"Tread on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman's tender, self-denying love, whom a sneer will change—a laugh will part—he will be found wanting—he will stand aloof when the faint heart turns to him for consolation. Wo to you! wo to you, especially if you trust such. You cannot always tread on flowers; choose one who can and will smooth down a rugged path. The gilded vessel, the child's plaything, rides gayly on a glassy sea—but life is not a glassy sea; the storm must come. If you would reach the peaceful port, embark not in a summer yacht; select a ship that can abide the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... shopkeepers' legend. Listen! I would never have been jealous of him. And yet I am jealous of the air you breathe, of the soil you tread on, of the world that sees you—moving free—not mine. But never mind. I rather liked him. For a certain reason I proposed he should come to be my assistant here. He said he believed this would save him. It did not save him from ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... certain places was seen through the layer of snow; it seemed to consist of schist and quartz, with some appearance of calcareous rock. At last the travellers had reached terra firma, and, according to their estimation, the continent must be New Cornwall. The doctor was delighted to tread on solid ground once more; the travellers had only a hundred more miles to go before reaching Belcher Cape; but the trouble of walking increased on this rocky soil, full of inequalities, crevices, and precipices; they were obliged ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... more entirely apart from the every-day world, for it ends abruptly in the middle of the stream,—so that, if a cavalcade of the knights and ladies of romance should issue from the old walls, they could never tread on earthly ground, any more than we, approaching from the side of modern realism, can overleap the gulf between our domain and theirs. Yet, if we seek to disenchant ourselves, it may readily be done. Crossing the bridge on which we stand, and passing a little farther on, we come ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... a mortal, or nature between, Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain— Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! The god Zeus hateth sore, And his gods hate again, As many as tread on his glorified floor, Because I loved mortals too much evermore. Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings— And all life that approaches I wait for ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... like that! I often and often put slugs and snails and worms, and that sort of thing, out of the path for fear any one should tread on them. ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... virgins of the fold, Meet to be brides of mighty kings, behold, 'Twas for the Greek I bred them! All are gone; And no hope left, that I shall look upon Their faces any more, nor they on mine. And now my feet tread on the utmost line: An old, old slave-woman, I pass below Mine enemies' gates; and whatso task they know For this age basest, shall be mine; the door, Bowing, to shut and open.... I that bore Hector!... and meal to grind, and this racked ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... served as guides to their companions, driving them impatiently. They had been there the day before. Go ahead! There was still a lot to see! And they ran toward the inner halls with the breathless curiosity of men who tread on new ground and expect something marvelous to ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the consent of Parliament, and that no one should be unlawfully imprisoned for refusing to pay such taxes. In the petition there was not an angry word, but as a member of the Commons declared, "We say no more than what a worm trodden upon would say if he could speak: I pray thee tread on me no more." ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... He will then drink liqueur brandy out of a claret glass, and, having slapped a sporting solicitor on the back and dug in the ribs a gentleman jockey who has been warned off the course, he will tread on the toes of an inoffensive stranger who has allowed himself to be elected a member of the Club under the mistaken impression that it was the home of sportsmen and the sanctuary of honest boxers. After duly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... them. In the South Sea Islands three-fourths of all the children born used to be killed. Sometimes they would strangle their babies. Sometimes they would leave them, where oxen and cattle would tread on them, and trample them to death; while, at other times, they would break all their joints, beginning with their fingers and toes, and then go on to their wrists, and elbows, and shoulders. How dreadful it is to think of such practices! And when we turn from these scenes ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... "Liberty Tree" and "Appeal to God" prominently displayed. This flag was chiefly used until the adoption of the stars and stripes. The "rattlesnake flag," with a reptile in the act of striking, and the legend "Don't tread on me," was largely used ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... But it is more than greed of gold that sets men courting death in such ways. The joy of being unique is at least as great as the joy of being rich. And the surest way of becoming unique is to trail one's coat in the presence of Death and challenge him to tread on the tail ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... French people. The ulterior purpose, however, of Vergennes and Turgot was to recover back if they could the Canadian provinces they had lost in their war with the British. Many such flags were in use, and some were embellished with mottoes the principal one being "Don't tread on me." Such a motto was upon the flag of Proctor's Westmoreland County Battalion of Pennsylvania (see Fig. 9). This flag was displayed at the centennial of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, at Greensburg, held in the year 1873. A splendid cut of the above flag is in Vol. XIV ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... party consider me an ungrateful son, and very much of a blackguard. They may, in their turn, insult me, and want to fight more duels. But it's all in the game. To save that old man is my only object for living, my only interest. I don't care how many revolutions I tread on. I would sacrifice everybody ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... see myself! I can see myself!" said the Jonquil. "Oh! oh! how I smell! Up in the little room in the gable stands a little dancing girl. She stands sometimes on one foot, sometimes on both; she seems to tread on all the world. She's nothing but an ocular delusion: she pours water out of a teapot on a bit of stuff—it is her bodice. 'Cleanliness is a fine thing,' she says; her white frock hangs on a hook; it has been washed in the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... season into season, and year into year, the leaf-like withering and drifting away of the old from among the fresh springing growths, are ever before their eyes, and the contemplation steeps them in a sense of the transitoriness of things good and bad. Even the black soil they tread on may next year flutter up into a vanishing blue column through a smoke-hole in somebody's thatch. They carry this sense with a light and heavy heart. In like manner they make the very most of all unusual events. They find materials ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... but first in worth and fame, Unfeared in fight, untired with hurt or wound, The noble squadron of adventurers came, Terrors to all that tread on Asian ground: Cease Orpheus of thy Minois, Arthur shame To boast of Lancelot, or thy table round: For these whom antique times with laurel drest, These far exceed them, thee, and all ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Shining Light, cross-legged on the table, in the midst of the order she had accomplished, her hands neatly folded in her lap, Judith sat serene. She had heard my clatter on the gang-plank, my shuffle and heavy tread on the deck. 'Twas I, she knew: there was no mistaking, God help me! the fall of my feet on road or deck. It may be that her heart for a moment fluttered to know that the lad that was I came at last. She has not told me: I do not know. But faith! my own was troublesome enough with a new and ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... heavy tread on the creaky steps, and was watching for him with the door ajar—an inch at first, and then wide open, her kerosene lamp held over the railing to ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... don't; you know it would kill me," she answered in a voice that was thick with passion, "you know I worship the ground you tread on, and hate every woman you go near, yes, even my cousin who has been so good to me, and whom I love. I will take the risk and come with you, believing you to be an honest gentleman, who would not deceive a girl ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... one surveys the age and its problems, and considers how to bring the world at large up to one's own level. You cannot discuss anything with a person who has ever been publicly imperfect—at any point you may tread on his corns. Has he been bankrupt? The slightest reference to honesty, finance, or business may seem an insult. Has he figured in the Divorce Court? How are you to talk about the last new play without seeming personal? This explains why exposed persons are cut: they have ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... titan passed me, leveling the wire in front, and I had then an even keener realization of what it meant for Fritz to have these monsters piling over and smashing him under foot just about as a man would tread on a worm and mash it. And if there ever was one time during my entire three years of campaigning, when I felt an atom of sympathy for the gray-clad devils, it was at ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... ducks! And the place was white! Wherever you went you had to tread On grasshoppers guzzlin' day and night; And when with a swoosh they rose in flight, If you didn't look out for yourself they'd fly Like bullets into your open eye And knock it out of the back ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... would chase it away only she can't get at it. Do you think that every one hates you, shadow with your back to the wall, afraid to lie down and sleep? But I don't hate you. Even the moon means to be kind. She just treads on you as I'd tread on a worm that I didn't see. Don't be afraid of me, shadow. See—I've no light in my hand— nothing to save myself with— yet I walk right up to you— if you'll let me I'll put my arms around you and stroke you softly. ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... a great, a noble task, When we fulfill our duty. To work, that should be all we ask, And seek the living beauty. We know not whence we come, or where Our dim pathway is leading, Whether we tread on lilies fair, Or trample love-lies-bleeding. But we must onward go and up, Nor stop to question whither. E'en if we drink the bitter cup, And fall ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... weather. So pray let me rise, and, Patrick, here, take away the candle.—At night. We are now here in high frost and snow, the largest fire can hardly keep us warm. It is very ugly walking, a baker's boy broke his thigh yesterday. I walk slow, make short steps, and never tread on my heel. It is a good proverb the Devonshire ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... to express dissent from MR. KEIGHTLEY'S ingenious suggestion of a change of meaning in the proverb "Tread on a worm and it will turn." I support my dissent, however, by the following lines ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... the same, and no better than another man's. He has all the chances on his side in the way of training, and pretty near all the prizes; so it would be hard if he didn't do most things better than poor men. But give them the chance of training, and they will tread on his heels soon enough. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... no man better, no man so well; thou hast a libertie to reproove all and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended—none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... have laid upon men and each must taste it in his season. But I have sworn that no more men shall die for me. I will fight the last great fight alone; for I know this: I shall not easily be overcome, and with my fallen foes I will tread on Bifrost Bridge. Therefore, farewell! When the bones of Eric Brighteyes lie in their barrow, or are picked by ravens on the mountain side, Gizur will not trouble to hunt out those who clung to him, if indeed Gizur shall ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... never tread on the feet of their attendants or knock them down by accident; or, at least, no instances of the kind have come to my knowledge. The elephant's feet are large, his range of vision is circumscribed, and his extreme and wholly voluntary ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... jet of smoke grows jetter, While yet there blinks sufficient light, Bring in those skeletons that fright Most men into fits, but that We relish for their want of fat. Bring them in, the Cimabues With all or each that horribly true is, Francias, Giottos, Masaccios, That tread on the tops of their bony toes, And every one with a long sharp arrow Cleverly shot through his spinal marrow, With plenty of gridirons, spikes, and fires And fiddling angels in sheets ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... others just as fine, and these skimpy skirts last for an age. No chance of any one planting a great foot on the folds and tearing them to ribbons as in the old days. There are no folds to tread on." ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Then she went on in a different strain. "But there is one other thing I want to say now, and that is that I should above all things like to see you married—don't, by the way, fall in love with dear Jane, who worships the ground you tread on! I have been observing you, and I feel little doubt that marriage is what you most need. I don't expect it has been in your mind at all! Perhaps you have not had enough to marry on, but I am not sorry for that, for a special reason; and ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... though sometimes slowly towards an ever-increasing perfection'. And Condorcet, in the midst of the Revolution, while himself under its ban, painted a picture 'of the human race, freed from its chains, and marching with a firm tread on the road of ...
— Progress and History • Various
... becoming a mighty force in the country. They addressed each other as brother and sister; they are said to have had their own translations of the Bible; they claimed a descent from the Apostles; and they are even held by some (though here we tread on very thin ice) to have possessed ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... set this end to Roman greatnesse? Were the worlds spoyles for this to Rome devided To make but our fires bigger? You Gods, whose anger made us great, grant yet Some change in misery. We begge not now To have our Consull tread on Asian Kings Or spurne the quivered Susa at their feet; This we have had before: we beg to live, At least not thus to die. Let Cannae[52] come, Let Allias[53] waters turne again to blood: To these will ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... in her time, too," observed the Captain reflectively. "Queer thing how trouble acts different on folks. Kind of like hot weather, sours milk, but sweetens apples. She's one of the sweetened kind. And yet, I cal'late she can be pretty sharp, too, if you try to tread on her toes. Sort of a sweet pickle, hey?" ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... different picture on my introduction to Union Place. I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on, instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open, filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up to the topmost row of windows, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... across the floor, and Simpkins saw that he wore sandals. His own heavy walking boots rang loudly on the flagged floors and woke the echoes in the vaulted ceiling. He began to tread on tiptoe, as one ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... him a moment too long. He shot a glance over his shoulder, alarmed by a tread on the companion ladder. Horrified he beheld a pair of Spanish boots with scarlet, crinkled morocco tops, and they encased bandy legs which were strong and thick. What saved the miserable young Hawkridge was that the occupant of these splendid ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... that it is almost impossible guilt should miss the discovering of all the snares in its way, as it is constantly prying closely into every corner in order to lay snares for others. Whereas innocence, having no such purpose, walks fearlessly and carelessly through life, and is consequently liable to tread on the gins which cunning hath laid to entrap it. To speak plainly and without allegory or figure, it is not want of sense, but want of suspicion, by which innocence is often betrayed. Again, we often admire ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... exclusive use. Outside in heavy drift their habit was to take up a position in the lee of some large object, such as the Hut. In such a position they were soon completely buried and oblivious to the outside elements. Thus one would sometimes tread on a dog, hidden beneath the snow; and the dog often showed less surprise than the offending man. What the dogs detested most of all during the blizzard-spells was the drift-snow filling their eyes until they were forced to stop and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... day hers was the happy part of the bustling housewife. No New England matron ever took more pride in cup cakes or apple pies, no kitchen in the world gave forth more savoury odours of roast meats and new-baked bread. Mrs. Torney's heavy tread on the kitchen floor was usually the first thing Julia heard in the morning, and late at night the infatuated housekeeper would slip out to the warm, clean, fragrant place for a last peep at rising dough or ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way up-town and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... soured virgins! Let the son of Costantin be your dog if he will. My son shall tread on all your faces, the friend of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the soft, muffled fall of a horse's hoof in the thick dust of the highway, the jingle of dismounting spurs, and a firm tread on the platform. No doubt one of the boys returning for a few supplemental remarks under the feeble pretense of forgotten stamps. It had been done before, and she had resented it as "cayotin' round;" but now she was eager to pour out her wrongs to the first comer. She had her hand impulsively on the ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of many a man has been perpetuated, all unwittingly, by the manufacturers and advertising agencies. Here I tread on dangerous ground, but surely I shall not be accused of commercial collusion if I point out that so "generously good" a philanthropist as George W. Childs became a name literally in the mouth of thousands. He became a cigar. Then there ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... to feed at a long table where the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room will tread on your toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... proud speech silencing my tongue from further expostulation, even had I believed De Noyan deserved a defender. He had deliberately chosen his path, now let him follow it; any man who would thus lightly tread on the heart of such a woman was clearly outside the radius of human sympathy, deserving to be. Certainly I felt no call to stand between ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... him so fairly in the face that he shrank back, and pressed his hand to a swelling cheek. "I said I hated and despised you. What I despise, though, is beneath my hate. I would tread on you as on a viper or a desert asp, as a noxious creature that is not fit to live. I have played my game; and though it was not I who won, but Agias who won for me, I am well content. Drusus lives! Lives to see you miserably ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... cast down both for her and for himself. It seemed unnatural that he was debarred from giving her just a fraction of the happiness she craved—he, who, had there been the least need for it, would have lain himself down for her to tread on. And in some of the subsequent nights when he could not sleep, he composed fantastic letters to her, in which he told her this and more, only to colour guiltily, with the return of daylight, at the impertinent folly ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... they have set up housekeeping. Now you see the point, I reckon! So the whole thing simmers down to this: I want to discourage them city fellers. It's a long arm they're reachin' down this way, and I won't have to tread on their fingers many times till they'll be mighty glad to pull back. It's only a side issue with them, and they won't let a side issue keep 'em awake too many nights when there's a way to get rid of the bother. When they are discouraged ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... we murmured. Ourselves we felt as if the Log of Infinity carried us to ground higher than what we commonly care to tread on. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... will at length arrive at an inanimate body, and be doomed to exist for unutterable ages as a stone or as a particle of dust. The adherents of this hypothesis regard the whole world as a deposition of materialized souls. At every step they tread on hosts of degraded souls, destined yet, though now by sin sunk thus low, to find their way back as redeemed and blessed spirits to the bosom ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I get mad. When they come one day, shouting, "You damn Dago, dirty dog," and will take my hat again, oh, I get mad, and I would kill them, I would kill them, I am so mad. I run to them, and throw one to the floor, and I tread on him while I go upon another, the biggest. Though they hit me and kick me all over, I feel nothing, I am mad. I throw the biggest to the floor, a man; he is older than I am, and I hit him so hard I would kill him. When the others see it they are afraid, they throw stones and hit me on the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... the ground I tread on," he rejoined equably. "And that's why I've always had a good time with the women ever since I stood six foot in my stockin's ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... am a Gentleman. Come, no more words of it Host. By this Heauenly ground I tread on, I must be faine to pawne both my Plate, and the Tapistry ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... song of the Tube— Let us begin it By cursing the furies who fight and who bite ev'ry night To get in it; The folk who see red and who tread on the dead And climb over the slain, And who step on your face in the race for a place ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... beat, and the priests sacrificed victim after victim in my honour and I grew sick with the sight of wickedness and blood. Presently they invited me to descend from the litter, laying rich carpets and flowers for my feet to tread on, and I was much afraid, for I thought that they were about to sacrifice me to myself or some other divinity. But this was not so. They led me to the edge of the pyramid, or as near as I would go, for I shrank back lest they should seize me suddenly ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools, and the learned clan; For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... relished impaling him upon the shafts of her ridicule. Her sport was interrupted by the arrival of Spawn. He had left me at the mine and come directly back home. Jetta heard his heavy tread on the garden ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... regularly to cost him 200 florins, a very costly passion to indulge in. And besides he was particularly anxious just then to keep Margari in a good humour. A man may loathe a viper but he had better not tread on its tail if he cannot tread on its head. Horrified at his own outburst of rage, the moment he saw Margari disappear in the vine-arbours, he rushed after him, freed him with his own hands, picked him up, set him on his legs again and ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... mighty considerate about my dusty throat," he began with heavy sarcasm; "I ought to have seen at the time that you had it made up between you. This is the second time that you have broken in on me, Makimmon. I'm not a boy any longer. You can't tread on me. It's going to stop ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... cause. Fergus is wild about geology, and took away a stone that was put to show where the cliff was unsafe. He showed the stone to Alexis White, who did not know where it came from and let him have it, and that was the way Cousin Rotherwood came to tread on the edge of ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came to the King's Levee; but the Courtiers ignorant of what had passed, the crowd of Royalists who were accustomed to resort thither on that day specially to pay their court, gave him the most humiliating reception. They came pressing round him; managing, as if by mistake, to tread on his toes, to elbow him towards the door, and not let him enter again. He went downstairs to her Majesty's Apartments, where cover was laid; so soon as he shewed face, sounds rose on all sides, "Messieurs, take care of the dishes," as if he had carried poison ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and stride, and come down hard, Even on troublesome people; But carry your feet, and tread on air, As though you lived ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... never known it before, and so Job, "Since I saw thee I abhorred myself in dust and ashes." Ye hear much of him, and it doth not abase you, but if ye saw him, ye would not abide yourselves; ye would prefer the dust you tread on to yourselves. Ye who know most, there is a mystery of iniquity in your hearts, that is not yet discerned, ye are but yet on the coast of that bottomless sea of abomination and vileness. Among all the aggravations of sin, nothing ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... with it. I think all the world of him. I'm a foolish wench'—her speech wandered as she settled herself cosily, one elbow on the arm-rest. 'We'd been engaged—I couldn't help that—and he worships the ground I tread on. But it's no use. I'm not responsible, you see. His two sisters are against it, though I've the money. They're right, but they think it's the dri-ink,' she drawled. 'They're Methody—the Skinners. You see, their grandfather that started the Patton Mills, he ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Adam, "Lord! where am I to tread? If I steps backward I tread on ye,—If I steps sideways I tread on ye, if I steps for-ard I tread on ye. It do seem to me as I can't go nowhere but there you be a-waitin' to be trod on, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... esteemed to be Diamants. On the other side of the said mountaine and at the foote thereof, which is towards the great Riuer is all along a goodly Myne of the best yron in the world, and it reacheth euen hard vnto our Fort, and the sand which we tread on is perfect refined Myne, ready to be put into the fornace. And on the waters side we found certaine leaues of fine gold as thicke as a mans nayle. And Westward of the said Riuer there are, as hath bene sayd, many faire trees: and toward the water a goodly Medow full of as ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... thought of the peculiar character of their home would be sufficient to impart a soberer hue to their lives. What is our earth itself but, on a vaster scale, a Casale Rotondo—a garden in a sepulchre—where the dust we tread on was once alive; and we reap our ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Steggles' vacuous expression is the disguise of an intellect subtle, discriminating and alert, so they never trouble to endeavour to forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find Steggles, as he always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on him if she wanted anything ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... pause or look back. "Nevertheless you said it," he rejoined in a tone that made her feel as if he had flung an icy shower of water in her face; and the next moment she heard his quick tread on the garden path and realized that ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... going to deal with us. Nor these only, but all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, attachs of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the head," the servant tells me; "never tread on the tail.... This is a small one: the big fellows can make you afraid if you do not know how to ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... wide silver tun or barrel, which held them all, and could easily have harboured a thousand such little people. John and his man went down also, along with several others, all of whom screamed out and prayed him not to tread on them, for if his weight came on them, they were dead men. He was, however, careful, and acted in a very friendly way towards them. Several barrels of this kind went up and down after each other, until all were ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... these proverbial expressions which, I think, has also lost its pristine sense. By "Tread on a worm and it will turn" is usually meant that the very meekest and most helpless persons will, when harshly used, turn on their persecutors. But the poor worm does, and can do, no such thing. I therefore think that the adage arose at the time when worm was inclusive of snake and viper, and that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... tongues to say their thoughts. With this sentiment in his month, Leather-Stocking threw his rifle over his arm, and, followed by his dogs, stepped across the clearing with great caution, taking care not to tread on one of the wounded birds in his path. He soon entered the bushes on the margin of the lake and ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... still collects in his eye, the cordial squeeze of the hand is still the same. But tread on the toe of one of these amiable and imperturbable mortals, or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney and spoil their dinners, and see how they will bear it. All their patience is confined to the accidents that befal others: all their good-humour is to be resolved into giving ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... of Byron by the standard of the present day. We have seen that two centuries since parodies which to us would seem distasteful, if not profane, were written and enjoyed by eminent men. Probably Byron, a man of wide reading had seen them, and thought that he too might tread on unforbidden ground and still lay claim to innocence. The periodicals and collections of the time frequently published objectionable imitations of the language of Scripture and of the Liturgy, evidently ridiculing the peculiarities inseparable from an old-fashioned style ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... go away, there is always a Confusion in the Room, of which you may take Advantage. You may then creep close up to your Mistress, may perhaps palm her, and gently tread on her Toes. ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... husband, her neighbourhood, and the whole country if she can, and by dint of long riding, at last, rides a devil from that door down to the bottomless pit." Next was the door of Ambition-Death for those who hold their heads high, and break their necks, for want of looking on the ground they tread on; at this door lay crowns, sceptres, standards, petitions for offices, and all manner of arms of ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... the cloud-foam Of the restless ocean spray; Vainer than the trembling shadow That the next hour steals away. By the fall of summer raindrops Is the air as deeply stirred; And the rose-leaf that we tread on ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... to tell you, Josie. I only wish you to know that I walked, danced, sang and was kindly entertained, and hope that I may only have an opportunity of returning such kindness when any of those acquaintances should happily tread on Haligonian classic soil." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... tomorrow, to carry me a letter to my mistress, Socia ad pistrinam, Socia shall tarry at home and grind malt all day long, Tristan thresh. Thus are they commanded, being indeed some of them as so many footstools for rich men to tread on, blocks for them to get on horseback, or as [2252]"walls for them to piss on." They are commonly such people, rude, silly, superstitious idiots, nasty, unclean, lousy, poor, dejected, slavishly humble: and as [2253]Leo Afer observes of the commonalty of Africa, natura viliores sunt, nec apud suos ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 1808, happening at the opera to tread on the toes of a very well-dressed man, I turned round to apologize, when, to my utter astonishment, I recognized the face of the porter of the very hotel where I then lodged in Albemarle Street. So here was ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... her if she knew what time it was. It was nearly seven o'clock. But Mrs. Bingley could not blame her much, having herself forgotten to put on the electric bell, and Esther hurried through her dressing. But in hurrying she happened to tread on her dress, tearing it right across. It was most unfortunate, and just when she was most in a hurry. She held up the torn skirt. It was a poor, frayed, worn-out rag that would hardly bear mending again. Her mistress was calling her; there was nothing for it but to run down and tell ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But those who walk in epos, drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting day with all its gold ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... to the sea, we meet, at about eight leagues from the principal mouth of the Missisippi, the first Pass; and a league lower down, the Otter Pass. These two passes or channels are only for pettyaugres. From this place there is no land fit to tread on, it being all a quagmire down to the sea. There also we find a point, which parts the mouths of the Missisippi: that to the right is called the South-Pass, or Channel; the west point of which runs two leagues farther into the sea than the point of the South-east Pass, which is to the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... both must tread On the threshold of Hades, the house of the dead; Where now but in thinkings strange we roam, We shall live and think, and shall be at home; The sights and the sounds of the spirit land No stranger ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... 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 senses when the soul has sent them forth ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... much searchings of heart she chose a costume of Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into another like the lustre on a piece of old glass, which in her own opinion was a great deal too good for the occasion. "Some one will tread on it to a certainty, and the colours don't show in candle-light; but I must try to please grandmamma," she said heroically. When it was put on with puffings of lace such as Mrs. Tozer had never seen, and was entirely ignorant of the value of, at the throat and sleeves, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... as it plumed itself for a peaceful flight might be again obscured. To us of a remote posterity the momentary division of epochs seems hardly discernible. So rapidly did that fight of Demons which we call the Thirty Years' War tread on the heels of the forty years' struggle for Dutch Independence which had just been suspended that we are accustomed to think and speak of the Eighty Years' War as one pure, perfect, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... When a harvester grows weary at his work, it is said, "He has the fatigue of the Horse." The first sheaf, called the "Cross of the Horse," is placed on a cross of boxwood in the barn, and the youngest horse on the farm must tread on it. The reapers dance round the last blades of corn, crying, "See the remains of the Horse." The sheaf made out of these last blades is given to the youngest horse of the parish (commune) to eat. This youngest ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... than he asked, the Bard— In holiest mood. Urania, I shall need Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink Deep—and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. All strength—all terror, single or in bands, That ever was put forth in personal form— ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the steady voice, "We wish to make known to you Our desires for the future; and here We tread on what many ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... see you cut up and fed to the dogs for want of it. I'll get you through this scrape, and put you on your feet again, right-side-up-with care, because, as I said, I like you. I like your wife, too, mind. She's a good, honest little soul, and she worships the very ground you tread on. Of course, as long as people WILL marry in their teens, the wrong people will get yoked up together. But that's neither here nor there. She's a kind sweet little body, and she's devoted to you, and it isn't every intellectual man that gets even that much. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Smith is lost to America. The warming pans and the twopenny tube have lured him away from us. Never again will he tread on peanut shells in the smoking car or read the runes about Phoebe Snow. Chiclets and Spearmint and Walt Mason and the Toonerville Trolley and the Prince Albert ads—these mean nothing to him. He will never compile an anthology of New York theatrical notices: "The play that ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... said. "These two pow'ful big streams! Back uv them the firm, solid country that you kin tread on without the fear uv breakin' through, an' then the cool steadyin' airs that are blowin' ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... are, mundanely speaking, bad masters. The ecclesiastical tyranny exercised upon the people from the highest to the lowest goes far to account for the extinction of Christianity in the country where so much was done to spread it. The kings of Congoland, who "tread on the lion in the kingdom of their mothers" must abjectly address their spiritual lords. "I conjure you, prostrate at your holy feet, to hearken to my words." Whilst the friars talk of "that meekness which becomes a missioner," their unwise and unwarrantable ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... dear Cambridge, pause upon my own reflections. If I stopped awhile, "to plume contemplation's wings, so ruffled and impaired," some of the low realities, some of the impertinent necessities of fashionable life, would tread on my heels. The order of the day or night was for ever pressed upon me—and the order of the day was now to go to this new sentimental comedy—my mother's favourite actor, the silver-toned Barry, was to play the lover of the piece; so she was sure of as many ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... pekkaloats!" he retorted, grinning bare his big white teeth. "You tread on Bimbo, Bimbo ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... examination would not begin until to-morrow, he had a whole long day to make acquaintance with her. Half a dozen times he, had to interrupt his dressing to run and gaze out of the window, skipping back when he heard Blenkiron's tread on the staircase. And at breakfast again he must jump up and examine the door. Yes, there was a second door outside—a heavy oak-just as his father had described. What stories had he heard about these ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... did Peter whirl Dolly around that she had no choice but to follow, and she realised suddenly that the tall ghost was a most awkward dancer, and that unless she was very nimble herself he would tread on her toes. ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Mr Saunders; but you're mistaken entirely. I don't consider the loss of a leg, for instance, as anything; I never look at men's legs, and therefore care little whether they are made of wood or not, provided they don't tread on my corns." ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the sport is Oriental. He believes his women-folk should not be too patent. Somewhere behind grilles or flower-ornamented fire escapes they await him. There, no doubt, they tread on rugs from Teheran and are diverted by the bulbul and play upon the dulcimer and feed upon sweetmeats. But away from his home the sport is an integer. He does not, as men of other races in Manhattan do, become the convoy in his unoccupied hours of fluttering laces and high ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... paternosters to the moon, to pat the cat and pat the dog, to salute the friends, to flatter the gout, or the cold of the aunt, to say to her at opportune moments "You have good looks, and will yet write the epitaph of the human race." To please all the relations, to tread on no one's corns, to break no glasses, to waste no breath, to talk nonsense, to hold ice in his hand, to say, "This is good!" or, "Really, madam, you are very beautiful so." And to vary that in a hundred different ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... I shall think the same when she has beaten me,' quoth cynical Drummond, and immediately went and gave orders for his horse to be saddled, thinking that he would tread on the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the house. He could not be sure—had he run to the window of the other wall, which was blinded, the skirt must have been already past—but he was almost sure that it was Elsie. He listened in an agony of suspense for her tread on ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... a step before me As I tread on another year; But the past is in God's keeping, The future his mercy shall clear, And what looks dark in the distance May ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... heal you, Hiawatha!" 130 "Hi-au-ha!" replied the chorus, "Way-ha-way!" the mystic chorus. "I myself, myself! the prophet! When I speak the wigwam trembles, Shakes the Sacred Lodge with terror, 135 Hands unseen begin to shake it! When I walk, the sky I tread on Bends and makes a noise beneath me! I can blow you strong, my brother! Rise and speak, O Hiawatha!" 140 "Hi-au-ha!" replied the chorus, "Way-ha-way!" the mystic chorus. Then they shook their medicine-pouches ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... if you don't tread on their corns. I always find them civil enough to me. But if we do get into ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... world; I saw The home of our use undated— Seasons of fruiting and seeding Withered, and hunger and thirst Dead, with all they fed on: Till at last, when Time was sated, Only you persisted, Ddal Numbers, sole and same, Invisible skeleton frame Of the peopled earth we tread on— Last, as first. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... plesiosaurus. The monster is wounded to death. I no longer see his scaly armour. Only his long neck shoots up, drops again, coils and uncoils, droops, lashes the waters like a gigantic whip, and writhes like a worm that you tread on. The water is splashed for a long way around. The spray almost blinds us. But soon the reptile's agony draws to an end; its movements become fainter, its contortions cease to be so violent, and the long serpentine form lies a lifeless ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... a grateful sight to behold the young and happy when all life is bright before them, when the soil which they tread on is covered with flowers, and the only murmurs which they hear are the murmurs of soft breezes, and the only sighs are sighs of passion; not less beautiful is it to see the young linked together in love, struggling with adversity; ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... especially the poor man's friend. With L500 a year he could have done much; with half that income he could do something to assist them, and something he still did. He had his foibles, and fancies, but such as they were they did not tread on the corns of any of his poorer neighbours. He was proud of his birth, proud of his family, proud of having owned, either in his own hands or those of his forefathers, the same few acres,—and many more also, for his forefathers before him had terribly ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... tucked her feet away clear, Just an inch to one side of the fallen man's ear, With a flash of horse wisdom as she went on the wing Not to tread on ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... purpose to find out the red marble on which Pope Alexander III. sate, and placed his foot upon the neck of the Emperor: the stone has this inscription half legible round it, Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis[Footnote: Thou shalt tread on the asp and the basilisk]. How does this lovely Piazza di San Marco render a newly-arrived spectator breathless with delight! while not a span of it is unoccupied by actual beauty; though the whole appears uncrowded, as in the works ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... creep through the world unaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, its constantly accumulating masses of crime and sorrow: you could live and enjoy yourself, while the noble-minded are betrayed—while nameless and birthless villains tread on the neck of the brave and the long-descended: you could enjoy yourself, like a butcher's dog in the shambles, battening on garbage, while the slaughter of the oldest and best went on around you! This enjoyment you shall not live to partake of!—you shall die, base ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "Let?" he said. "Faith! it's but little it'll be a question of that! James is for taking, and she's for giving! He's her white swan, and to her mind, sleeping or waking, as Darby says, he'd tread on eggs and sorra a chick the less! Let? ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... the Princess has a great cat which she is very fond of. Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat's tail is the man ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Dhritarashtra's son, thou wilt attain to proportional happiness after having killed thy foes, O great king. O lord of men, the ways of the world are known to thee. Therefore, O my son, thou art never guided by avarice in any of thy dealings. O descendant of Bharata, do thou tread on the foot-prints of ancient saintly kings. My son, Yudhishthira, be steady in the path of liberality, and self-abnegation, and truth. And, O royal Yudhishthira, mercy and self control, and truth and universal sympathy, and everything wonderful in this world, are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... by train that East and West are most liable to tread on each other's toes. Formerly first and second-class carriages were used almost exclusively by Europeans. Of late years the number of Indians travelling in these classes has greatly increased. This ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... chivalrous young man, as he understood chivalry; and to him it was indeed a most cruel blow to learn that his future wife was born out of lawful wedlock. "I'm proud of you; I love you. I worship the very ground your sweet feet tread on. Nothing on earth could make me anything but grateful and thankful for the gift of your love you're gracious enough to bestow ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... Our comfort in the country. We must find An evident calamity, though we had Our wish, which side should win; for either thou Must, as a foreign recreant, be led With manacles through our streets, or else Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin, And bear the palm for having bravely shed Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, I purpose not to wait on fortune till These wars determine: if I can not persuade thee Rather to show a noble grace to both parts Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... "Keep away from me! If you tread on my toes you're going to get hurt! I've a hard fist for them I ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... the letter thus abruptly, probably realizing that he was beginning to tread on forbidden ground, but being unable ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Narcissus; he is a good dog, but when you pull his ears, he growls, and when you tread on his toes he bites." ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... expulsion of the rebellious son of the morning, after his defeat by Michael and the heavenly hosts.[900] Commending the Seventy for their faithful labors, the Lord gave them assurance of further power, on the implied condition of their continued worthiness: "I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."[901] The promise that they should tread on serpents and scorpions included immunity from injury by venomous creatures ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage |
