphant mantis flew back to the middle of the ox-hide, among the plates, where it reared erect and defied the laughing and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... the passage that led to the dining-room he looked at the clock, and his heart turned a somersault. It was five minutes past nine. Not only was he late for breakfast, but late for school, too. Never before had he ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of shifting stones. He made a gallant effort to recover himself, stumbling to his knees as Cecil left the saddle and landed in the ferns—but just as he struck out for firmer footing his forefoot sank into a wombat hole, and he turned a complete somersault, rolling over and over. He brought up against a big boulder, struggled to rise and ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... with a clatter of rocks dashed off down the ridge. The grass was very high, and I could see only his head and horns, but I dropped the front sight six inches and let drive at a guess. The guess happened to be a good one, for he turned a somersault seventy-two yards away. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... round and says, "If you want a head put on you, just keep on talking; so that folks can't hear the brothers turn a somersault. You'll be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... part, and well they might be; for strength and agility are manly attributes which lads appreciate, and these lively fellows flew about like India rubber balls, each trying to outdo the other, till the leader of the acrobats capped the climax by turning a double somersault over five elephants ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... to look and see who it was that had called, a shot rang out and the beast, which had been running along, crouched low like a cat after a bird, seemed to crumple up. Then it turned a complete somersault, and a ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... Acrobats and Jugglers. Night by night they appear in spangled tights, and Father resins his hands in view of the audience, and lightly tosses the handkerchief to the wings; and then bends a stout knee, and cries "Hup!" and catches Mumdear on the spring and throws her in a double somersault. There are two girls of thirteen and fifteen, and a dot of nine; and they regard Dad and Mumdear just as professional pals, never as parents. This is Dad's idea; he dislikes being a father, but he ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... like to become a jester,—there was a suggestion of the ludicrous in the sudden passage from birds to Greek coins, to mills, to Walter Scott, to millionaire malefactors,—a suggestion of acrobatic tumbling and somersault; but he always got a hearing. In lecturing to the students of a military academy he had ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... once, to our astonishment, the foremost sprang out from the cliff, and whirling through the air, lit upon his head on the hard plain below! We could see that he came down upon his horns, and rebounding up again to the height of several feet, he turned a second somersault, and then dropped upon his legs, and stood still! Nothing daunted, the rest followed, one after the other, in quick succession, like so many street-tumblers; and, like them, after the feat had been performed, the animals stood for a moment, as if waiting for applause!' These were the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... sight to this eager gaze, and followed automatically the thundering course of the big bird, and then, taking thought to itself, leaped ahead of it and fired. Thorpe's first pheasant reeled in the air, described a somersault, and fell like ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... cranking. We rounded a bend where the wall rocks sloped back, leaving a narrow arid sagebrush strip along both sides of the stream. I had straightened up to get the kink out of my back and mop the sweat out of my eyes, when I saw something that made my stomach turn a double somersault. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... for Alfred ran out at him brimful of Moses, and with a savage kick in the back and blow on the neck, administered simultaneously, hurled him head foremost down the stairs. Alighting on the seventh step, he turned a somersault, and bounded like a ball on to the landing below, and there lay stupefied. He picked himself up by slow degrees, and glared round with speechless awe and amazement up at the human thunderbolt that had shot out on him ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... gathered up a chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some practise to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... clearly that you told me the truth, and I see that I get the twenty thousand gulden for nothing. Never in my life did I earn so much money by the hardest work. My senses are going. Do let me turn a somersault!" ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... "Like a deer. Crowd one an' he gets to jumpin' high. 'D you see that jack turn a somersault just as I threw my rope ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... southeaster. The slight intervals between these blows were dead calms. Also, in the six days, we were aground three times. Then, too, we tied up to the bank in the Sacramento River, and, grounding by an accident on the steep slope on a falling tide, nearly turned a side somersault down the bank. In a stark calm and heavy tide in the Carquinez Straits, where anchors skate on the channel- scoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and smashed and bumped down a quarter of a mile of its length before we could get clear. ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... both air and water. Little, useful tracts of earth are picked up and, as it were, turned over and clapped down right side up again upon the comet's surface. Even ships pass uninjured through this remarkable somersault. These events all belong frankly ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... day. It is on creeds that strong men are nourished, and that which nourishes the leaders into eminence is necessary to keep the masses from sinking. A man who really thinks, will think his way into light. He may turn many a somersault, but he will come right side up at last. But people in general do not think, and if they refuse to be walled in by other people's thoughts, they inevitably flop and flounder into pitiable prostration. So important is it, that a poor creed is better than none at all. Truth, even adulterated ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... hops and shuffles of his feet; at the conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: 'The squint-eye is too sharp for us!' he turned a somersault.... His expectations were fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed still in a half-sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... that Hawk-Eye was a little pleased at their courage in following them. Anyway, he said: "Well, you can climb like squirrels. We shall not be gone many days. Come along." Firetop sprang up and whooped for joy. Firefly turned a somersault. Hawk-Eye and Limberleg laughed. They couldn't help it. You see, even in those early times parents were fond of their children, although they didn't know any better punishment for them than spankings. There are some parents ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... leaping except Dick Varley. When Henri ran a race even Joe Blunt laughed outright, for arms and legs went like independent flails. When he leaped, he hurled himself into space with a degree of violence that seemed to insure a somersault—yet he always came down with a crash on his feet. Plunging was Henri's forte. He generally lounged about the settlement, when unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and when called on to act, he ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... bomb under the tell-tales bed and hastily scrambled back to his own. He had just time to roll himself up in the blankets, when there was a flash and terrible explosion. The bed of the tell-tale turned a complete somersault, while the entire building trembled with the concussion and a shower of broken glass was scattered around. No serious damage was done; but Paul was horrified and frightened half to death at the result of his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... mutters, hardly hearing them in fact. She believes herself to have been moulded and solidified long since. Then, presto! Something sudden and violent happens. Old ideas are uprooted. New ones planted. Is there a struggle? Not for a moment. They turn an intellectual somersault and are immediately as completely at home with ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... children and the two dogs sat watching the little rings in the water around the floaters. Sometimes farther out they saw larger rings, and a fish feeling pretty happy, because of the cool September weather, would jump out of the water and turn a somersault through the air. ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... enclosed by Alfred's tent, and performed a dozen feats that Alfred had never even witnessed, thereby winning the applause of the crowd of boys, both Lin and Alfred remained silent. When he did a round off a flip-flap and a high back somersault, a row of head-sets across the ring, finishing by doing heels in the mud, Alfred turned green with envy. He felt his reputation slipping away from him and realized he was deposed as the boys' and girls' idol, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... moment a shot rang out. The dog turned a complete somersault, recovered its feet, tore the ground and then lay down, giving a number of hoarse, breathless howls, which ended in a dull moan and an indistinct ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... made a dive of about 600 feet. The horrified spectators thought that the gallant aviator had lost control of his machine and was dashing straight to Earth, but quickly he changed his direction and slowly planed upwards. Then almost as suddenly he turned a complete somersault. Righting the aeroplane, he rose in a succession of spiral flights to a height of between 3000 and 3500 feet, and then looped the ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... leather tops. They look like ginger jars with paper covers. On these the boys sit while tracing the characters which we see on real Chinese tea boxes (for those made in New York are almost always upside down, as if they had turned a somersault). Every boy must learn from two hundred to ten thousand of these characters, and many years of hard study are required. Their books, ink-stones, brush-pens, water-pot, and pen-rests are all on the table. They use "India" ink, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... moment there came a sudden deep bellow, a hoarse, bull-like roar from somewhere near by, and, looking round in some perplexity, through the wide doorway of the smithy opposite, I saw a man come tumbling, all arms and legs, who, having described a somersault, fell, rolled over once or twice, and sitting up in the middle of the road, stared about him in a dazed sort ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... now watched the nurse, now looked across to where, on its shelf, was poised the toy somersault man. If one of the uniformed men she dreaded ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... entered the patch of grass when, with a short angry roar, a leopard sprang forward, and passed me at full speed within 25 yards; and immediately turned a somersault like a rabbit, with a charge of 16 S.S.G. from the No. 12 fired ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... circus-man bound into the air from a spring-board and make a somersault over eight horses standing side by side. Mr. Chauncy saw an aboriginal do it over eleven; and was assured that he had sometimes done it over fourteen. But what is that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... back in the same alienated tongue, "Yes; keep to the left," and she dived straight downward in the long plunge, till, just before she reached the net, she turned a quick somersault ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... horse and rider to the earth with fearful violence. His horn laid the poor horse's haunch open to the bone, making the most fearful rugged wound. In an instant, Ruyter regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down, with a tremendous somersault, in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the bushman escaped certain destruction. The buffalo rose much discomfitted, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time after him; but he got out of the way. At this moment, I managed to send one of my patent ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... struggling and kicking and striking out blindly, for the girl had not yet recovered from the shock. It was while she was down that another girlish figure shot straight into the lake. Instead of skimming the surface this second figure came down on her back with a mighty splash, turned a half-somersault, landing on her feet, where she stood treading water ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... plight of a boy pitching a ball, or some one yawning and stretching, or a clown turning a somersault, if you touch each of these just in the act and make him elastic. Their bodies always tend to snap back to these positions. Whenever the clown wants to rest, he has to get in the somersault position. The boy pitcher sleeps in the ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... observed, pausing for a moment. "The Skip is thus. You throw out your left leg as high and as far as you can, and as you drop on the toe of your left foot you fling out the right leg in the same manner, and so on. This is the Jump," with which he turned a somersault and disappeared from view. When Amelia next saw him he was sitting cross-legged ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... time unfolded his arms. With some appearance of caution he balanced his unstable footing into absolute immobility. Then he turned a somersault. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... unawares, was thrown headlong on top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The Sirdar, with a frenzied bound, tried to turn a somersault. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... was proved correct a few moments later, when, just as the car was moving off, there was a sharp crack and a bullet struck the wall to the right of the door. It was a random shot, and I did not return it. Its effect on me was to send me into the hall with a leap that was almost a back-somersault. Somehow, though I was keyed up for violence and the shooting of pistols, I had not expected it at just that moment, and I was disagreeably surprised at the shock it had given me. I slammed the door and bolted it. I was intensely irritated ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... lower-topsail-yard. I was only a little girl, but it looked like certain death, for he was falling from the weather side of the yard straight down on deck. But he fell into the belly of the mainsail, breaking his fall, turned a somersault, and landed on his feet on deck and unhurt. And he landed right alongside of Mr. Harding, facing him. I don't know which was the more astonished, but I think Mr. Harding was, for he stood there petrified. He had expected the man to be killed. Not so the man. He took ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... leaving, were rafts. Men did get into the boats as these lay in their cradles, thinking that as the ship went under the boats would float, but the ship sank by the head, and when she went she turned a somersault forward, carrying down with her all the boats and those in them. I do not think Kitchener got into a boat. When I sprang to a raft he was still on the starboard side of the quarter deck, talking with the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... York, president, and Elizur Wright, Jr., William Lloyd Garrison, and A. L. Cox, secretaries. Among the vice-presidents was Dr. Lord of Dartmouth College, then professedly in favor of emancipation, but who afterwards turned a moral somersault, a self-inversion which left him ever after on his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the gun by making a somersault to the earth. There was no necessity for Hendrik to waste any ammunition upon him. He had fallen in the agonies of death; and, without even waiting for his last kick, Willem took hold of one of his hind legs and commenced ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... resourceful fellows. The General Staff also supplied them with new machines of war. One of the finest was the Japanese bomb-thrower, an instrument which threw a great, big bomb like a well-filled melon. This went tumbling over and over, like an acrobat doing a somersault, then burst in the most startling way. The explosion was terrific and destruction amazing. Parapets, trenches, men and Maxims were all destroyed if near the point of contact. "Some bomb!" ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... deep freeze, united to the sleep ray, would keep the creature under control until they had a chance to study it. But, as Weeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him, that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarling and spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level. It was very evident that the ship's cat was having none ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... else in the world, every boy in that part of Switzerland longs to go with the herds to the high mountain pastures for the summer, and Fritz was so delighted that he turned a somersault at once to express his feelings. When he was right side up again, a puzzled look came over his face, and he said, "Who will take care of our ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... probably finish all standing in a crevasse. Snow rushed past, flew up one's nose and froze there. It did not behave itself thus when we slid down Craig Ronald and whizzed out upon the smooth breast of Loch Grannoch. I was reflecting on this unwarrantable behaviour of the snow, when there came a bump, a somersault, a slide, a scramble. "Dear me!" I say; "how did this happen?" Ears, eyes, mouth, nose were full of fine powdered snow—also, there were tons down one's back. Cold as charity, but no ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... hero-worship. And it was significant of Colin's make-up that he was equally ready to take it. Little of note occurred on the voyage save that the yacht almost ran over a sunfish in the water, which turned a sluggish somersault and disappeared. What was of more interest to Colin and indeed to Paul also was the opportunity to use a very powerful microscope belonging to the museum curator and to find out about the almost invisible ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... which was four sawed posts, with a frame nailed to the top of them. It was placed in the corner, and so, out of sight, Pani felt that her charge was always safe. In the morning Jeanne generally turned a somersault that took her over to the edge of the big bed, from whence she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... goat. 'Twas lucky for Master Blaisdell that this was so. Tubby went back with an awful grunt, heels in the air, and the goat turned a complete somersault. But the latter scrambled to his feet a whole lot quicker ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the skill with which the first assault was repelled. At the exact moment Mike launched his shoe, the toe of which caught Nick under the jaw and caused him to turn a backward somersault. He uttered several yelps, but the blow added if possible ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... dividing itself into three fractions, has decided, one for the ministerial compromise, another for the exclusion of the State, and the third for the exclusion of the corporations. So that today no more than before do the public or M. Arago, in spite of their somersault, know what they want. ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... mule gave a tug at his halter, and Bob, looking over his shoulder to see what was the matter, caught a momentary glimpse of a tawny body as it rose in the air, and, turning a complete somersault, landed on the ground all in a heap. One of the dogs, in his eagerness to do something grand, had approached a little too close to the mule's heels—an impertinence which that sagacious quadruped promptly resented by ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... warrior uttered a whoop which plainly was meant as a signal to his friends. Instantly Deerfoot laid down his paddle, and, catching up the gun, pointed it at the redskin. The latter, in the extremity of his terror, turned a somersault backwards, and tumbled and scrambled into the woods, desperately striving to get beyond sight of the terrible youth who showed such recklessness in ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large paunches and spread their legs wide apart as though on horseback, while the natives placed one leg over the other, even the fattest, there being one cabeza de barangay who turned a somersault. Seeing these movements, the Chinese all adopted their own peculiar attitude, that of sitting as they do in their shops, with one leg drawn back and upward, the other swinging loose. There resulted ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... essential elements of their poetry will be courage, daring, and rebellion. Literature has hitherto glorified serene immobility, ecstasy, and sleep; they will extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff. They declare that the world's splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car, its frame adorned by great pipes, like snakes with ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... enough to set the icebergs melting, and the water rushing down their sides in fountains. Now and then, when the under part is worn away, they get top-heavy, and over they go, just like a porpoise making a somersault. It does not do to be near them on those occasions, for they'd send the stoutest ship to the bottom in a moment; and even at a distance I have known bits of ice come down on the deck big enough to crack a blackamoor's head, though we ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... Place d'Armes and drove up the narrow Rue de la Mer, Susan seemed to take a sudden header and almost threw a somersault! I had gone into an invisible hole in the ice, two feet deep, extending half across the street. For some reason it had melted (due probably to an underground bakery in the vicinity). I reversed anxiously and then hopped out to feel Susan's springs as one might a horse's knees. Thank goodness ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... Enrique was compelled to free the rope or have his horse dragged down. I saw the mishap, and, giving my horse the rowel, rode at the bull and threw my rope. The loop neatly encircled his front feet, and when the shock came between horse and bull, it fetched the toro a somersault in the air, but unhappily took off the pommel of my saddle. The bull was on his feet in a jiffy, and before I could recover my rope, Enrique, who had reset his saddle, passed me, followed by the entire squad. Uncle Lance had been a witness to both mishaps, and on overtaking ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... instant Ruyter regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down with a tremendous somersault in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the Bushman escaped certain destruction. The buffalo rose much discomfited, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time at him, but he got out of the way. At this moment I managed to send one of my patent pacificating ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... to play the crank. It was evidently written in his stars. When will he turn his last somersault and stand on ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... Reybas of the Bobino lifts a mighty larynx in "Mahi Mahi." Great talent? Well, maybe not. But show me a group of vaudevillians and acrobats who, like this group at the Gaite, can amuse one night with risque ballad and somersault and the next with Moliere—and not be shot dead ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... "Now turn a somersault!" ordered Bert. This Snap did, too. This was one of his best tricks. Over and over he went around the school room, outside the rows of desks. This made the children ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... except Dick Varley. When Henri ran a race even Joe Blunt laughed outright, for arms and legs went like independent flails. When he leaped, he hurled himself into space with a degree of violence that seemed to insure a somersault; yet he always came down with a crash on his feet. Plunging was Henri's forte. He generally lounged about the settlement when unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and when called ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... night," said Howard, characteristically unable to let such a chance go by. Then he grew suddenly grave and sat down. "Martin, I'm getting frightfully fed up with messing about in town. I'm going to turn a mental and physical somersault and get ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... tried to leap into the brook. But when he uncrossed his legs, in his haste he tangled them up in his sewing. And all he could do was to turn a somersault backward among some bulrushes, hoping that Solomon Owl had not ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to fool me!" fumed the Whale. And they began to pull again. But this time the rope broke, the Whale turned a somersault, and ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... as the she-bear bounced out of the crack with Poker hanging to her heels. Poker's audacity had at last outstripped his sagacity, and the next moment he was performing a tremendous somersault. Before he reached the ice, Meetuck and Fred fired simultaneously, and when the smoke cleared away the old bear was stretched out in death. Hitherto the cub had acted exclusively on the defensive, and intrusted itself entirely to the protection of its dam; but now it seemed to change ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat: Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door— Pray what is ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... not to say somersault, by the leading British newspaper, was in line with public expressions from all sections save the extreme pro-Southern. Adams was astonished, writing privately: "The first effect of the surrender ... has been extraordinary. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... impart an atmosphere of probability to a scheme that was pure farce. Yet that was what he tried to do; he wanted me to believe that I was assisting at a comedy. There was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault, tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be regarded au grand (or, at worst, au petit) serieux. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... make all stops that way. Yet how often are drivers seen tearing up to the curb at twenty miles an hour or more to slam on the brakes at the last instant with a violence that nearly causes the car to turn a somersault, bringing it to a standstill in twenty feet, when there was no earthly reason why they should not have used four times that distance. Or if occasion arises for slowing down in a crowded street, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... associated with older persons, has insensibly imbibed their staid thoughts, and adopted their quiet ways. I should not be more astonished to see my prim puritanical grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified language. If she had been born on the Mayflower, raised on Plymouth Rock, and ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... at the hour of our death!"—the vestryman devoutly made the sign of the cross and then wiped his nose with the back of his hand—"the shot pierced the side of bacon and went into his back, in from behind, out at the front. Then Solheid turned a somersault. It was a shame. Such a fine fellow, ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... business. As the priest broke free, he slid around in an attempt to fasten himself on Kirby's back. Quickly, tensely Kirby doubled, and knew that he had done enough. The cacique shot over his shoulders, described a somersault in midair, and landed with a sharp crack of head and shoulders ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... and fell forward, sprawling with arms and legs extended; another pitched to one side and rolled over twice before he lay still; the legs of the third collapsed and threw him headlong, bunched up in a grotesque pile of lifeless flesh; the fourth leaped high into the air and turned a somersault before he struck the sand, badly wounded, and out of the fight. Holden, steadying himself against the wall, leaned in a window on the other side of the shack and emptied his Colt in a dazed manner—doing his very best. Then ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the great beast's legs were jerked out from under him and with a roar of rage he turned a complete somersault and crashed to the ground, every bit of his wrath jarred out of him by the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it would raise no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... Mademoiselle will pardon his ignorance." And here Puss rolled up his eyes and placed his hand upon his heart and bowed so low that he was actually standing on his head before he had finished. But he turned a graceful somersault and came right side up again in half a second, without ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... with the force of a battering-ram, Percy shot over the brink. As he fell he described a partial somersault, landing on hands and knees half-way down the slope. His momentum carried him heels over head, and he rolled and tumbled the rest of the way, bringing up in a heap at ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... short again in mid career, and crouched down; but Matyi did not leap over him as the flighty Armida had done, but, as the fox turned towards him with gnashing teeth, he snapped suddenly at him from the opposite side like lightning, and in that instant all that one could see was the fox turning a somersault in the air. Matyi, seizing him by the neck had, in fact, tossed him up, and scarcely had he reached the ground again when he was seized again by the skin of his back, well shaken, and then released. Let him run a little bit ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... lady-bugs wept many tears, because they could not go with the company; the crickets chirped rather gloomily, because none with short limbs could go on the journey; while Daddy Long-legs almost turned a somersault for joy when told he might carry a bundle in the train. All being in readiness, the procession was to start at six o'clock in the morning. The exact minute was to be announced by the time-keeper of the mansion, Flea san, whose house was on the back of Neko, a great black cat, who lived in the ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... after that, anyhow," said Wally. "Couldn't pull my beauty up, he was so excited by Mick's somersault." ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce |
