"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deformed in some way. Not merely was the right foot-track different from that of the left, but the way in which its owner put it to the ground must have been different also. The one mark was clear and distinct, cut out in the snow with a firm tread, while the other left a little broken bank at its right edge, and scarcely ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... that he had not been forgotten. Or, again, did the captain of his side at football speak rudely to him on the subject of kicking the ball through in the scrum, Harrison would smile gently, and at the earliest opportunity tread heavily on the captain's toe. In short, he was a youth who made a practice of taking very good care of himself. Yet he had his failures. The affair of Graham's mackintosh was one of them, and it affords an excellent example ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... took off my overcoat, which I had kept on all the time, and with wolf-like tread started for THE ROOM. I do not remember how I proceeded, whether I ran or went slowly, through what chambers I passed, how I approached the dining-room, how I opened the door, how I entered. ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... so," answered Bridgenorth, "yet the flap of their wings must have been gracious in the ear of the famished prophet, like the tread of his horse in mine. The ravens, doubtless, resumed their nature when the season was passed, and even so it has fared with him.—Hark!" he exclaimed, starting, "I hear his horse's hoof ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... sits among the glare and glitter of it all, smiling at one, bowing to another, speaking with all by turns, and wondering in his heart—if there is yet any letter from Hawkhurst. And now the hurrying tread of waiters ceases, the ring and clatter of glass and silver is hushed, the hum of talk and laughter dies away, and a mottle-faced gentleman rises, and, clutching himself by the shirt-frill with one hand, and elevating a brimming glass in the other, clears his ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... charming place it must have been in the days before the war. In the shell-ploughed gardens, spring flowers were putting up inquiring faces, and asking for the smiles and admiration of the flower-lovers who would tread those broken paths no more. I sat in a quiet place by a ruined brick wall and tried to disentangle the curious sensations which passed through the mind, as I felt the breeze lightly fanning my face, smelt the scent of flowers, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... he saw where daylight shed a Soft ray through a chink overhead, Where the crafty Magician was ready To catch the first sound of his tread. "Reach the lamp up to ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... opposed to true mental progress. But short of this extreme point, there is almost no amount of faith that children can have in their teacher, that, if well founded, is not of the highest advantage. Seeing the firm, assured tread of father or mother, or of an older brother or sister, is a great aid to the tottering little one in putting forth its own steps while learning to walk. So the child is emboldened to send out its young, unpractised thoughts, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... fools," she is supposed to say, "and they will worship you; stoop to make up to them, and they will directly tread you underfoot." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... too in hastier swell to show 350 Short glimpses of a breast of snow. What though no rule of courtly grace To measured mood had trained her pace,— A foot more light, a step more true, Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew; 355 E'en the slight harebell raised its head, Elastic from her airy tread. What though upon her speech there hung The accents of the mountain tongue— Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear, 360 The listener held his breath ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... of the beautiful gliding form, The tread that would scarcely crush a worm, And the soothing song by the winter fire Soft as the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... the way upstairs as he spoke, going heavily one step at a time, so that the whole house seemed to shake beneath his tread. The room was that attic in the roof which has a dormer window overhanging the linden tree. It was small and not too clean; for Konigsberg was once a Polish city, and is not far from the ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... to see the newcomers, who were staying at the prophet's house. It was late when she heard his tread, muffled in the drifted snow. He hardly paused to shake it from his clothes before he came near. She saw that he was in a mood ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... popular poetry, is "a study after the old manner too close to be no closer. It is not meant for a perfect and absolute piece of work in the old Border fashion, . . . and yet it is so far a copy that it seems hardly well to have gone so far and no farther. On this ground Mr. Morris has a firmer tread than the great artist by the light of whose genius and kindly guidance he put forth the first fruits of his work, as I did afterwards. In his first book, the ballad of 'Welland River,' the Christmas carol in 'The Land East of the Sun and ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... heavy cloak fluttered a moment in the door-way, then passed through it, and disappeared down the long stairs. Through those vast halls, with frowning brow and heavy tread, Bernard Wilkins strode, and the massive door closed after him for the first and last time, and he went forth into the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... in this position, Kirsty thought, about three minutes. Then he lifted his head, and walked straight from the house, nor turned nor spoke. Kirsty did not go after him: she feared to tread on holy ground uninvited. Nor would she leave Phemy until her ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... the absolute bareness of the cone became apparent the instant that I stepped out of the shadow of the pines, for I immediately plunged ankle-deep in a loose deposit of ashes and pumice-stone that yielded to my tread and slid away under me to such an extent as to make progress almost impossible. But I was determined not to be beaten; and at length, after a full hour's violent exertion, I found myself, breathless and with my clothing saturated with perspiration, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... It was yet early; he lighted a cigar, and in full appreciation of his retirement, took out his note-book and plunged into the affairs of state. Now and then he was recalled to the circumstances of his situation by the swaggering tread of unsteady feet about the house, or when the boisterous shouts below raged above the outside storm; but even then he only glanced up from his papers to congratulate himself upon his ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... obstinate. We see one pathway we long to tread even though it is beset with stones and briers. We are determined to take that way, even if we never climb high enough to penetrate the low-lying mists which darken it. We would rather pursue even a little way the painful pathway which leads to the ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... And there I must lie, with the manhood ebbing Out of me, the manhood that I needed so for the night! I crept back into bed. I swore that I would sleep. Yet there I lay, listening sometimes to that vile woman's tread below; sometimes to mysterious whispers, between whom I neither knew nor cared; anon to my watch ticking by my side, to the heart beating in my body, hour after hour—hour after hour. I prayed as I have seldom prayed. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;" and with some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches, the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the court-yard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and agitated household with the outer circle of ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... must for ever tread the earth a branded boy—person I mean—or that I must clear up my honour, I demanded to be tried by a Court-Martial. The Colonel admitted my right to be tried. Some difficulty was found in composing ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens
... and shod with iron. Two wrecks at the least must have contributed to this random heap of lumber; and as Herrick looked upon it, it seemed to him as if the two ships' companies were there on guard, and he heard the tread of feet and whisperings, and saw with the tail of his eye the ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not see, We tread upon, and never think ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... mountain, and from that high point of vantage she turned her wondering eyes over the wide rolling stretch that waved homeward, and whinnied with distinct uneasiness when Chad started her down into the wilderness beyond. Distinctly that road was no path for a lady to tread, but Dixie was to know it better in ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... night was cool, the doctor took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He looked up once as though he were about to speak, but in the end he only put his hat back on his head, nodded, and went his way, his quick, light, uneven tread waking a faint echo in ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... region in the earlier part of the Age of Reptiles, and much has been learned from them as to the habits of the animals that made them. The tracks ascribed to carnivorous dinosaurs run in series with narrow tread, short or long steps, here and there a light impression of tail or forefoot and occasionally the mark of the shank and pelvis when the animal settled back and squatted down to rest a moment. The ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... with her light, firm tread across the crinkling snow, she was—not unhappy. In her still dwelt that wellspring of healthy vitality, which always, under all circumstances, responds more or less to the influence of the cheerful morning, the stainless ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... ferocious, [M] round his native walks, Pride of [35] his sister-wives, the monarch stalks; Spur-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread; A crest of purple tops the warrior's head. [36] 150 Bright sparks his black and rolling [37] eye-ball hurls Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls; [38] On tiptoe reared, he strains [39] his clarion throat, Threatened by faintly-answering farms ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... hold, Sir, have a care, you'l tread upon my Lady— who waits there? Bring some Water: Oh! this comes of your opening the Charm: Oh, ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... to be free and abroad in the woods. He heard the wind singing in the pines. Their fine, penetrating aroma pervaded the air, and the rusty needles, covering the ground, muffled his tread. Once he paused—was that the bleat of a fawn, away down on the mountain's slope? He heard no more, and he walked on, looking about with his old alert interest. He was refreshed, invigorated, somehow consoled, as he went. O wise mother! he wondered if she foresaw this when ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... weather was balmy and clear. Most of the good citizens of the town were at their homes; many of them doubtless in their beds; for early hours were kept in those early days of our country's history. Yet many were abroad, and from certain streets of the town arose unwonted sounds, the steady tread of marching feet, the occasional click of steel, the rattle of accoutrements. Those who were within view of Boston Common at a late hour of that evening of April 18, 1775, beheld an unusual sight, that of serried ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... like a cup into which the sunset poured a golden wine and filled it quivering to the brim. Sometimes it was like a grey grave full of silence. And here in this place of shadows, where the lichen strangled the trees, and under-foot the moss hushed the tread, where we spoke in whispers, and mirth seemed a mockery, where every stick and stone seemed eloquent of disenchantment and despair, here in this valley of Dead Things we ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... And then she will purr, And thus show her thanks For my kindness to her; I'll not pinch her ears, Nor tread on her paw, Lest I should provoke her To use her sharp claw; I never will vex her, Nor make her displeased, For Pussy can't bear To be ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... while he grew silent, and, softly approaching, she found he had sunk into a quiet slumber. Carefully covering him with the thin, tattered blankets, she pinned a shawl over her head, and, softly closing the door behind her, stole forth into the biting night air, and directed a hasty tread toward Mr. Pimble's great brick mansion. A bright light gleamed through the kitchen windows as she ascended the steps and gave a hurried knock. Directly she heard a shuffling sound, and knew Mr. Pimble, in his heelless slippers, was ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... which engaged Berenice most. He was intelligent, serious, with a kind of social grace which was gay, courteous, wistful. Berenice met him first at a local dance, where a new step was being practised—"dancing in the barn," as it was called—and so airily did he tread it with her in his handsome uniform that she was ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... I heard his tread, Not stealthy, but firm and serene, As if my comrade's head Were lifted far from that scene Of passion and pain and dread; As if my comrade's heart In carnage took no part; As if my comrade's feet Were set on some radiant street Such as no darkness might haunt; As if my ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... a ring at the doorbell while she spoke and after a pause which appeared to her interminable, she heard the shuffling tread of old Abijah, and then the clear tone of Stephen's voice, followed immediately by another speaker who sounded vaguely familiar, though she could not recall now where she had listened to him before. It was not Julius Gershom, she knew, though it ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... hast more of the Border lassie than the princess. The likeness of some ewe-milking, cheese-making sonsie Hepburn hath descended to thee, and hath been fostered by country breeding. But thou hast by nature the turn of the neck, and the tread that belong to our Lorraine blood, the blood of Charlemagne, and now that I have thee altogether, see if I train thee not so as to bring out the princess that is in thee; and so, good-night, my bairnie, my sweet ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to establish a permanent factory-operative class in this country, do you? That is what your theory would ultimately tend towards. Ought not these children be given their chance to rise in the ranks; ought they to be condemned to tread in the same ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... silently, silently, and ask that ancient city, Nineveh. It will direct us, 'Lo, he rests on the banks of the noble Tigris.' Would that our whisper might reach the ear of the wild Arab and cruel Turk, that they walk gently by that stranger grave, and tread not on its dust. Then, shall we think no more of it? No; with a firm hope we expect that those mountains, on which his beautiful feet rested, shall answer his name in echoes, one to the other; and the persons who saw his faithful example there shall mingle in the flock ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... unappropriated bed, and undressing, folded down the bed-clothes. Suddenly, as if he had forgotten something, he slipped to the landing of the stairway and called anxiously for the landlord. "Come up, if you please," he said to the answering host. Springer commenced the ascent with slow and heavy tread; at length, after a most exhausting effort, and breathing like a wounded bellows, he lifted his mighty burden ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... and laid by none but me. Yea with these hands all gory I pollute The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile? Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch Doomed to be banished, and in banishment Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones, And never tread again my native earth; Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire, Polybus, who begat me and upreared? If one should say, this is the handiwork Of some inhuman power, who could blame His judgment? But, ye ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... tread! Oh, trouble not this hallow'd heap. Vile Envy says my Julia's dead; But Envy thus ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... circle round them seemed to have drawn its lines nearer day by day. The immediate result of this restricted limit had been to confine the range of cattle to the meadows nearer the house, and at a safe distance from the fringe of wilderness now invaded by the prowling tread of ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... selfish beings. Fortune by her tardy favors and capricious freaks seems to discourage all my matrimonial resolves, and if I am doomed to live an old bachelor, I am anxious to have good company. I cannot bear that all my old companions should launch away into the married state, and leave me alone to tread this desolate and sterile shore." And, in view of a possible life of scant fortune, he exclaims: "Thank Heaven, I was brought up in simple and inexpensive habits, and I have satisfied myself that, if need be, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... with him, sandy strand of the sea to tread and widespread ways. The world's great candle, sun shone from south. They strode along with sturdy steps to the spot they knew where the battle-king young, his burg within, slayer of Ongentheow, shared the rings, shelter-of-heroes. ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... the belt as the coat of a bear. I took alarm as I closed the buttons. For half a minute I had heard a drum-tap coming nearer. It was the measured tap! tap! tap-tap-tap! so familiar to me. Now I could hear the tread of feet coming with it back of the hill. How soon they would heave in sight I was unable to reckon, but I dared not run for cover. So I thrust my scabbard deep in the soft earth, pulled down the big beaver hat over my face, muffled my neck with straw, stuck the stake in front of ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... what path to seek thy fortune. Follow me along this flowery way, and I will make it a delightful and easy road. Thou shalt taste to the full of every kind of pleasure. No shadow of annoyance shall ever touch thee, nor strain nor stress of war and state disturb thy peace. Instead thou shalt tread upon carpets soft as velvet, and sit at golden tables, or recline upon silken couches. The fairest of maidens shall attend thee, music and perfume shall lull thy senses, and all that is delightful to ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... ask no odds of distance, Nor wish to tread the known and level ways. I'd want to meet and master strong resistance, And in a worth-while struggle spend my days. I'd seek the task which calls for full endeavor; I'd feel the thrill of battle in my veins. I'd bear my burden ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... equally an observer and an experimentalist. The observer in him gives the facts as he has observed them, suggests the points of departure, displays the solid earth on which his characters are to tread and the phenomena develop. Then the experimentalist appears and introduces an experiment, that is to say, sets his characters going in a certain story so as to show that the succession of facts will be such as the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... this grief an altered man. Poor Hetty! How little she had understood her value to her husband! Could she have seen him walking slowly from house to house, his eyes fixed on the ground, his head bent forward; all his old elasticity of tread gone; his ready smile gone; the light, glad look of his eyes gone,—how would she have repented her rash and cruel deed! how would the scales have fallen from her eyes, revealing to her the monstrous misapprehension to which she had sacrificed her life and his! Even long after people had ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... without stay or delay, to all the nations of the Nazarenes, saying, "It behoveth none of the Messiahites or Cross knights to hold back, especially the folk of the strongholds and forts: but let them all come to us, foot and horse, women and children, for the Moslem hosts already tread our soil. So haste! haste ye! ere what we fear to us here appear." Thus much concerning them; but regarding the work of the old woman, Zat al-Dawahi; when she went forth from the city with her suite, she clad them in the clothing of Moslem merchants, having provided herself ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... 'when next you drink, Do me the gentleness to think That every drop of drink accursed Makes Christ within you die of thirst; That every dirty word you say Is one more flint upon His way, Another thorn about His head, Another mock by where He tread; Another nail another cross; All that you ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... should fling every man and gun pell-mell on that rebels' rat-nest called West Point, and uproot and tear it from the mountain flank! I should sweep the Hudson with fire; I should hurl these rotting regiments into Albany and leave it a smoking ember, and I should tread the embers into the red-wet earth! That is the way to make war! But this—" He stared south across the meadows where in the distance the sunlit city lay, windows a-glitter, spires swimming in the blue, and on the bay white sails glimmering off ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... to walk slowly into the house, very slowly up the stairs. Dave, in the room above, hearing the well-known stair-creak under his heavy tread, rushed down to find him lying on the bed in his clothes. Mo drew the child's face to his own as he lay, saying:—"Here's a kiss for you, old man, and one to take ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... would inevitably ruin the Revolution, and annihilate that premature republic of which the Girondists had already spoken to him, but which he himself could not as yet define. Should the war be unfortunate, thought he, Europe will crush without difficulty beneath the tread of its armies the earliest germs of this new government, to the truth of which perhaps a few martyrs might testify, but which would find no soil from whence to spring anew. If fortunate, military feeling, the invariable companion of aristocratic ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... night, and succeeded in effecting an entrance into the convent, the garrison being taken by surprise, but managing to decamp. I then volunteered with a few men to march on up to the tower where the guns were situated, a priest being made to show us the way, as the path which we had to tread was so winding. When we arrived at the top, which must have taken us at least ten minutes, we found no French there, but the three shattered cannon still remained, which we were ordered to pitch down, not much improving their condition thereby, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... grief, "You left me, and I do not want to live any longer." In a moment she turned into a sky-blue flower. "Here by the road I will remain, perhaps somebody passing by will tread me down into the earth," said she, and tears like dew-drops glittered upon the ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... daughter whom he had ill used, deserted, and betrayed. "When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be;" and now his wife, credulous as all women are in such matters, believed the devil's protestations. A time may perhaps come when even—But stop!—or I may chance to tread on the corns of orthodoxy. What I mean to insinuate is this; that it was on the cards that Mr. Mollett would now at last ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... tread softly and talk low as we go through the land of the Jolliginki. If the King should hear us, he will send his soldiers to catch us again; for I am sure he is still very angry over the trick ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... frame shook in the cold, dank fog, and the sheriff offered to bring a brazier of coals; but the great man proudly drew around him the cloak, now somewhat threadbare, that he had once spread for good Queen Bess to tread upon, and said, "It is the ague I contracted in America—the crowd will think it fear—I will soon be cured of it," and he laid his proud head, gray in the service of his country, calmly on the block, as if to say, "There now, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... then? Were there not the brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head? So etherealised by spirit as he was, and so apotheosised by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the procession, really tread upon the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and went off the ride in the opposite direction—to tread the moss that had been crushed by Norah's footsteps, to push against the branches that had touched her shoulders, to see the dead flowers that had dropped from her hands. He found a shriveled sprig or two of her woodland posy, and carried them ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... more be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord: no lion shall be there; the unclean shall no more tread in the paths of God's people, but the ransomed of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... foot-rope reaching from the opposite quarter of a yard to its arms or shoulders, and depending about two or three feet under the yard, for the sailors to tread on while they are loosing, reefing, or furling the sails, rigging out the studding-sail booms, &c. In order to keep the horse more parallel to the yard, it is usually attached thereto at proper distances, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "Verey" light from the Fritz line played hesitatingly on the grotesque landscape. Even the guns were silent: the crack of a rifle-shot or far-off splutters from machine-guns were the only sounds to mingle with the harsh jumbled tread of the Royal Guernseys marching over cobbles and bad roads to the encampment of ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... may, I think, venture further than we have been accustomed to," said Mary. "We shall have to stoop now and then to get under the vines, or squeeze ourselves between the trunks of the trees. We have no wild animals to fear, and need only be careful not to tread upon ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... there, because the trooper's tread had obliterated it. Reader, let us thank him for that one good step, if he never take another; for it saved the scout, and, may-be, it saved Kentucky. When the scout returned that way, he halted abreast of that tree, and examined the ground about it. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... suspected the presence of others, they would be likely to tread so lightly that their footfalls could not be heard; but inasmuch as neither of the whites could believe they had even the most shadowy knowledge of them, they relied ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... sent for him and told him of Don Caesar's threats; would he be wild enough to attempt to strangle the man in some remote room or in the darkness of the passage? He stepped softly into the hall: he could still hear the double tread of the two men: they had reached the staircase—they were DESCENDING! He heard the drowsy accents of the night porter and the swinging of the door—they were ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... have repeated your experiments in relation to the collection of the mud, turf, sods, etc., and have known them to be carried many hundred miles off and identified. I have also found the little depressions caused by the tread of cattle affording a fine nidus for the plants. You have only to scrape the minutest point off with a needle or tooth pick to find an abundance by examination. I have not been able to explore many other sites, nor do I care, as I found all the materials I sought ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... wending quietly homeward; and, while the miller's wife drove her geese into the yard, the pigeons nestled in their leafy coverts high among the elm arches, and the solemn serenity of coming summer night stole with velvet tread over the scene, silencing all things save the silvery barcarolle of the falling water, and the sweet, lonely vesper hymn of a whippoorwill, half ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... going out into the main thoroughfare leading up the Connecticut, he sat down on a log within the border of the woods, and again gave way to the remorseful feelings and moody reflections that still painfully oppressed him. His meditations, however, were soon disturbed by the quick, heavy tread of some animal, which seemed to be approaching in the woods, at no great distance behind him. Instantly peering out through the thicket in which he had ensconced himself, he soon, to his great surprise, descried a horseman descending a difficult ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Southerners. We are becoming a world power and should have a thoroughly united country. Why don't you Southern people begin a campaign of education and let the North know your real mind, so that we won't tread on your corns so often, to use a ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... of his mind echoed to the tread of hosts; he heard the rumblings of history, the songs of poets whose words are pitched to the music of the skies, and he hung word pictures which Ruskin had painted ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... then, before anybody rightly knew how the change was made, he was leading us a sublime march through the ancient glories of France, and in fancy we saw the titanic forms of the twelve paladins rise out of the mists of the past and face their fate; we heard the tread of the innumerable hosts sweeping down to shut them in; we saw this human tide flow and ebb, ebb and flow, and waste away before that little band of heroes; we saw each detail pass before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most adored and glorious day in French ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... the first faint glimmerings of returning reason, he would utter her name, over and over many times, with a mournful voice, but still he knew not that she was dead—then he began to caution them all to tread softly, for that sleep had fallen upon her, and her fever in its blessed balm might abate—then with groans too affecting to be borne by those who heard them, he would ask why, since she was dead, God ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... being sweeps on,— To whom outer life is unreal, untrue, A world with whose moils ye have nothing to do; Who feel that the day, with its multiform rounds, Is full of discordant, impertinent sounds,— Who speak in low whispers, and stealthily tread, As if a faint footfall were something to dread,— Who find all existence,—its gladness, its gloom,— Enclosed by the walls of that limited room,— Ye only can measure the sleepless unrest That lies like a night-mare ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... three rhapsodies he has been giving us. You must read it. I know no one in the world, save Walter Scott, who has risen to that grandeur and serenity of colors." "Never," he said in another (p. 241) place, "did the art of writing tread closer upon the art of the pencil. This is the school of study for literary landscape-painters." Cooper himself, if contemporary reports are to be trusted, was at the time in the habit of saying that the palm of merit in his writings lay between this novel and "The Deerslayer." ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... this, because he had heard it and thought of it many times before. He hated to think about anything new, having never known any good come of it; and his thoughts would rather flow than fly, even in the fugitive brevity of youth. And now, in his settled way, his practice was to tread thought deeper into thought, as a man in deep snow keeps the track of his own boots, or as a child writes ink on pencil in his earliest copy-books. "You acted according," he said; "and Mary might act according to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... and out of the caves; and he argued that they were intentionally defiling them, to make it more disagreeable to the Christian dogs. But this seems hardly necessary. There had doubtless been other pilgrims before them. Droves of mankind can tread ground into a foul swamp as cattle tread a farmyard. With their feet the poor pilgrims managed to collect some of the impurities together into a heap in the centre; each man clearing enough space to lie down upon. Fabri found solace to his offended ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... remember (on we go, voyaging among the C's,) a time, a happy time, before you knew what digestion meant, when you delighted to cranch the unripe gooseberry, until you heard the clomp of the paternal tread on the causey, and crouched lest you should catch it, hid to escape a hiding; and how, nevertheless, swift retribution followed upon the track of crime, and you suffered those internal pains, which were vulgarly known as colly-wobbles, and were coddled, in consequence, upon ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... dost suggest; moreover, they would go away and babble to others of what they had seen, and much of the glory and splendour of thy first appearance in those magnificent garments would be wasted. Wait until to-morrow, O Elephant whose tread causes the earth to tremble with fear, and then—when the whole army is gathered together, and all can see thee at the same moment—thou shalt reveal thyself in all thy magnificent splendour, and—and—words fail me to predict ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... each side of him, going at a less speed than before. It was nervous work, though, for the cracking noise increased in loudness till it rivalled that of thunder—seeming to pass under their very feet. Speed and lightness of tread was everything. For himself Philip had no fear. He dreaded only lest Charley should again fall, and so did his best to keep up his spirits, and to banish the nervousness from which he saw that he was suffering. As they neared the shore the noises ceased and their spirits ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... follows behind and throws handfuls of grain into the furrow: a flock of sheep or goats brings up the rear, and as they walk, they tread the seed into the ground. The herdsmen crack their whips and sing some country song at the top of their voices,—based on the complaint of some fellah seized by the corvee to clean out a canal. "The digger is in the water with the fish,—he talks to the silurus, and exchanges ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... not think me either stupid or blundering. I play with magnificent effrontery, often rushing in where angels fear to tread; but, somehow, effrontery is not the best qualification for a whist-player. I am too lucky at holding the cards, and play each one to win. I am lavish with trumps. I delight to lead them first hand round, but ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail! Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away, Are by smooth Annan[51] fill'd or pastoral Tay,[51] Or Don's[51] romantic springs at distance hail! The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread 210 Your lowly glens, o'erhung with spreading broom; Or, o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led; Or, o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom! Then will I dress once more the faded bower, Where Jonson[52] sat in Drummond's classic shade; 215 Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... must have been late, for the street was practically deserted, the saloons even being closed. The hotel was silent, although a lamp yet burned in the office, the dull glow falling across the roadway in front of the door. Stella heard the tread of horses' feet, before her eyes distinguished the party approaching, and she drew back cautiously. In the glow of the light she could perceive four men in saddle halted in front of the hotel, three of whom dismounted, and entered the building, the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... heard a quick tread drawing nearer, as if guided by her cries, and, straining her eyes, she caught the outline of a man's figure ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... spoke the vacant mind; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, For all the blooming flush of life is fled. All but yon widowed, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; She, wretched matron—forced in age, for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed and ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... consecrated ground, Where silence counts for more than sound, That way of all my past endeavor Which I shall tread no more forever. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of our wretched plight who Safety's shore so lightly tread?" ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... was an adventurer at heart, as he was, and she was an Englishman of Englishmen. We are accustomed to laugh at the extravagance of the homage which Raleigh paid to a woman old enough to be his mother, at the bravado which made him fling his new plush cloak across a puddle for the Queen to tread over gently, as Fuller tells us, "rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a footcloth," or at the story of the rhymes the couple cut on the glass with their diamond rings. In all this, no doubt, there was the fashion of the time, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... thee bear his wife away, And careless of thy life provoke Earth's loftiest with threatening stroke? A foe is he who dared suggest This hopeless folly to thy breast, Whose ill advice would bid thee draw The venomed fang from serpent's jaw. By whose unwise suggestion led Wilt thou the path of ruin tread? Whence falls the blow that would destroy Thy gentle sleep of ease and joy? Like some wild elephant is he That rears his trunk on high, Lord of an ancient pedigree, Huge tusks, and furious eye. Ravan, no ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Conservatives had come in with Lord Randolph Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The first night was sure to be full of turmoil and excitement. Through Mr. Bryce's good offices I had a seat in the Strangers' Gallery. The student of history must always tread the precincts of Westminster with awe. There attached to the Abbey is the Chapter House. The central column divides overhead into the groins that form the arched ceiling, the stones at its base still bearing a stain from the rubbing elbows of mediaeval legislators, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... breakfast-time: a happy resolution, which enabled me to observe one of those traits of manners which at once depict a country and condemn it. It was near midnight when I saw, a great way ahead of me, the light of many torches; presently after, the sound of wheels reached me, and the slow tread of feet, and soon I had joined myself to the rear of a sordid, silent, and lugubrious procession, such as we see in dreams. Close on a hundred persons marched by torchlight in unbroken silence; and in their midst a cart, and in the cart, on an inclined ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that adventure is quite content to wait over from day to day, but that when a man is tired and worn it isn't quite sensible to expect sleep to be put off regardless. With a fine sense of sacrifice, therefore, he went to bed, forsaking the desire to tread the dim streets of a city by night in advance of a more cautious survey by daylight. He had come to know that it is best to make sure of your ground, in a measure, at least, before taking too much for granted—to look before you leap, so to speak. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... suit until there wasn't an atom of dust upon it, polished his boots until he could see his own face reflected in them, rearranged his necktie in the last new style, then ran lightly down stairs, and hastened, with quick, elastic tread, toward the Southern Hotel, where he expected to accomplish ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... his heavy affliction, might cost them a few sighs, but would not materially disturb their peace of mind. "It is but in a very narrow circle," says he, in a confidential letter, "that friendship walks in this world, and I care not to tread out of it more than I needs must; knowing well it is but to two or three, (if quite so many,) that any man's welfare or memory can be of consequence." After such acknowledgments, we are not surprised to find him writing thus of his mother, and his fearful struggles to fight off the shock of his ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... McTosh, of the gum-shoe tread, shuffled courses dextrously. An under-steward assisted in the presentation of the viands, another manipulated dishes in the hidden precincts of the pantry. The service was swift and noiseless, but not more so than the passage of time. The hands of the little clock fastened ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... consciences and tender hearts. Fear not, you who are empty and hungry, who walk in darkness and see no light; for though He fulfil once more, as He has again and again, the awful prophecy before the text; though He tread down the people in His anger, and make them drunk in His fury, and bring their strength to the earth; though kings with their armies may flee, and the stars which light the earth may fall, and there be great tribulation, wars, and rumours of wars, and on ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... that she loved him as they floated together on the breast of the amorous Queen of Italian seas. But even in that moment of bliss, such as angels know, some one appeared in the garden walk. It was Chesnel! Alas! the sound of his tread on the gravel might have been the sound of the sands running from Death's hour-glass to be trodden under his unshod feet. The sound, the sight of a dreadful hopelessness in Chesnel's face, gave her that painful shock which follows a sudden recall of the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... a feeble shuffle, not a young man's tread. With the sound of uncertain feet came the hard tap-tap of a stick against the door, and the high-pitched voice of eld, "Open, open; let me in!" Again Tyr flung up his head ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... comes from long confinement. His hands and feet seemed too big for the rest of him, and his blond hair stuck up in a bristly mop above his high forehead. But Sergeant Graham walked with the buoyant tread of one who has a good opinion not only of himself ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... "Don't tread on the poor things," she said, "and don't despair. All you have to do is to let me put a curbed bit on you, and for you to consent to wear it for a little while. See," said she, moving her hands ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... a heavy tread, and a rather stout gentleman with a knapsack over his shoulder, apparently a foreigner, emerged from behind the clump, and staring, with the unceremoniousness of a tourist, at the couple sitting on the garden-seat, gave a ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... sweet prime is o'er, The primrose path of joy pursue: The torch, the lamps' sepulchral fire, Their paleness on your charms impress, And glaring on your loveliness, Death mocks what living eyes desire. Approach! the music of your tread No longer bids the cold heart beat: For ruling Beauty boasts no seat Of empire o'er the senseless dead! Yet, if their lessons profit aught, Ponder, or ere ye speed away, Those feet o'er flowers were form'd to stray, No death-wrought causeway, grimly wrought, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... broke in a dull tread of men, a sound of slipping stones and feet upon dry gravel. He broke into the cold sweat of tense nerves, and waited, half hidden, with his rifle ready. Then came the light of dull lanterns which showed a thin, endless column beneath the rock walls. They advanced ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... but I don't gush. I don't forget that this state produced George Washington, but I want victory for our side just the same, no matter how much of Virginia we may have to tread down. Is that farm house over there ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... very first English she learned she told Hahn and Wallie that some day they were going to spread a fine red carpet for her to tread upon and that all the world would gaze on her with envy. It was in her mind a symbol typifying all that there ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... had ever said that Jerry Durand was not game. He rose promptly and followed the Westerner from the car, swinging along with the light, catlike tread acquired ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... did walk stiffly), 'but then, walking is not his forte. He is essentially a dancing man. I have only been able to teach him the waltz as yet, but at that he is faultless. Come, which of you ladies may I introduce him to as a partner. He keeps perfect time; he never gets tired; he won't kick you or tread on your dress; he will hold you as firmly as you like, and go as quickly or as slowly as you please; he never gets giddy; and he is full of conversation. Come, speak up ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Beowulf and Hrothgar be put in ballad measures, tripping lightly and airily along? Or, again, is it fitting that the rough martial music of Anglo-Saxon verse be interpreted to us in the smooth measures of modern blank verse? Do we hear what has been beautifully called "the clanging tread ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... was actually gone home! the thought of it gave him an immense uplift. He walked with a lighter tread. His heart was full of happiness. He threw aside all hesitances and confessed to himself that he was glad through and through that he was going to give up this experiment and go back to his home ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... air was bitter and Davies felt his toes and fingers tingling. The boards cracked and snapped under his tread, so, rather than disturb Almira, he stepped out on the walk and began pacing up and down, still burning with indignation over the events of the previous night. There had been a fresh fall of snow Sunday morning, and though the walks and paths were cleared, the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... as they were at the turn of events, the Chinese were shrewd enough to see they were helpless. The soldiers stayed. Hart went every day to inquire after the prisoners, and listened to their complaints about the ceaseless tread of the sentries under their windows all night. "They never seem to sit down like other people," one of the Chinese said pathetically. "They walk all night, all night, and we cannot sleep." Parkes sent sympathetic messages, but he remained courteously firm. Perhaps he thought a few wakeful ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... I will send him against a hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... the synonym for compromise, was still in the United States Senate, and, with his cat-like tread, stepped in between the belligerents with a cunning device—a device similar to that by which the boys disposed of the knife they found jointly—one was to own, the other to carry and use it. So by this plan the lion ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... laughed when Berenice had fastened upon his breast the tawdry trinket which seemed chosen purposely to mock him. He wished that he had kept the toy, that he might now throw it down into the mire and tread on it. Yet grotesque and insulting as the thing had been, he was conscious that if the little mask were still in his possession he should not have been able to trample on it, but should have taken it to his lips instead. He remembered that now Stanford wore it. He looked up to the shining stars ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... those of Bach? I imagine that he distrusted chiefly the abuse of the appoggiatura, the abuse of the unlimited power of modulation which equal temperament placed at the musician's disposition and departure from well-marked rhythm, beat or measured tread. At any rate I believe the music I like best myself to be sparing of the appoggiatura, to keep pretty close to tonic and dominant and to have a well-marked beat, measure ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... party was depressed, and at least one of his guests rapidly becoming irritable. I watched the professor furtively as Ukridge talked on, and that ominous phrase of Mr. Chase's concerning four-point-seven guns kept coming into my mind. If Ukridge were to tread on any of his pet corns, as he might at any minute, there would be an explosion. The snatching of the dinner from his very mouth, as it were, and the substitution of a bread-and-cheese and sardines menu ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... how the sweet odor of dying leaves mingled with the soft call of wood-thrushes. The cottonwoods had laid down a path of gold for me to walk upon, but, fortunately, it had rained the night before and the leaves were still damp and so did not rustle to my tread. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... war-spears the next moment the savages slipped into the forest in the direction the Arab and his band had gone. Steadily they advanced with the quiet stealthy tread of panthers on the track of ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... o'er! the din is past, Night's mantle on the field is cast; The Indian yell is heard no more, An silence broods o'er Erie's shore. At this lone hour I go to tread The field where valor vainly bled— To raise the wounded warrior's crest, Or warm with tears his icy breast; To treasure up his last command, And bear it to his native land. It may one pulse of joy impart To a fond mother's bleeding heart; Or for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... signs? One, we believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity, the tread-mill, in which human squirrels still perform a similar round of ceaseless, improgressive clambering, which must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... advantage of the general indignation, your new kingdom of Italy may seize the golden opportunity of making a popular reputation, and declare herself the champion of national independence against the interference of the foreigner? My friend, we tread on delicate ground." ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... while they have moved on heedless of the heaven that lies about us here, placing their hopes and aims in material and perishable elements, athirst neither for truth, nor beauty, nor aught that is divinely good! They sleep, they wake, they eat, they drink; they tread the beaten path with ceaseless iteration, and so they die. If one come appealing for culture of intellect, not because they who know, are stronger than the ignorant and make them their servants, but because an open, free, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... grain, across th' back of one of th' hosses an' tied it thar; an' then they rode off, a-leadin' th' hoss with th' body on it ahind 'em. Me an' Spike waited 'til they'd gone out of sight over th' top of a distant hill an' then we made for th' spot of th' killin'. Th' grass was sum tread up an' bloody; an' lyin' in th' blood an' partly tread intew th' ground, we found this," and Ugger thrust his hand into one of his pockets and pulled out a small daguerreotype-case, perhaps a couple of inches square, on which could be plainly ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... What though no rule of courtly grace To measured mood had trained her pace,— A foot more light, a step more true, Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew; E'en the slight harebell raised its head, Elastic from her airy tread: What though upon her speech there hung The accents of the mountain tongue,—- Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear, The listener held his ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott |
