"Headlong" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in reality, there was no public reason whatever why they should go back upon their decision to resign. But such considerations vanished before the passionate urgency of Victoria. The intensity of her determination swept them headlong down the stream of her desire. They unanimously felt that "it was impossible to abandon such a Queen and such a woman." Forgetting that they were no longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took the unprecedented ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... goaded to the last extremity of patience. His headlong nature could not long endure restraint. Now his words came ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... done up his work, no doubt, and now is off for a frolic. I lie here, not a stone's throw from him, watching his merry antics, and rejoicing to think how free from fear he is, when all at once the leaves of his tree are cut by a flying missile, and the next second I see my gay fellow tumble headlong from the bough, and fall in a helpless little heap on the grass. I start up in affright, and hear a passing boy call out to another, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... of anticipated triumph rang in Francis's ears, the latter, in his fury, made a spring forward to throw himself upon the villain, but he had forgotten his chains, and fell headlong on ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... said Babbalanja, "that the peak is inaccessible to man. Though, with a strange infatuation, many still make pilgrimages thereto; and wearily climb and climb, till slipping from the rocks, they fall headlong backward, and oftentimes perish ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... girl forget for a moment what was sensible and right. She stood there alone under the shadow of the chestnuts, and by a glance defined her rights, her position towards her companion, and made him respect them. Nor was he headlong, passionate, absurd. He was a part of his age, and was familiar with New York society. The primal instincts of his nature had obtained ascendency for a mordent. Ardent words to the beautiful girl who looked over his shoulder and inspired his touch seemed as natural as breath. She had made ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... apostle, rebuked him, as told in the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. Many also have heard the legend of how at Rome this wicked sorcerer endeavoured to fly by aid of the demons, and how Peter caused him to fall headlong and thus miserably perish. And so most think that there is an end of the matter, and either cast their mite of pity or contempt at the memory of Simon, or laugh at the whole matter as the invention of superstition or the imagination ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... nature, as it seems,—yet he fails of becoming the perfect devil, for there is still the spark of divine light within him. He tries to choose the broad road which leads to destruction, and enters bravely on his headlong career. But very soon he is checked and startled by some unthought-of tendency in himself,—some of the many other radiations which go forth from his centre of self. He suffers as the body suffers when it develops ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,—as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... arms of fallen pines cast wavering shadows on the illumined foam; pools of liquid crystal turned emerald in the reflected green of impending woods; rocks on whose rugged front the gleam of sunlit waters dances in quivering light; ancient trees hurled headlong by the storm to dam the raging stream with their forlorn and savage ruin; or the stern depths of immemorial forests, dim and silent as a cavern, columned with innumerable trunks, each like an Atlas upholding its world of leaves, and sweating perpetual moisture down its dark and channelled rind; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... exquisite cadences of In Memoriam and Maud. Browning has left deep influence, if not a school. The younger Lytton, George Meredith, Buchanan, here and there Swinburne and William Morris, seem to break loose from the graceful harmony which the Tennysonians affect, and to plunge headlong into the obscure, the uncouth, the ghastly, and the lurid. No one denies originality and power in many of these pieces: but they are flat blasphemy against the pellucid melody of the Tennysonian idyll. Our poetry ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... said the Prince, "who dare stop him," fixing his eye on Cedric, whose attitude intimated his intention to hurl the Jew down headlong. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... trampling of the cattle and rolling of wheels, as affrighted the horses of the Romans, unaccustomed to such tumultuous operations. By this means the victorious cavalry were dispersed, through a panic, and men and horses, in their headlong flight, were tumbled promiscuously on the ground. Hence also the battalions of the legions were thrown into disorder, through the impetuosity of the horses, and of the carriages which they dragged through the ranks, many of the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... much for the want of water, crowding around two half hogsheads when they were brought on board, and often fighting for the first drink. On one of these occasions a Virginian near me was elbowed by a Spaniard and thrust him back. The Spaniard drew a sheath knife, when the Virginian knocked him headlong backwards, down two hatches, which had just been opened for heaving up a hogshead of stale water from the hold, for the prisoners' drink. This water had probably been there for years, and was ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... had a fine house at the east end of Merton Street as you turn into Logic Lane: and I was ten yards from the front door, and running my fastest, when suddenly I tripp'd and fell headlong. ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... it occupies nearly the whole of the west wall of the church. In red and white and yellow ochre paint you are shown the torments of the damned, the salvation of heaven, the trampling of Satan. A ladder rises through the middle; up it the poor souls of men struggle to the joys above; some tumble headlong; a demon picks off others with a pitchfork and sets them aside to burn or boil. An enormous dog eats a woman's hand; in life she had thrown to dogs what she should have given to the poor. A usurer painted without eyes, for usurers could not weep, sits ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... me and my new church half a million. Come, where are the handcuffs? Do you suppose I care what foolish things you do with me? Penal servitude will only be like waiting for her at a wayside station. The gallows will only be going to her in a headlong car." ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... bridle, when the reins are suddenly jerked from his grasp—by his horse, which has gone headlong to the ground! At the same instant he hears a sound, like the cracking of a dead stick snapped crosswise. It is not that, but the shank of his horse, broken above the pastern joint! It is the last sound he hears then, or for some time after; he himself sustaining damage, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... left, a great column of English veterans advanced on the French centre, breaking through with sheer force. They had thus reached high ground when some cannonading halted them. It was at this moment of gravest peril to the French that the Irish regiments with unshotted guns charged headlong up the slope on their ancient enemies, crying, "Remember Limerick and British Faith!" The great English column, already roughly handled by the cannon, broke and fled in wild disorder before that irresistible onslaught, and France had won a priceless victory, but the six Irish regiments lost ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... would not care for a love too easily won. The consciousness of this whole issue was at work below her thoughts; and her thoughts, from joy and dread, to the discomfort of doubt, raced faster than the car, speedless and headlong. Among them were two that bitterly corroded. They were of Pa and of Keith's confidence that she would come. Both were as poison in ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... Felton: I don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong with a terrible splash into this letter, on the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... rarely found courage for any more sustained effort than a song. And the nature of the songs is itself characteristic of these idle later years; for they are often as polished and elaborate as his earlier works were frank, and headlong, and colloquial; and this sort of verbal elaboration in short flights is, for a man of literary turn, simply the most agreeable of pastimes. The change in manner coincides exactly with the Edinburgh visit. In 1786 he had written the ADDRESS TO A LOUSE, which may be taken as an extreme ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wavered, then fell forward inert. Mercer climbed into the boat. He looked back. Anina was pulling herself up over the stern. A long pole lay across the seats. He picked it up and started with it toward the bow. And then he tripped over something and fell headlong, dropping the ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... rush. Poor Jimmy thought more than once of his father's prophecy that he would lose weight in such strenuous activities, but he was as anxious to receive the first radio signals as any of the others, so he followed the headlong pace the ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... few and chosen fighters than of shaven crowns a host, For in headlong flight confounded, with the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Rosemary said to herself with stern insistence, trying to find comfort in the thought, but comfort strangely failed now. Another suspicion assailed her and was instantly put into headlong speech. "Is your husband ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... can be compared with the empire of the archdeacon over the bellringer; with the attachment of the bellringer for the archdeacon. A sign from Claude and the idea of giving him pleasure would have sufficed to make Quasimodo hurl himself headlong from the summit of Notre-Dame. It was a remarkable thing—all that physical strength which had reached in Quasimodo such an extraordinary development, and which was placed by him blindly at the disposition of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... at such an outcome of the old gentleman's headlong attack on his work,—a stroll down to the village to hold conversation with friends. The mulatto walked unsmilingly to a little closet where the Captain hung his things. He took down the old gentleman's tall hat, a gray greatcoat worn shiny about the shoulders and tail, and a finely carved walnut ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... boy's face intelligence faded. Impulse lay stunned after its headlong collision with apathy, and died out in the clutch ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... habit, the instant the view-halloa is raised, is to scamper headlong, pounce on the victim and pull him apart (or so it feels) until fortune, superior strength, or some such element decides the point; and then more often than not it is the victim's fate to be carried between two men, each hold of a thigh, each determined to get ashore or ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... in the event he could be brought to appreciate the depth and sincerity of their attachment, whether his opposition would still remain obdurate. If so, the future must be dark and stormy—if not tragic—for him. Here was a woman, if I read aright, capable of great sacrifices; she was ready to rush headlong into them, ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... stroll? Without a word said, R. took to his heels and the Boers to their Mausers. Down the hill went R., bounding like a buck, and all round him whipped and whined the bullets among the rocks. Twice he went headlong, twisting his ankle badly once as the stones turned underfoot; but he reached the bottom untouched and the shelter of the bluff where he had left his pony, jumped on and dashed out into the plain and under the Boer fire again, and got clean away without a scratch, him and his pony. ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... leaned forward and spurred his horse, leaping away into the darkness without a word. In equal silence Phoebe followed his example and galloped headlong close ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... space to Berrington. Heedless of his promise, he had burst headlong into the dining-room whence the cry came. He had forgotten altogether about Field. The fact half crossed his mind that nobody knew of the presence of the inspector in the house, so that anyway the latter's personal ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... remained to Hitty Hyde,—the freshness of inexperience. Her soul was as guileless and as ignorant as a child's; and she was stranded on life, with a large fortune, like a helmless ship, heavily loaded, that breaks from its anchor, and drives headlong upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... flight until they were swallowed up in the darkness, and the reflection of the artificial light on their wet rain-coats became too weak to give away their position. In their anxiety to leave the camp behind they tended to separate, but both fell headlong into a deep ditch, where they met again. In their first dash one of them dropped most of the provisions, which the Germans discovered and brought back to the camp in triumph. Six days afterwards they were recaptured, thirty ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... sleeve, and incontinently the two were running headlong down the arcade of iron-work beneath the wind-wheels. Graham, running blindly, collided with his leader, who had turned back on him suddenly. He found himself within a dozen yards of a black chasm. It extended as far as he could see ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... answered, "Reform!" The creepers were torn down this way and that. The horrid daylight poured in brighter and brighter. The Owls had barely time to pass a new resolution, namely, "That we do stand by the Constitution," when a ray of the outer sunlight flashed into their eyes, and sent them flying headlong to the nearest shade. There they sat winking, while the summer-house was cleared of the rank growth that had choked it up, while the rotten wood-work was renewed, while all the murky place was purified with air and light. And when the world saw it, and said, "Now we shall do!" the Owls shut their ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... through the mass. Some of them in striving to make their way out of the valley, at the northern end, ran foul of the section of howitzers attached to the second brigade, and guns and wagons were rolled headlong into the steep ravine. Occasionally a solid shot or shell would strike one and bowl it over like a tumbled ten-pin. All this shelling did little damage, and only some twenty-odd men were killed by ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... up at the time in the one word, "strait-waistcoat." But, for lack of a man at the top strong enough and courageous enough to take the responsibility of opposing it, it was carried out: Greece rushed headlong into war with a superior power and was smashed. Upon King Constantine, then Crown Prince, had devolved the tragic duty of leading the Greek army to self-destruction, and it was upon his devoted head that afterwards the nation ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... whether we live or die, let not men say of us that we went blind and headlong to our tasks, but rather that we made the head help the hand, and that we deserved to win even though we lost. Now my counsel is that we approach the garden in the shape of three hawks, strong of wing, ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... folly by his trick, and has found out the falsehood of it, he is still just as open to a second and worse duping. All this may indeed pass as indicating no more in his case than the levity of a rather pampered and over-sensitive self-love. In his unreflective and headlong techiness, he fires up at the least hint that but seems to touch his honour, without pausing, or deigning to observe the plainest conditions of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... sons and daughters of toil, those whom God has appointed to be truly good and useful, cursed and reviled in this manner by the few owners of black labor? Is there not enough in the wrongs of the white man to inspire all the headlong zeal and boldness with which the press credit us, without making the miserable negro the chief aim? Not but that we pity the latter, God knows! But it is the elevation of the dignity of white labor that we have in hand, and while ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his hands on the safety bars of the ladder leading down to the lounge. He pulled himself toward it and as he was descending, the magnetism of the electroparalytic bolt loosed its hold and he fell headlong. Picking himself up, he hurried into ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... who was still half asleep, had not yet found out that his two feet were burned and gone. As soon as he heard his Father's voice, he jumped up from his seat to open the door, but, as he did so, he staggered and fell headlong to ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... on the floor and the patter of naked feet. Realizing that the men he was after were making their escape by another exit, Jennings hurled himself against the door, an automatic in either hand. It gave way before his assault and he was precipitated headlong into the inky blackness of the room. Taking no chances this time, he raked it with a stream of lead from end to end. Then, there being no further sound, he swept the place with a beam from his electric torch. Stretched ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... leaned out. I stood at his elbow; and as I looked I saw a great red glow rising from the distant woods. The sound of a car approaching at headlong speed reached my ears, and at the same moment I ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... least extended on the plain Shall sate the God of battles with his blood. He said and threw. Pallas the spear herself 335 Directed; at his eye fast by the nose Deep-entering, through his ivory teeth it pass'd, At its extremity divided sheer His tongue, and started through his chin below. He headlong fell, and with his dazzling arms 340 Smote full the plain. Back flew the fiery steeds With swift recoil, and where he fell he died. Then sprang AEneas forth with spear and shield, That none might drag ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... step, and looking up benignly at the gambols of little Pussy, who, now in high spirits, had no idea of coming down in a regular way, but must scramble up the banisters, hang by her claws from the hand-rail, recover herself instantaneously when within an inch of falling headlong into the hall, and play a hundred other wild tricks. A short time before, I should have thought all this a most despicable waste of time and strength; but now I could see that it did her good and made her happy, and I looked ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... this contest a large flock of geese happened to be crossing the road, into the midst of which the affrighted sow ran headlong, dragging the enraged Tommy at her heels. The goslings retreated with the greatest precipitation, joining their mournful cackling to the general noise; but a gander of more than common size and courage, resenting the unprovoked attack ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... him is the salt cry. When the natural craving is at the point of urgency, they circle about his camp or his cabin, leaving off feeding for that business; and nothing else offering, they will continue this headlong circling about a bowlder or any object bulking large in their immediate neighborhood remotely resembling the appurtenances of man, as if they had learned nothing since they were free to find licks for themselves, except that salt comes by bestowal and in conjunction ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... command, and there were so many sides to him that to touch upon them all would fill a volume. There were the patriotism and the Americanism, as much a part of him as the marrow of his bones, and from which sprang all those brilliant headlong letters to the newspapers: those trenchant assaults upon evil-doers in public office, those quixotic efforts to redress wrongs, and those simple and dexterous exposures of this and that, from an absolutely unexpected point of view. He was a quickener of the public conscience. ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... fantastic shapes-a billowy ocean of wool aflame with the gold and purple and crimson splendors of the setting sun! And so firm does this grand cloud pavement look that you can hardly persuade yourself that you could not walk upon it; that if you stepped upon it you would plunge headlong and astonish your friends at ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody's life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... facts were full of evil promise, for, as time went on, Mildred Carr fell headlong in love with him. There was no particular reason why she should have done so. She might have had scores of men, handsomer, cleverer, more distinguished, for the asking, or, rather, for the waiting to be asked. Beyond a certain ability of mind, a taking manner, and a sympathetic, thoughtful ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... tried to lead [Christ] from the desire of one sin to the commission of another; thus from the desire of food he tried to lead Him to the vanity of the needless working of a miracle; and from the desire of glory to tempt God by casting Himself headlong. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... us, headlong down the stairs with the speed off the mark that they taught him on the playing field at Bowdoin. When we caught up he was standing astride a prostrate being who sobbed like a cow with its throat cut, and a Rajput and a German, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Theresa could be attacked with success. There is generally some peculiar frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can throw them off their guard. The weak and tyrannical Philip II., whenever the recovery of Holland and the Low Countries was proposed to him, was always ready to rush headlong into any scheme for its accomplishment; the bloody Queen Mary, his wife, declared that at her death the loss of Calais would be found engraven on her heart; and to Maria Theresa, Silesia was the Holland and the Calais for which her wounded ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... there's a clock, That says, "Tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock!" And I've not forgotten yet quite, How once, on a very still night, I was sitting just over the clock, When it gave such a terrible knock, With a whirring and whizzing, And buzzing and fizzing, That I tumbled headlong from my perch on the shelf, And, scampering wildly, I crowded myself Right under the door, through such a small crack, That I scraped all the hairs off the top of ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... together, and he was powerless. As Gaillon finished adjusting the handcuffs, the young Picard before mentioned, who was the only other person to grasp the situation, threw himself upon the spy, and clutched his throat. Almost as his fingers closed they relaxed their grip again, and he fell headlong on the deck. A few moments he writhed in agony, and when he was raised it was found that he was quite dead, though no mark of violence could be ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... young man had appeared before him, wearing a button-hole bouquet, and light tan gloves. The fellow had a wild look in his eyes, and was on the point of throwing himself headlong into the ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... advanced till he was close to the window. He could hear no more now, for the same tense silence had fallen over the place once more. Gurdon pressed close to the window; he felt something yield beneath his feet, and the next moment he had plunged headlong into the darkness of something that suggested an underground cellar. Perhaps he had been standing unconsciously on a grating that was none too safe, for now he felt himself bruised and half stunned, lying on his back on a cold, hard floor, ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... for rolling out a twenty years' peace, and not envying the trophies which he passed by every day in Westminster Hall. But one must not repine; rather reflect on the glories which they have drove the nation headlong into. One must think all our distresses and dangers well laid out, when they have purchased us Glover'S(1066) Oration for the merchants, the Admiralty for the Duke of Bedford, and the reversion of Secretary ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside; here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily he, aloft ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the habit of reserve and quiet; they are not rattling and reckless talkers, they will not always have an opinion about everything, and they will not always know what they are going to do. There will be a deferential holding back of judgment, and walking softly with God. It is our headlong, impulsive spirit that keeps us so constantly from hearing and ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... overtake a lad, who tapped him on the back and invited him to play a game of tag. As he passed close to Herbert, that boy threw out his foot and Nick went sprawling headlong, his book and slate flying from under his arm, while his cap shot a dozen-feet in ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... size of the houses beneath, for they were all formed by the earth brought to the surface in the process of excavating the rooms and passages. On the tops of these hillocks the owners sat up in the sun to bark and chatter and gossip with their nearest neighbors, always ready to dive headlong down their front doors, with a twinkling of their hind feet, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... arming themselves, harnessing their steeds, leaping to horse, others helping the women into their carriages, or seizing their valuables, some caught in the act of burying them, others, and by far the greatest number, in sheer headlong flight. Many and divers were their shifts, as one may well conceive, save only that not one man stood at bay: they perished without a blow. [29] Now Croesus, king of Lydia, seeing that it was summer-time, had sent his women on during the night, so that they might travel more ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... rifle went up to his shoulder; there was a sharp crack, a dark figure leapt up from the snow fifty yards away and then fell headlong down again. It seemed to Tom almost magical. His eyes had been fixed in that direction for the last five minutes, and he could have sworn that the surface of the snow was unbroken. A minute later the other four men came ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... hasty "Farewell, my boy," the Phoenix plunged headlong toward the window—and tripped over the sill. There was a resounding crash outside as the bird landed on the rose arbor, a brief but furious thrashing and muttering, and then the receding flurry ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... artistic career by accepting every commission, good or bad, and taking what pay he could get for his work; but, unfortunately for him and for the world, he executed his work, as might have been expected, in the same headlong, indiscriminate spirit, acquiring the name of 'Il Furioso' from the rapidity and recklessness of his manner of painting. Often he did not even give himself the trouble of making any sketch or design of his pictures beforehand, but ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... onslaught, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the last gasp of him whose life has reached its end. Such is the infernal music of war. See the victim of the conflict reel in the saddle and fall headlong. Cast your eyes on the mangled forms of godlike men, fallen in the midst of fullest life. Come in the night after the battle and look upon the ghastly faces upturned in the moonlight. Gaze on the windrows of the dead, Mars's awful harvest, that impoverishes all and enriches ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... stood for some minutes looking towards the west, unconscious of the loose and slippery nature of the materials beneath her feet, and of her near approach to the brink. On a sudden the ground gave way, and she was precipitated headlong into the river! Nurse Agnes, who stood below, watching her young mistress, not without apprehension as to the consequences of her temerity, was stricken motionless with horror. There seemed to be no help. Fast receding from all hope of succour, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... me in thy beauties. Heav'ns! what a proof I gave, but two nights past, Of matchless love! To fling me at thy feet, I slighted friendship, and I flew from fame; Nor heard the summons of the next day's battle: But darting headlong to thy arms, I left The promis'd fight, I left Alonzo too, To stand the war, and quell a ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... its normal function, was making up for the time it had lost. With the shaking off of the daze had come amazement at finding herself married. In the same circumstances a man would have been incapacitated for action; Craig, who had been so reckless, so headlong a few minutes before, was now timid, irresolute, prey to alarms. But women, beneath the pose which man's resolute apotheosis of woman as the embodiment of unreasoning imagination has enforced upon them, are rarely so imaginative that the practical is wholly ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... would put him far apart from all other actors. One to his wife, when he has exultingly shown her the money, and she has asked him how he got it—'I found it;' and the other to his old companion and tempter, when he charged him with having killed that traveler, and he suddenly went headlong mad and took him by the throat and howled out, 'It wasn't I who murdered him—it was misery!' And such a dress! such a face! and, above all, such an extraordinarily guilty, wicked thing as he made of a knotted branch of a tree which was his walking-stick from the moment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... laughing aloud; "you are as innocent as a girl of sixteen! you have this moment fallen headlong in love, and begin at once to think of the possibility of marriage, as if love had no other refuge than marriage, and yet I think I have read that the god of Love and the god of Hymen are rarely seen together, though brothers; in point of fact, they despise and flee from each other. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the devil were in a laughing mood, what could seem more grimly humorous to him than the vision of a fair young spirit striving consciously after ethereal perfection, but overweighted unconsciously by the bonds and fetters of human infirmity and passion, and dragged at last headlong down the abysmal descent to perdition?" "Abysmal" is ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... as well as most wild animals, fight at the suggestion of a smell. Humans only differ from the animals, much, when they are being self-consciously human. Then they forget what they really know and tumble headlong ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... was of sudden and hopeless accident. Miss Fountain had gone for cherry blossom to the otter cliff; the cliff was unsafe after the rain; only twenty-four hours before, Mr. Helbeck had given orders on the subject to the old keeper. And the traces of a headlong fall just below a certain flowery bent where a wild cherry stood above a bank ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... utter madness; it is like plunging headlong into a deep pit, which you can easily ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... throb, throb, pause, throb, throb, throb. "Where was the other?" he thought. "They too—." As he looked round the empty heavens he had a momentary fear that this second machine had risen above him, and then he saw it alighting on the Norwood stage. They had meant shooting. To risk being rammed headlong two thousand feet in the air was ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Where, presumptuous thoughts, ah! where, Would you lead me, whither go? If for certain now you know That the high attempts you dare Are delusive dreams of bliss, Since you strive to scale heaven's wall, But from that proud height to fall Headlong down a dark abyss? I Justina saw..... So near Would to God I had not seen her, Nor in her divine demeanour All the light of heaven's fourth sphere. Lovers twain for her contend, Both being jealous each should woo, And I, jealous of the two, Know not which doth most offend. All I know is, that ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... to loosen my numbed limbs, and presently fell headlong over a little scaur into a moss-hole. When I crawled out, with peat plastering my face and hair, I found I had lost my notion of the light's whereabouts. I strove to find another hillock, but I seemed now to be in a flat ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... plunge into his horse's neck, and in terrible anger he smote with the edge, so that a hand and arm hung down from the dagger, a ghastly thing to see. But the poor steed was dead with that blow, and Brian had but time to fling himself headlong ere ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... by spearing, amid much excitement, the eager sportsmen often overbalancing themselves and falling headlong into the water to the great amusement of the more lucky ones. I remember reading an account of a dignified representative of Her Majesty once joining in the sport and displaying a pair of heels in this way to his admiring subjects. The tuba does not affect the flesh of the ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... maintained, with that at Paris, the closest union of sentiments and efforts. The bonds of society in France were, in truth, loosened, and no human skill could restore them: the bridle had been taken from the mouth of the fiery steed, and no human arm could arrest his headlong course. Marat, Danton, and Robespierre-men of blood—with others of the same stamp, had already made their execrable names known in the clubs of the Cordeliers and Jacobins, which finally united, and these were the men ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... true son of Tharelides,(2) for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch!—What's the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There is no road ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... Inspector Heat's zeal and ability, moderate in itself, excluded all notion of moral confidence. "He's up to something," he exclaimed mentally, and at once became angry. Crossing over to his desk with headlong strides, he sat down violently. "Here I am stuck in a litter of paper," he reflected, with unreasonable resentment, "supposed to hold all the threads in my hands, and yet I can but hold what is put in my hand, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... them confess facts learned by them in the confessional. They persistently refused to answer. Wenceslas, infuriated by their obstinacy, himself seized a torch and applied it to their limbs to make them speak. They were still silent. The affair ended in his ordering John of Nepomuk to be flung headlong, during the night, from the great bridge over the Moldau into the stream. A statue now marks the spot where this act ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Nucingen did not patronize the Arts, Nucingen had no hobby; thus he flung himself into his passion for Esther with a headlong blindness, on which Carlos Herrera ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... forward at a gallop from a point 300 yards away, the Lancers dashed at the enemy, who at once opened a sharp musketry fire upon our troopers. A few casualties occurred before the dervishes were reached, but the squadrons closed in and setting the spurs into their horses rushed headlong for the enemy. In an instant it was seen that, instead of 200 men, the 21st had been called upon to charge nearly 1500 fierce Mahdists lying concealed in a narrow, but in places deep and rugged, khor. In corners the enemy were packed nearly fifteen ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the farm at headlong speed, terrified by the unexplained delay in the arrival of the messenger from home. Unable any longer to suffer the torment of unrelieved suspense, he had returned to make inquiry at the house. As he interpreted the ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... flying criminal. So impulsive an act might be consistent with the blind compassion of some weak-headed but warm-hearted woman, but not with her self- interested nature, incapable of performing any heroic deed save from personal motives or the most headlong passion. ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... able to move on the wildly swinging turret, he felt down the sides to the thin crack between the revolving housing and the stationary portion of the robot. With a quick prayer he jammed in the knife blade—and was whipped headlong into the mud as the turret literally snapped to ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... speeches. Before him a despairing reporter kills himself by falling on his own steel pen; a broken telegraph wire hints at the weight of the thoughts to which it has found itself inadequate; while the Army and Navy of the United States are conjointly typified in a horse-marine who flies headlong with his hands pressed convulsively over his ears. I think I shall be able to have this ready for exhibition by the time Mr. Wise is nominated for the Presidency,—certainly before he is elected. The material to be plaster, made of the shells ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty was shaken almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scotland of 1745, that Ireland was imperilled: 'With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and headlong Lord-Lieutenant—with a Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord Mahon, 'there would soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald Isle.' But Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just administration saved the Irish from being excited into rebellion by ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... she requested, and then—tchich! she gave him a push, and he tumbled headlong into the hole he ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... the speed of an English mail-coach. In some places, a continuous stream of these fragments followed up the course of a valley, and even extended to the very crest of the hill. On these crests huge masses, exceeding in dimensions any small building, seemed to stand arrested in their headlong course: there, also, the curved strata of the archways lay piled on each other, like the ruins of some vast and ancient cathedral. In endeavouring to describe these scenes of violence one is tempted ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... said, he proceeded immediately to put his purpose in execution, and, as his resolution never failed him, he had no sooner despatched the small quantity of provision which his enemy had with no vast liberality presented him, than he cast himself headlong into the sea. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... plunge madly down to the scene of action. It is no time for considering one's steps; we go straight for the point where the noise leads us, crashing against trees, stumbling over logs, regardless of every obstacle. We pitch headlong into holes hidden by treacherous banks of ferns; we swing over little precipices by the help of supple-jacks and lianes; we press through thorny bush-lawyers, heedless of the rags and skin we leave ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. (28)And all in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. (29)And they rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, to cast him down headlong. (30)But he, passing through the midst ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... on our grief, If what we beg be just, and we deserve relief; For none of us, who now thy grace implore, But held the rank of sovereign queen before; Till, thanks to giddy Chance, which never bears That mortal bliss should last for length of years, She cast us headlong from our high estate, And here in hope of thy return we wait, And long have waited in the temple nigh, Built to the gracious goddess Clemency. But reverence thou the power whose name it bears, Relieve the oppressed, and wipe the widows' tears. I, wretched I, have other fortune seen, ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... when they were tearing headlong after him down the coulee's rim and into a shallow gully which seamed unexpectedly the level, that they saw his horse swerve suddenly and go bounding along the edge of the slope with Andy "sawing" ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... creaked ominously. Georgie did not answer; he made a headlong dive for his hiding-place beneath the sofa. Santa seemed to be even more alarmed than the youngster. He glanced wildly about the room and, as another creak came from the stairs, ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fill good men's hearts with sorrow. For how, without grief, could we behold a man fighting by our side to-day like a hero, for the rights of bleeding humanity; to-morrow, like a headstrong child, or a headlong beast, trampling them under foot! And oh! how sad to see nature's goodliest gifts, of manly size, and strength, and courage, set off, too, in the proudest ornaments of war, the fierce cocked hat, the flaming regimentals, and golden shoulder-knots, all defeated of their power to charm, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... and ran, his terrified red face turned over his shoulder. He tripped, fell headlong, scrambled to his feet, picked up a stick, and faced about like a little cave man. The dog still advanced wagging his tail, throwing his ears far back, crawling contritely on his belly, begging in every way he could beg to be allowed to serve this ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... some serious injury upon the fellow, Rodman rushed to his assistance. He had just seized hold of Smiler, when a kick from the struggling tramp sent his feet flying from under him, and he too pitched headlong. There ensued a scene which would have been comical enough to a spectator, but which was anything but funny to those who took part in it. Over and over they rolled, striking, biting, kicking, and struggling. The tramp was the first to regain his feet; but almost at the ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... eloquence. When indeed he had once launched himself on the torrent he lost all self-command; he could neither retrace nor moderate his career; he saw the rocks before him, but he dashed himself headlong against them. But another grave authority has given us the judgment of antiquity, that Cicero's defect was the want of steadfastness. His courage had no dignity because it lacked consistency. All men and all parties agreed that he could not be relied ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... man of gigantic stature, enormous strength, and headlong valor. He was impious to the gods, but faithful to his friends. Capaneus was one of the seven heroes who marched against Thebes (1 syl.), and was struck dead by a thunderbolt for declaring that not Jupiter himself should prevent his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... But hark—the hour strikes which summons me to the royal chamber! There has been enough of the queen's laughing and chit-chat. We will now endeavor to banish the smile forever from her face. She is a heretic; and it is a pious work, well pleasing to God, if we plunge her headlong into ruin!" ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... apology of Donald's, of which, of course, not a word was understood, the only reply was a more fierce flourishing of brands, and a greater volubility and vehemence of abuse; the effect of which was at once to arouse Donald's choler, and to urge him headlong ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... Teresa stood up and looked back. By the light of the firing they saw a man lying low on his horse's neck galloping headlong through the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... expressed himself highly satisfied. Some days afterwards, however, Panther, for so we called the horse, behaved in a strange and incomprehensible fashion, and at last became positively fiendish. Shying at a gypsy encampment, he rushed at headlong speed down a zigzagged chalk road, and at last pitched head-first over a declivity. When I found Marmaduke blood was at his mouth, blood ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Thence with all his body's force Flings himself headlong from the steepy height Down to the ocean: like the bird that flies Low, skimming o'er the surface, near the sea, Around the shores, around ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... Lordship knew The nature, and the nobleness of the Gentleman, Though he shew slight here, and at what gusts of danger His manhood has arrived, But that Mens fates are foolish, And often headlong ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... were killed to-day. Kit Carson had shot one, and was continuing the chase in the midst of another herd, when his horse fell headlong, but sprang up and joined the flying band. Though considerably hurt, he had the good fortune to break no bones. Maxwell, who was mounted on a fleet hunter, captured the runaway after a hard chase. He was on the point of shooting him, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... understood how it was possible for people to be bored. Flaubert once said in a letter, "Life is so hideous that the only way of enduring it is to avoid it." But Harland believed in plunging into it headlong and getting everything that is to be got out of it. He had eyes to see that "life is just one sequence of many-coloured astonishments", and the colours were the gayer when he came to our Thursday nights because he ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... jerk he succeeded in freeing himself from his captor's grasp, while, almost at the same moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head which sent him reeling back to the door of the bell-tower, where encountering the mayor, who had just made his appearance, he came headlong to the ground, dragging that illustrious functionary down with him in a frantic endeavour to save himself. Profiting by the confusion that ensued Freddy and I sprang forward, darted through the archway, and, making the best use of our legs, soon found ourselves in the open ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley |
