"Surf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her? His strangeness, wildness, the mesmeric pull of his passion for her, his music! Nothing could spoil that in him. The sweep, the surge, and sigh in his playing was like the sea out there, dark, and surf-edged, beating on the rocks; or the sea deep-coloured in daylight, with white gulls over it; or the sea with those sinuous paths made by the wandering currents, the subtle, smiling, silent sea, holding in suspense its unfathomable restlessness, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... tell her whether the bar is passable or not. For the bar of the Port is as changeable in its moods as the heart of a giddy maid to her lovers—to-day it may invite you to come in and take possession of its placid waters in the harbour beyond; to-morrow it may roar and snarl with boiling surf and savage, eddying currents, and whirlpools slapping fiercely against the grim, black rocks of the ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... one-story building of corrugated iron, hot, unpainted, and unlovely. It was set on wooden logs to lift it from the reach of "sand jiggers" and the surf, which at high tide ran up the beach, under and beyond it. Inside it was rude and bare, and the heat and the smell of the harbor, and of the swamp on which the town was built, passed freely ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... the Whale found himself sliding toward the land he was so provoked with the cow that he dove head first, down to the bottom of the sea. That was a pull! The Elephant was jerked off his feet, and came slipping and sliding to the beach, and into the surf. He was terribly angry. He braced himself with all his might, and pulled his best. At the jerk, up came the ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... of bursting surf undertoned all other noises and, prisoned as she was, the schooner and her floe were sweeping slowly toward the land in the grip of a current rather than ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... owing to the motion of the ship, he missed the cordage and struck the axe deep into the oar. Another wave, however, washed it clear of the wreck. We all seized hold of it, and the next instant we were struggling in the wild sea. The last thing I saw was the boat whirling in the surf, and all the sailors tossed into the foaming waves. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... had been eagerly and incautiously communicated at Ellangowan, with the gratuitous addition, that, doubtless, "he had drawn the Young Laird over the craig with him, though the tide had swept away the child's body—he was light, puir thing, and would flee farther into the surf." ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... both Tunis Latham and the girl posing as Ida May Bostwick. Two young people can tell a great deal to each other under certain circumstances in the mid-watch of a starlit night. The lap, lap of the wavelets whispering against the schooner's hull, the drone of the surf on a distant bar, and the sounds of insect life from the shore were ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride: And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... fishermen rowed a boat quietly out to sea, the sharp creaking of the rowlocks coming lazily to our ears in the pauses of the wind. The little waves fell with a soft thud, followed by the crisp echo of the surf, feeling all round the shingly cove. The whole place, in that fresh spring day, was ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... madness. Getting three or four round pieces of driftwood, which were slippery with water-slime, she laid them along the dock; two other billets she placed under the boat's keel. Then gathering her strength for one pull, she sent the boat into the churning surf. One of the fishermen advanced to detain her, but she waved him back with a gesture so determined and imperious that he hesitated. He then held consultation with his friends. Two or three now hurried down to the water's edge, but the boat had shot out beyond their reach, ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, Sir Arthur had concluded that an attack at the mouth of the Tagus was impracticable, owing to the strength of the French there, the position of the forts that commanded the entrance of the river, and the heavy surf that broke in all the undefended creeks and bays near. There was then the choice of landing far enough north of Lisbon to ensure a disembarkation undisputed by the French, or else to sail south, join Spencer, and act against ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... It was the impact of resistible power. A great sheet of water rose like surf from the tail of the jam; a mighty cataract poured down over its surface, lifting the free logs; from either wing timbers crunched, split, rose suddenly into wracked prominence, twisted beyond the semblance ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... through the open, windows, extending outward until it mingled with the horizon, Padre Florentino was relieving the monotony by playing on his harmonium sad and melancholy tunes, to which the sonorous roar of the surf and the sighing of the treetops of the neighboring wood served as accompaniments. Notes long, full, mournful as a prayer, yet still vigorous, escaped from the old instrument. Padre Florentino, who was an accomplished musician, was improvising, and, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... misery carries its own justification, when the sober petitions of the self-righteous and the unkind are rejected. He who forgives not is not forgiven, and the prayer of the Pharisee is as the weary beating of the surf of hell, while the cry of a soul out of its fire sets the heart-strings of love trembling. There are sins which men must leave behind them, and sins which they must carry with them. Society scouts the drunkard because he is loathsome, and ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... navigators, when, as they came coasting along from the north in their frail galleys, on their voyages to Greece and Italy, they saw it frowning defiance to them as they came, with threatening clouds hanging upon its summit, and the surges and surf of the AEgean perpetually thundering upon its base below. To make this stormy promontory the more terrible, it was believed to be the haunt of innumerable uncouth and misshapen monsters of the sea, ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the surf, they had taken long tramps along the beach when the tide was out, they had sailed in his yacht, "The Dolphin," they had been up at the great hotel, where a fine ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... a bigger swindle than surf-bathing, the United States Postal authorities haven't heard of it yet. It is all very well for the women. They can hang on to the ropes and squeal at the big waves and have a perfectly lovely time. Some ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... chattels, and were gathering in a howling chattering mob by the surf-boats ready to go on board, when the first notion came to me of joining her. It was the Danish harbour-master who gave it. He came up, under his old white umbrella with the green lining, to the house where I was staying, and told me that the tramp was going ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... then, suddenly, with the sharpness of bugles, winter came. It came in a single night, and the miners awoke to howling wind, driving snow, and freezing water. Storm followed storm, and between the storms there was the silence, broken only by the boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where the salt spray rimmed the beach with ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... fingers of the rain clouds had reached down, spanning from Criffel to Screel. The sea mist did what faith also can do. It removed mountains. One after another they faded and were not. A chillish wind began to blow up from the Solway, and even in Eden Valley was heard the distant roar of the surf, through the low pass which is called the Nick of Benarick. The long grass first stood in beads and then began to trickle. Flowers drooped their heads if of the harebell sort, or stood spikily defiant like the yellow ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Nature holds grimly onto her own and sedulously heals the scars that man makes. Beat to windward in the December twilight following that first trail of the Pilgrim pinnace, listen to the sullen boom of the breakers on the cliff, hear the growl of the surf-mauled pebbles on Plymouth beach, feel the sting of the freezing spray and the bitter grip of the north wind and you shall find this first Pilgrim trail the same today as it was three ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... looking at the pines all the way in; he had steered by them from point to point. Now he saw them just over Fish Rock, where the surf was whitening, and over the group of fish-houses, and began to steer straight inshore. The sea was less rough now, and after getting well into the shelter of the land he drew in his oar. Chauncey could pull the rest of the way without it. A sudden change in the wind filled the three-cornered ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... left-hand bank, one came almost unawares on a sharp bend to the left: here the river suddenly ended, and the sea began; the rushes and reeds and high grasses ceased; a low, rocky barrier stayed them. Rounding this point, lo, your boat swayed instantly to the left: a gentle surf-wave took possession of you, and irresistibly bore you towards a yellow sand beach, which curved inward like a reaper's sickle, not more than a quarter of a mile long, from the handle to the shining point; smooth and glistening, strewn with polished pebbles and tiny shells, it seemed some half-hidden ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... man no more. How long the night lasted I cannot tell; to me it seemed an age, and no second of it was free from fear. Whether we were driving north, south, east, or west no one knew, while the fury of the storm would have drowned the thunder of waves on a surf-beaten shore. But the Aguila was an English boat, built by honest English workmen, and her planks held firmly together despite ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... themselves are stacks of upper chalk, with flints, and are the remains of an extension of the chalk. The cliffs here are about four hundred feet in height, and at their base the sea breaks frequently in a long surf line on the steep shingly shore. In calm weather visitors engage boatmen at Totland and Alum Bays to take them in boats through the Needles and land ...
— Pictures in Colour of the Isle of Wight • Various
... rather cold." There was silence while Daddy saw once more the golden sand of the African beach and the snow-white roaring surf, with the long, smooth ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... horse tethered to an iron pin, or else sit down and admire those who do go round and round. No one looks back at the gradually extending beach and the fine curve of the shore. No one lingers where the surf breaks—immediately above it—listening to the remorseful sigh of the dying wave as it sobs back to the sea. There, looking downwards, the white edge of the surf recedes in hollow crescents, curve after curve for a mile or more, one succeeding before the first ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... a high chamber in the Hotel del Coronado, on the great and fertile beach in front of San Diego. It is the 2d of June. Looking southward, I see the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean, sparkling in the sun as blue as the waters at Amalfi. A low surf beats along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of far-off seas and trade-winds, as it has beaten for thousands of years, with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if of distant thunder ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... morning invariably found the reunionists strengthening their acquaintance with the ocean. Breakfast over, a bathing suit procession to the nearby beach became the usual order of things. They spent long sunny hours playing about in the surf, or stretched at ease on the white sand, exchanging an apparently exhaustless flow of light-hearted conversation relating to almost everything under the sun. Imbued with tireless energy, their afternoons brought them fresh entertainment ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... Stutson James Suabilty Benjamin Subbs Jacquer Suffaraire Manuel Sugasta Miles Suldan Parks Sullevan Dennis Sullivan Patrick Sullivan Thomas Sullivan George Summers Rufus Sumner Amos Sunderland Edward Sunderland (3) Francis Suneneau John Suneneaux Andre Surado Godfrey Suret Jack C. Surf Francis Surronto Hugh Surtes John Surtevant John Sussett Franco Deo Suttegraz Louis John Sutterwis George Sutton John Sutton Thomas Sutton Jacob Snyder Roman Suyker Simon Swaine Zacharias Swaine Thomas Swapple Absolom Swate James Swayne Isaac Swean Peter Swean (2) Enoch Sweat John Sweeney ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... down, the weather threatened still more; the wind blew strong, and the rocky beach was lashed by the waves and white with spray, while the surf roared as it poured in and broke upon the sand in the cove. The whole family had retired to bed except Ready, who said that he would watch the weather a little before he turned in. The old man walked towards the beach, ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... other and from West Africa. The charm of West Africa is a painful one: it gives you pleasure when you are out there, but when you are back here it gives you pain by calling you. It sends up before your eyes a vision of a wall of dancing white, rainbow-gemmed surf playing on a shore of yellow sand before an audience of stately coco palms; or of a great mangrove- watered bronze river; or of a vast aisle in some forest cathedral: and you hear, nearer to you than the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that he did so. His religion did not lead him to do as some people would have done— begin to talk to the soldiers about their souls—but he looked after their bodies. Hungry, wet, sleepless, they were in no condition to scramble through the surf, and the first thing to be done was to get some food into them. Of course he does not mean that they had eaten absolutely nothing for a fortnight, but only that they had had scanty nourishment. But Paul's religion went harmoniously with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... midnight hours! by sea and land! How heavily they sped! Sometimes upon a surf-beat strand My weary feet would tread, And when the stars looked calmly down From cloudless foreign skies— Their soft light seemed a radiance thrown ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... with rounded hills. Slowly finer points appeared, the ridge of mountains showed details and we could recognize the tops of the giant banyan trees, towering above the forest as a cathedral does over the houses of a city. We saw the surf, breaking in the coral cliffs of flat shores, found the entrance to the wide bay, noticed the palms with elegantly curved trunks bending over the beach, and unexpectedly entered the lagoon, that shone in the bright sun like ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... earthy savour of the bog plants, the rude disorder of the boulders, the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden springing up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the isle,—all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gradually declining to that point, which I doubted not terminated in Cape Jervis. The natives kept aloof during the night, nor did the dogs by a single growl intimate that any had ventured to approach us. The sound of the surf came gratefully to our ears, for it told us we were near the goal for which we had so anxiously pushed, and we all of us promised ourselves a view of the boundless ocean ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... feet, saying, "Run before the next wave comes." Ten yards farther and they were beyond the reach of the sea. Harold was with them, and directed those who had got ashore to form lines, taking hold of each other's hands, and so to advance far into the surf and grasp their comrades as they were swept up. Many were saved in this way, although some of the rescuers were badly hurt by floating pieces of wreckage, for the vessel had entirely broken up immediately after her course had ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... ideal bungalow and when I had finished it I constructed my ideal garden. And then I made a sea and a coast-line, and when it was finished it was so real to me that I actually seemed to go into its rooms, sit on the verandah, breathe in its sea-airs and listen to the surf below its cliff. I remember that one of its rooms did not please me entirely, and that I seemed to pull it down—in thought—and reconstruct it according to my wish. This took time, for brick by brick I thought the new room into existence. ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... streams; if the swell be from the north, it enters almost without diminution; and the war-ships roll dizzily at their moorings, and along the fringing coral which follows the configuration of the beach, the surf breaks with a continuous uproar. In wild weather, as the world knows, the roads are untenable. Along the whole shore, which is everywhere green and level and overlooked by inland mountain-tops, the town lies drawn out in strings and clusters. The western ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tongue of land, beaten upon by white rollers of surf, that seemed as if they strove to overwhelm the old forts set far above their reach. A rocky island too, rising darkly out of a golden sea; and then we entered the mouth of a wonderful bay, like the pictures of Norwegian fords. As we steamed on, past a little town protected ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... frowningly overhead, its base all worn and furrowed by the furious surges that for ages had dashed against it. All around lay a chaos of huge boulders covered with seaweed. The tide was now at the lowest ebb. The surf here was moderate, for the seaweed on the rocks interfered with the swell of the waters, and the waves broke ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... by where the muddy mouth of the river yawned wide, there rose ever a thin white line of surf, and underneath those crested waves there dwelt a very fearsome thing, called the Bar. I grew to hate and be afraid of this mysterious Bar, for I heard it spoken of always with bated breath, and I knew that it was very cruel to fisher folk, and hurt them ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... a touch of the equinox, and the Leman has been in a foam, but its miniature anger, though terrible enough at times, to those who are embarked on its waters, can never rise to the dignity of a surf and a rolling sea. The rain kept me housed, and old John and I seized the occasion to convert a block of pine into a Leman bark, for P——. The next day proving fair, our vessel, fitted with two ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... thing instinct with life, walking the waters—and our feelings are not only excited for the safety of the crew, but for that of the vessel itself, to which we attach a degree of interest as for a friend. A gale was now up; the boat put off to their aid was in danger of being swamped by the surf, and found it impracticable to make way against a violent head-wind and tide united. Nothing short of a miracle could now save the ship; however the wind suddenly shifted a little, and I began to hope that if she was to be wrecked, it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... from Redding came on August 1, 1908, when the sudden and shocking news was received of the drowning of his nephew, Samuel E. Moffett, in the surf of the Jersey shore. Moffett was his nearest male relative, and a man of fine intellect and talents. He was superior in those qualities which men love—he was large-minded and large-hearted, and of noble ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... returned, 'tis thou art blind, Not I unmerciful; I can forgive, But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes; Only the soul hath power o'er itself.' With that again there murmured 'Nevermore!' And Rhoecus after heard no other sound, Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves, 150 Like the long surf upon a distant shore, Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. The night had gathered round him: o'er the plain The city sparkled with its thousand lights, And sounds of revel fell upon his ear Harshly and like a curse; above, the sky, With all its bright sublimity of stars, Deepened, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... descended pitilessly upon their unprotected heads. A day of suffering and of peril was before them. As the day advanced, the wind increased to almost a gale. The waves frequently broke into the boat, drenching them to the skin, and glazing the boat, ropes, and clothing with a coat of ice. The surf, dashing upon the shore, rendered landing impossible, and they sought in vain for any creek or cove where they could find shelter. The short afternoon was fast passing away, and a terrible night was before them. A huge billow, which seemed to chase them with gigantic speed and force, ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... commercial England. Each lounges decorously through life after his own fashion; only the one lounges in a Russia leather chair at a club in Pall Mall, while the other lounges in a nice soft dust-heap beside a rolling surf in Tahiti or the ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... surf filled his ears; through flying patches of mist he caught glimpses of rollers bursting white against the reef; heard duller detonations along unseen sands, and shattering reports where heavy waves exploded ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... loud in the surf over yonder. If one should dive deep, And rise not—no more need he suffer or ponder O'er losses, or weep, But sink low and sleep While ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... along the edge of the surf and down a dainty little flowery path, noticing meanwhile how the whole bay was filled by hundreds of empty canoes, while scores of others were drawn up on the strand, and then the first thing I chanced upon was a group of people—youthful, of course, with ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... been to the Lido for a short swim in the slight but bracing surf of the Adriatic. They had had a midday breakfast in a queer little restaurant, known only to the initiated and therefore early discovered by Larry, who had a keen scent for a cook learned in the law. They had loitered along the Riva degli Schiavoni, looking at ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... The next moment, however, I knew it could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf—or, at least, it seemed to—but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... the island, we found it was at a place where there could be no landing, there being a great surf on the stony beach. So we dropped anchor, and swung around towards the shore. Some people came down to the water edge and hallooed to us, as we did to them; but the wind was so high, and the surf so loud, that we could not ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the West Wind, and his storms and tempests were so mighty that the Sagalie Tyee Himself could not control the havoc that he created. He warred upon all fishing craft, he demolished canoes and sent men to graves in the sea. He uprooted forests and drove the surf on shore heavy with wreckage of despoiled trees and with beaten and bruised fish. He did all this to reveal his powers, for he was cruel and hard of heart, and he would laugh and defy the Sagalie Tyee, and looking ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... surprise, found his spirit responding to this man's praise, slaver and pirate though he was, and he threw more strength into his swing. Soon they drew near to the island, and he heard such a roaring of the surf that he shuddered. He saw an unbroken line of white and he knew that behind it lay the cruel teeth of the rocks, ready to crunch any boat that came. Every one ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... lone distress, That I might hark the sea-bird's wondrous band— Sweet source of happiness. That I might hear the clamorous billows thunder On the rude beach. That by my blessed church side I might ponder Their mighty speech. Or watch surf-flying gulls the dark shoal follow With joyous scream, Or mighty ocean monsters spout and wallow, Wonder supreme! That I might well observe of ebb and flood All cycles therein; And that my mystic name might be for good But "Cul-ri. Erin." That gazing toward her ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... secret he had been telling me as we came along, and then the parting when I didn't expect it, all I had of the man about me gave way somehow in a moment. And I sat alone, crying and sobbing on the sand-hillock, with the surf roaring miles out at sea behind me, and the great plain before, with Matthew walking over it alone on his way ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... realised after examination of Lake Alexandrina, as it is now called. Upon ascertaining their exact position on the southern coast, nothing was left but to take up the weary labours of their return; the thunder of the surf brought no hopeful message of succour, but rather warned the lonely men to hasten back while yet ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... journey, in perfect security, no one thinking about his arms. The evening was extremely bright and pleasant. But the wind rose during the night, and the waves began to break heavily, making our island tremble. I had not expected, in our inland journey, to hear the roar of an ocean surf. The strangeness of our situation, and the excitement we felt, in the associated interests of the place, made this one of the most interesting nights I ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... ship rose and fell in the swell, the trees alternately disappeared and came into sight; and, on getting nearer, a coral island hove in view; it consisted of a ring a quarter of a mile or so in width, with a lagoon in the centre. First was seen a line of surf, then a white sandy beach, and beyond a belt of green ground, sparsely sprinkled with cocoanut and pandanus trees, and here and there with a few bushes of low growth. The ship stood along the shore at a respectful distance, a look-out being kept for inhabitants, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surf is in my ear; I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud-rack; I can feel the spirit of its woody solitudes, I hear the plashing ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... wished you could do something big?" pursued Julie. "You've done a thing that makes the rest of us feel pretty small, you know. Why, while there was any question of your getting better, there wasn't a dance given at any of the hotels between here and Surf Point, and all sorts of people came here with inquiries every day. This place was absolutely hushed. The maids used to fight for the privilege of carrying your trays up. None of us thought of anything but 'How is Miss Carter?' And you'll be 'The young lady who saved those children ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... clouds came up in rapid procession; the surf began to sigh and moan; the sea-fowls caught the sound, and cried as they only cry when the ocean is angry. The boats lying out hoisted sail and scudded away for the nearest haven of shelter. Then a white line of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of pressure, of prodigious poetry and beauty and amazement. This was a strange jungle of life. Tall coasts of windows stood up into the pure brilliant sky: against their feet beat a dark surf of slums. In one foreign street, too deeply trenched for sunlight, oranges were the only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... to enter the sea and wade to the vessel, but Skallagrim caught him in his arms as though he were but a child, and, wading into the surf till the water covered his waistbelt, bore him to the vessel and lifted him up so that Eric reached the bulwarks ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... wearing white helmets on their heads and suits of snowy white as they walk about amid brown-skinned natives whose bare bodies gleam like satin, lands where lines of palm trees wave their long fronds over the pearly surf washing at their roots. We will visit also other lands where you look out over a glowing pink and mauve desert to seeming infinity, and see reflected in bitter shallow water at your feet the flames of such a sunset glory as you never yet have imagined. Or you can ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... the blue surface gleams the sheen of myriad fish. Far to the southwards the fitful volcanic flames of Colima light up the landscape at night. A day's journey more across the coastal plains, and our reconnaissance is finished. The long-drawn surf beats upon the shore of the vast western ocean, for we have crossed the continent; and the sun's glowing disc dips to the blood-red waves—sunset ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... was caught by a wave and thrown down, and as it retired it seemed to drag her along with it; we older ones lost our presence of mind entirely, and screamed and cried, and did nothing, but that heroic little fellow ran into the boiling surf and caught her dress, and with the dog's assistance, dragged her to a safe place. She said he was, "Very ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... to be worked, and again to the south a vast stretch of like character extending to Norton Bay. The tundra, which is nothing but the old beach, follows the present shore, and is fully as rich as the surf-washed sands. More productive and larger than all is the inland region traversed by rivers and creeks that form a veritable network of streams, all ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... cautious look, his eyes sparkled once more. Go back to the Life-saving Station where he had worked in his lusty youth—back to the sound of the surf upon the shore, back to the pines and cedars of the Beach, out of the bondage of dry old lavender to the goodly fragrance of balsam and sea-salt! Back to ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... which hangs suspended, like Mahomet's coffin, between earth and heaven, or, at least, between mass and class, and which stretches out its tentacles and sucks nourishment from both. These with a regularity almost religious, spent an hour of every day, weather permitting, splashing in the gentle surf or posing on the beach in costumes more or less revealing, according to the contour of the wearer. The climax of the afternoon, the coup-de-theatre which all awaited, was the appearance of Mlle. Paul, late of the Varietes. This was such a masterpiece in its way that it is worth pausing ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... spectacle more strange—nay awful. Neither pen nor pencil can give any idea of it. It was exciting, grand, wierd and beautiful." Fireworks from the ships looked like volcanoes bursting from the deep, while multiplied fireboats had an effect upon the stony ink-blackness of the surf, like rolling flames pouring in upon the shores. At midnight the Prince passed from this scene to a special Native entertainment in his honour. The great railway station had been converted into a decorated theatre crowded ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... storm-wind may bluster and blow, Tearing the trees from the root-broken ground, Or the wild sea-surf may leap and may flow In solemn silence with never ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public; Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the rocks and surf was passed, came another danger of the hideous brutes in brown skins and the briefest shirts, who came towards the boat, straddling through the water with outstretched arms, grinning and yelling their Arab invitations to mount ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had been a pleasure to him since that day six months ago when his old schooner, dismasted and leaking in a gale, had foundered near the Wolves, two sharp-toothed islands near Grande Mignon. Four islanders had been lost that day, and he alone had lived through the surf. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Waddy; the pulsing whirr of invisible locusts filled the whole air with a drowsy hum, and from the flat at the back of the township, where a few thousand ewes and lambs were shepherded amongst the quarry holes, came another insistent droning in a deeper note, like the murmur of distant surf. No one was stirring: to the right and left along the single thin wavering line of unpainted weatherworn wooden houses nothing moved but mirage waters flickering in the hollows of the ironstone road. ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... mortal maid lies indolent Save one sweet cheek which the cool velvet turf Had touched too rude, tho' all the blooms besprent, One soft arm pillowed. Whiter than the surf ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... place where we halted for dinner, on the banks of the Rugufu River, is eighteen and a half hours, or forty-six miles, from Ujiji; and, as Kabogo is said to be near Uguhha, it must be over sixty miles from Ujiji; therefore the sound of the thundering surf, which is said to roll into the caves of Kabogo, was heard by us at a distance of over one hundred miles ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... ships were wafted towards the blue cloud, it was proved beyond a doubt to be land, for some palm-trees and tall pines became distinguishable, and above all other sounds came, faint but distinct, the heavy, regular boom of surf. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... the dash of the surf and the cries of the wheeling sea fowl made the only sound in that part of the world; then from those half-clad rapscallions arose a shout of "Kirby!"—a shout in which the three leaders did not join. That one who looked a gentleman rose from the sand ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... broadside and the ripple of surf threatened to swamp it, only a naked boy ran into the water and pulled the bow high up on the sand. The man stood up and sent a questing glance along the line of villagers. A rainbow sweater, dirty and the worse for wear, clung ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... miles in its transverse axis, half filled with smooth water of the deepest caerulean hue, and half with a solid sheet of glittering snow-white salt, the offspring of evaporation." "If," says Mr. Hugh Miller, "we suppose, instead of a barrier of lava, that sand-bars were raised by the surf on a flat arenaceous coast during a slow and equable sinking of the surface, the waters of the outer gulf might occasionally topple over the bar, and supply fresh brine when the first stock had been exhausted ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... Dead are Arnold's finest narrative poems. They are stately, dignified recitals of the deeds of heroes and gods. The series of poems entitled Switzerland and Dover Beach are among Arnold's most beautiful lyrics. A fine description of the surf is contained in ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... stands on upon the heads of the people in the streets below; I didn't like it. But this morning I looked directly down on a little fleet of fishing boats over which we passed, and on the crowds assembling on the beach, and on the bathers who stared up at us from the breaking surf, with an entirely agreeable exaltation. And Eastbourne, in the early morning sunshine, had all the brightly detailed littleness of a town viewed from high up on the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... faces in their frames of hair, of their arms, of their figures, seen through their wet clinging dresses, satisfied me and filled me with joy, gave me for a short time that peace and content—in harmony with the strong sunlight on the waves and the rhythmic surf on the shore—I was seeking. The summer evenings on the pier or along the beach had a peculiar savor; one felt the youth and beauty there even on dark nights, the air was fragrant with them, white dresses and summer hats disappearing down the beach or over the sand hills. It was easy—doubtless ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... hum of the waves breaking lazily along the shore of Colveston Bay; or, if the wind blew hard from the sea, it carried with it the roar of the breakers on the bar mouth, and the distant thunder of the surf on ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... hour of noon, when I came, all tattered and wayworn, to the summit of a steep descent, and looked below me on the sea. About all the coast, the surf, roused by the tornado of the night, beat with a particular fury and made a fringe of snow. Close at my feet, I saw a haven, set in precipitous and palm- crowned bluffs of rock. Just outside, a ship was heaving on the surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily painted, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... affects the brain-mind center of persistence. A man whose jaw habitually hangs loose may be capable of great determination for a while, but he is not persistent in character. He might clench his teeth, stiffen his body, and plunge into the surf to rescue a drowning person; but his first resolution to effect the rescue would be weakened by the cold water and by fear. He lacks the quality of the bulldog that will die rather than loose its teeth from ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... squall blew the tent over their heads, got up and assisted Montague to erect it anew in a more sheltered position, after which, saying that he meant to take a midnight ramble on the shore to cool his fevered brow, he made straight for the sea, stepped knee-deep into the raging surf, and bared his breast to ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the harbour-master had difficulties of selection. The boat got off; the coxswain was called Charlie Cain; one of his crew was named Gorry, otherwise Orry. It was a perilous adventure. The Norwegian had lost her masts, and her spars were floating around her in the snow-like surf. She was dangerous to approach, but the lifeboat reached her. Charlie cried out to the Norwegian captain: "How many of you?" The answer came back, "Twenty-two!" Charlie counted them as they hung on at the ship's side, and said: "I only see twenty-one; not a man shall ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... a little surf breaking along the beach as our keel touched the ground. Our blankets came dripping from the bottom of the boat, and my satchel had taken water enough to spoil my paper collars and a dozen cigars. My greatest calamity on that night ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... coast of Coromandel these small rafts are named Catamarans, and are employed for carrying letters or messages between the shore and the ships, through the tremendous surf which continually breaks on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... wretched man's shoulders as the fray began, bound it about the waist by the scarf, to which he attached firmly an immense block of stone, which lay at the brink of the fearful well, which was now—for the tide was up—brimful of white boiling surf, and holding his breath atween resolution and abhorrence, hurled ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... the foam. She was not playing or running races with the waves, but walking soberly and anon halting to scan the beach ahead. Her legs were bare to the knee, and she had hitched up her short skirt high about her like a cockle-gatherer's. In the roar and murmur of the surf she did not hear the Elder approaching, but faced around with a start as he ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... purple crown Six foot out of the turf, And the harebell shakes on the windy hill - O the breath of the distant surf! - ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... run her ashore, hoping by that means to be able to save all aboard her. The vessel grounded some 180 miles south of Fremantle on December 2, 1876; but she was some distance from the shore, and it seemed to the captain that no boat could pass through the surf which would have to be crossed to reach land. He swept the coast through his glass, but not a house or human being could he see, and he gave up all hope of receiving ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... station was a beautiful one. It lay amidst rivers and hills, and its position was such that the roar of the surf on both eastern and western coasts of the island could be distinctly heard. Shortly after his permanent settlement, Mr. Puckey made a journey to the extreme north of the island and reached Cape Reinga. Standing on the black cliffs against which the sea was dashing with terrific force, listening ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... men had come down and were helping us on shore. But before I well knew anything, Agatha was on her feet; I heard her cry 'Wilfred, Wilfred!' and then I saw her dragging him, quite like a dead thing, out of the surf, just in time before another great wave rushed in which would have washed them both back, if a man had not grappled her at the very moment, calling out, 'Let go, let go, he's a dead man!' She did not let go; when the wave broke, ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Indians numbered about a dozen, and half of these could be seen in a knot, gesticulating in their extravagant manner, while the others were running up and down the shore as if they had detected something interesting in the surf. ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... menace than a Charles Klinkner in the field of finance, trying to raid him for several millions. The hawks and weasels and 'coons were so many Dowsetts, Lettons, and Guggenhammers that struck at him secretly. The sea of wild vegetation that tossed its surf against the boundaries of all his clearings and that sometimes crept in and flooded in a single week was no mean enemy to contend with and subdue. His fat-soiled vegetable-garden in the nook of hills that ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... stimulate a timid inshore navigation which sometimes develops to extensive coastwise intercourse, where a network of lagoons and deltaic channels forms a long inshore passage, as in Upper Guinea, but which fears the break of the surf outside.[448] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... resorts of Rockaway and Coney Island are reached in from one to two hours by steamer. At either of these places a day may be spent on the sea shore. The surf-bathing is excellent at both, and each may also be reached by a railway. Of late years, Coney Island has become a favorite resort of the roughs of New York and Brooklyn, and, as a consequence, is not as attractive to ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the sand; and the pure wind of the desert spoke other words of the same language, the language of the Universe and of Nature. Here and there yellow lights in a distant camp flashed out like fireflies; far away across the billowing sands, rocks bleached like bone gave an effect of surf on an unseen shore; now and then a silent, swift-moving Arab stealing out of shadow, might have been the White Woman who haunts the Sphinx, hurrying to a fatal tryst: and the Great Pyramid seemed to float between ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... a ship-wrecked mariner cast ashore on a desert island. The sullen roar of the crowd echoed against the buildings enclosing the square like the dull boom of the surf. Over on Third Avenue the yellow lights of the elevated cars crossed the dark opening of Sixteenth Street at regular intervals, and recalled to Robertson a piece of scenery at a fair, where a lighted train ran continually between the mouths of two tunnels in the mountains. He pulled ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... ten-oared boat. The weather was cold and the wind from the North; the boat was lying at Hvalshausholm. When they left the wind had freshened a little; they reached the island and caught the ox. Grettir asked whether they preferred to ship the ox or to hold the boat, for there was a high surf running on the shore. They told him to hold the boat. He stood by her middle on the side away from the land, the sea reaching right up to beneath his shoulders, but he held the boat firmly so that she could not drift. Thorgeir took the ox by the stern and ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... There was but one, however; nor could the most scrupulous examination show him a human being. After remaining a quarter of an hour on the boom, during all which time the only sounds that were heard were the sighings of the night-air, and the sullen and steady wash of the surf, Captain Truck came on deck again, where he found his mate waiting his report with intense anxiety. The former was fully aware of the importance of his discovery, but, being a cool man, he had not magnified the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... found a solitude. The weeds were thicker than ever, so that he had constantly to edge away from where he supposed the mainland to lie. But there were no waterfowls and no birds on the islets. Suddenly as he rounded a large island he saw what for the moment he imagined to be a line of white surf, but the next instant he recognised a solid mass, as it were, of swallows and martins flying just over the surface of the water straight towards him. He had no time to notice how far they extended before they had gone by him with a rushing sound. Turning to look ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... grew the cliffs. Down and crashing down fell the trees, the noise of their fall accompanying the battle chant of the Valkyr beside me like wild harp chords of storm-lashed surf. Up to the precipices the forest rolled, unbroken. Now the cliffs loomed overhead. The dawn had ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... that the lads regained their boat, which driven before the wind, seemed determined to reach the shore without them. They succeeded at last, dressed themselves, and stood in for the land. A long line of heavy surf was beating violently against the beach, and by some mismanagement, the boat got capsized among the breakers. One lad was thrown on shore, but Davy Jarvis got entangled in the surf, which beat continually over him, and rendered all ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie |
