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Railing   Listen
noun
Railing  n.  
1.
A barrier made of a rail or of rails, together with vertical supports. The typical railing in the interior of structures or on porches has a horizontal rail near waist height, and multiple vertical supports. Its function is usually to provide a safety barrier at the edge of a verticle drop to prevent falls.
2.
Rails in general; also, material for making rails.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Railing" Quotes from Famous Books



... Daillet, walks down stairs by himself now by holding on to the railing like a child. We are all proud of him. The doctor who sent him here from Besancon came in the other day to see how he was getting on and he could not believe it when ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous

... are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and showing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing something, which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... gay promenade was traversed, and as the sun's last ray was faintly dying, the young wife stopped, and leaning gently on the railing with eye turned toward the sea, she said, "Now, George, tell me your decision." And he replied quickly, "I shall resign my commission in the army, and cast my lot with my people and my State. Alas! I ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... railing which closed the stairway on the river, and called. His mother heard him, opened one of the windows of the back shop, and asked what he was doing there. Christophe answered that he was cold ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... trumpet, growing louder, nearer, deeper, heavier, the loud notes rolling like far-off thunder, then dying into melody as sweet as the song of a bird. Never had Robert heard any music so delightful. Looking towards the loft, he saw the gilded pipes of the instrument. Upon the railing around it were figures of ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... place by the side of terror in my mind. I felt I could not pray—no exactly-defined idea of guilt presented itself to my mind, and yet there was a murmur in my ears, the burden of which was, "She has killed her—she has killed her;" (and as when standing on a dizzy height, with a firm hold on some railing or plank of support, something whispers to one, "If I should let it go!") I felt afraid that the next moment I should say out ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... the staging above the hulk. A wooden ladder led out and down to the deck below, and was loosely lashed to a ring on the pier. With every motion of the tidal waters the ladder rose and fell, its rings creaking harshly, against the crazy railing. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... of the office-boy to get rid of Bob would have gone there is no knowing, for the official whose desk was nearest the railing in front of which Bob stood had been attracted by the unusual occurrence, and as he heard Mr. Perkins' name spoken, he got up, and ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster

... guiding the heavy, unwieldy, treacherous cable round and round in the water-soaked tank, that only one turn should be lifted at a time, grinned affably and perspiringly at those of us peering over the railing at them—grimy tar-stained figures that they were, the sunlight bringing their faces out in strong relief ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... dying fires, finished my work, and was going upstairs when I heard Veronica playing, and stopped to listen. It was not a paean nor a lament that she played, but a fluctuating, vibratory air, expressive of mutation. I hung over the stair-railing after she had ceased, convinced that she had been playing for herself a farewell, which freed me from my bond to her. Mr. Somers came along the hall with a candle, and I waited to ask him if I could do anything ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... long-suffering that make the machine work. Sometimes when opposition or accusation come or when railing, abuse, scorn, or similar things must be borne, the joy-machine does not work immediately. We have to put a good supply of patience into the slot, and perhaps suffer a while; but when the proper time comes, they will make the machine work ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... faces. Though I had not cared to live among other men, I still had an affection for them; I knew that they were unfortunate rather than vicious; I had spent all my time in lamenting their woes and railing against those that caused them; and when for the first time I saw a possibility of doing something for some of them, these very men shut their doors the very moment they caught sight of me in the distance, and their children (those ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... true—dreadfully true," said Iris, clasping her hands together and resting them on the high railing of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... side, I did behold A Woman sitting sorrowfullie wailing, Rending her yeolow locks, like wyrie golde 10 About her shoulders careleslie downe trailing, And streames of teares from her faire eyes forth railing*: In her right hand a broken rod she held, Which towards heaven shee seemd on high ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... built up to the sitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to the ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza was open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light low railing ran around the whole. ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... imputation of a foul blow. The boy responded by smacking Mark's face with his open palm; a moment later they were locked in a close struggle, heaving and panting and pushing until both of them tripped on the low railing of a grave and rolled over into a carefully tended bed of primroses, whence they were suddenly jerked to their feet, separated, and held at arm's length by an old man with a grey beard and a small round ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... The man at the railing was very gorgeously attired with chains, jewellery, and waistcoats, which the illumination from the house lighted up to great advantage; his boots were shiny; he had brass buttons to his coat, and large white wristbands over his knuckles; and indeed looked so grand, that X ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her mane of hair, had hammered furious fists together up on the dark balcony. It wasn't fair—it wasn't fair—just now, when she was so secure and happy! She had flung her arms across the railing, and buried her hot face on them, and had wept desperate and angry tears into the silken and golden tangle that shone dully in ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... heard was the slow ticking of the great clock in the hall. When it gave a loud br-r-r and began to strike, I was so startled by the sudden noise that I nearly lost my balance and turned a somersault over the railing. ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... Andrew McBain, the aggressive President of the Gunsight Mining and Developing Company, paced nervously to and fro as he dictated letters to a typist. He paused, and as the clacking stopped a woman who had been reading a novel on the veranda rose up noiselessly and listened over the railing. The new typist was really quite deaf—one could hear every word that was said. She was pretty, too,—and—well, she dressed too well, ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... one's eyes, and that is why they stood there, one generation after the other, and all stared into the distance, each one with pro and each one with his con. Arms adorned with golden bracelets have lain on the edge of the iron railing and many a silk-covered knee has pressed against the black arabesques, the while colored ribbons waved from all its points as signals of love and rendezvous. Heavy, pregnant housewives have also stood here and sent impossible messages out into the distance. ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... as it did yesterday," said Pierrette as they walked down the street. "There's that little raveled-out dog that always barks at Pierre, and there's Madame Coudert's cat asleep on the railing, just ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... that flows through any street of the world, Benton and Cara sat at a table near the edge—the man wondering how he could tell her. Fakirs with spangled shawls from Assouit, bead necklaces, ebony walking-sticks, scarabs and souvenir postcards jostled on the sidewalk to pass their wares over the railing. Fat Arab guides with red fezes and the noisy jargon of half-mastered French and English discussed to-morrow's ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... my little tummy, with its three oysters in it, was not worth mentioning, and told me to look at him. Talk about your Mount Pelee, and your Vesuvius, those volcanoes were tame and uninteresting, compared to dad, leaning over the railing, and shouting words at the sharks in the water. Why? he just doubled up like a jack knife, one minute, and then straightened up like an elephant standing on its hind legs in a circus, the next minute, and he kept saying, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... already half-way over when Bayard, with his lance in rest, came flying down upon them. His onset swept the first three off the bridge into the river, and instantly the rest, with cries of vengeance, rushed furiously upon him. Bayard, not to be surrounded, backed his horse against the railing of the bridge, rose up in his stirrups, swung his falchion with both hands above his head, and lashed out with such fury that, with every blow a bloody Spaniard fell into the river, and the whole troop recoiled in wonder and dismay, as if before a demon. While they still stood, half-dazed, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... sufficient and carted them home, they then selected shorter trees for posts; and when Pablo had cleared them of the boughs, they sawed them out the proper lengths, and then carted them home. This occupied nearly the whole week, and then they proceeded to dig holes and set the posts in. The railing was then to be nailed to the posts, and that occupied them three days more; so that it was altogether a fortnight of hard work before ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... window of Mrs. Wade's cottage, where it showed beyond the iron railing, Lady O'Gara glanced that way. The interior of the room was no longer visible to the casual passer-by. Curtains were drawn across it, but through the parting of the curtains one caught a glimpse of fire-light. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... cursing and railing with all his might, Chia Jung appeared walking by lady Feng's carriage. All the servants having tried to hush him and not succeeding, Chia Jung became exasperated; and forthwith blew him up for a time. "Let some one bind him up," he cried, "and tomorrow, when he's over the wine, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... of the rock where the railing was, only now the railing had gone like the house. Then for the first time Dorcas heard, for hitherto all had seemed to happen ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... of glory was on the same day that a most important thing happened in the lives of Bob Hendricks and Molly Brownwell. That day Bob Hendricks walked one end of the station platform alone. The east-bound train was half an hour late, and while the veterans were teasing Watts and the women railing at Mrs. McHurdie, Hendricks discovered that it was one hundred and seventy-eight steps from one end of the walk to the other, and that to go entirely around the building made the distance fifty-four steps more. It was almost train time before Adrian Brownwell arrived. When the dapper ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... month of October, Germinie obstinately refused to take to her bed. Each day, however, she was weaker and more helpless than the day before. She was hardly able to ascend the flight of stairs that led to her sixth floor, dragging herself along by the railing. One day she fell on the stairs: the other servants picked her up and carried her to her chamber. But that did not stop her; the next day she went downstairs again, with the fitful gleam of strength that invalids commonly have in the morning. She prepared mademoiselle's breakfast, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... 1st, 1822—A sad new-year's day to me. Before breakfast orders came for me to cut down the Exertion's railing and bulwarks on one side, for their vessel to heave out by, and clean her bottom. On my hesitating a little they observed with anger, "very well, captain, suppose you no do it quick, we do it for you." Directly afterwards another boat full of armed men came along side; ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... sound of hoofs and wheels, both started; and the next moment the telegraph boy drove up close to the railing and ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... prude indemnifies her virtue By railing at the unknown and envied passion, Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you, Or, what 's still worse, to put you out of fashion,— The kinder veteran with calm words will court you, Entreating you to pause before you dash on; Expounding ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... entrance into the hospital wing, Joe Mario stood outside the railing that cut Dr. Slade's reception area off from the corridor that led to the wards. An inmate orderly sat behind the railing, writing a prescription for a ...
— Criminal Negligence • Jesse Francis McComas

... answer falls the caressing song of the high reed in the phrase of the heroic strain, lightly, quickly and, it seems, mockingly aimed. In gently railing triumph returns the pretty song of the wheel, with a new buoyant spring. Drums and martial brass yield to the laughing flutes, the cooing horns and the soft rippling harp with murmuring strings, to return like captives in the train at the height of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... in the twinkling of an eye-lid, Clif Faraday was saved. He could hardly realize what had happened, and he staggered back against the railing of the vessel ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... when the chief magistrate of London remounted and rode before the Queen to St. Paul's. Thirteen thousand persons were in the City cathedral. The pew for the Queen and the Prince was enclosed by a brass railing. The Te Deum was sung by a picked choir. There was a special prayer, "We praise and magnify Thy glorious name for that Thou hast raised Thy servant Albert Edward Prince of Wales from the bed of sickness." The sermon was preached by the Archbishop ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... store-houses, machine rooms, kitchens, all the paraphernalia of modern existence. He stepped out of a kiosk onto an upper deck, thirty feet above the surface. Nobody else was there and he walked over to the railing and leaned on it, looking across the ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... not necessary or just to bring railing accusations against any class as a body. Power is always abused, and in this case there is much honest ignorance, stimulated by agitators who are seldom honest. In a recent number of the Edinburgh Review Sir Lynden Macassey ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... at one or two desks to give an order to the clerks, and once before the railing to speak to a depositor. Randolph followed the negro into the hall, through a "board room," and into a handsomely furnished office. He had not to wait long. In a few moments the president appeared with an older man whose gray side whiskers, cut with a certain ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the railing on the street, there was a stone bench, screened from the eyes of the curious by a plantation of yoke-elms, but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the outside, past the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... I am tired of railing at French barbarity and folly. They are more puerile now serious, than when in the long paroxysm of gay levity. Legislators, a senate, to neglect laws, in order to annihilate coats of arms and liveries! to pull down a King, and set up an Emperor! They are hastening ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... notice of the subordinate officials and clerks, of whom there were twenty or more in the company's spacious rooms, was fixed upon him who stood at the iron railing encircling ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... into it, ragged and dusty, leading the pack-horse, which was very lame. They stopped outside a little wooden store which had a kind of rude veranda in front of it, where the loungers sat on hot afternoons, and a man in a white shirt and store trousers came out and leaned on the railing. He had a hard face, and it grew a trifle more grim as he looked at them, for the light had not quite gone, although it was ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... what's done and past," said Captain Jenks wisely. "Meg, we're going to lose Dot overboard again, if she isn't removed from that railing." ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley

... promiscuous scrimmage of recruits against civilians. In the excitement Winifred, frightened at the uproar, came searching for her brother, just as Danvers again delivered a blow that sent Burroughs reeling against the deck railing. It was not strong enough to withstand the collision and the aggressor in the fight barely kept his balance as the wood broke. But Winifred, pushed forward by the struggling men, clutched at the air and dropped into the whirling yellow river ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... of bishops; Oh! how sweet was a fasting day? How beautiful were the feet of them that brought the gospel of peace unto you? How dear and precious were God's people one to another? But now, how are our fasting days slighted and vilified? How are the people of God divided one from another, railing upon (instead of loving) one another? And is not the godly ministry as much persecuted by the tongues of some that would be accounted godly, as heretofore by the bishop's hands? Is not the Holy Bible by some rather wrested than read? Wrested, I say, by ignorant and ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... lose every dollar he had in the world—he, alone among his comrades, was a visionary, an articulate emotionalist. He was very quiet about it, never talking unless he was sure of his listener; but at night, when we leaned on the railing to look at the Southern Cross, he was less apt to tell tales of his hard and stormy past than he was to speak of the mysteries which lie behind courage, and fear, and love, behind animal hatred, and animal lust for the pleasures that have tangible shape. He had keenly enjoyed ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... railing, were commenting on the extraordinary encounters in this marine boulevard, usually frequented by ships of peace. Certain smoke lines on the horizon were from the French squadron carrying President Poincare who was returning from Russia. The European alarm had interrupted ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... grass-grown solitude it had always been. To be sure, the Improvers had an eye on it, and Priscilla Grant had read a paper on cemeteries before the last meeting of the Society. At some future time the Improvers meant to have the lichened, wayward old board fence replaced by a neat wire railing, the grass mown and the leaning monuments ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Byrnes, but I don't know. Mr. Davis, at the time, was walking from the table to me, and heard it. He was irritated by the remark, and said—"Then, on that principle, you ought to have your throats cut." Mr. Byrnes and another officer were behind me. I was sitting within the bar, next to the railing, which was between me and Byrnes and the other officer. I know Mr. Byrnes' voice, and am able to recognize it, and I thought at the time that it was he who made the remark, but I cannot swear. It was not very loud, ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various

... shop not unbeautiful in itself. The front window had a glimmer of bronze and blue steel, lit, as by a few stars, by the sparks of what were alleged to be jewels; for it was in brief, a shop of bric-a-brac and old curiosities. A row of half-burnished seventeenth-century swords ran like an ornate railing along the front of the window; behind was a darker glimmer of old oak and old armour; and higher up hung the most extraordinary looking South Sea tools or utensils, whether designed for killing enemies or merely for cooking ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... coldest of the sex to love:" - But ah! too soon his looks success declared, Too late her loss the marriage-rite repair'd; The faithless flatterer then his vows forgot, A captious tyrant or a noisy sot: If present, railing, till he saw her pain'd; If absent, spending what their labours gain'd; Till that fair form in want and sickness pined, And hope and comfort fled that gentle mind. Then fly temptation, youth; resist, refrain! ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe

... passengers, which stuck out over the foot-rests of their chairs to different lengths according to the height of the possessors, certain energetic people walked ceaselessly up and down the deck, sometimes flattening themselves against the railing to let others who met them pass by, and sometimes, when the ship rolled a little, stumbling against an outstretched foot or two without making any elaborate ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... please?" a thin, querulous voice called out. A little old man, crouching in the darkness behind a railing, suddenly rose and exhibited his features, carved after a ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... interpretation of the great scene in which she chloroforms the detective, breaks open the safe, shoots the policeman who attempts to handcuff her, smashes the glass in the window with the piano stool and makes her getaway by sliding down the railing of ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan

... camera upon the railing of the balcony and snapped a picture of the two columns in the Piazzetta, near a landing place ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... stealthily towards the light wire railing on the starboard side just abaft the conning-tower. Everything seemed in their favour. Kapitan Schwalbe and the Unter-leutnant were on the navigation platform, peering through their night-glasses towards the flat ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... all was well with Christina, and she bustled about as of old. David was still, and hoped ever, with a tired content in what should happen, a languor that forbade him from railing on fate. Together they prepared matters as for ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... of a scorching July sun was falling upon the huge walls of the "Laurel Hill Sun," where a group of idlers were lounging on the long, narrow piazza, some niching into still more grotesque carving the rude, unpainted railing, while others, half reclining on one elbow, shaded their eyes with their old slouch hats, as they gazed wistfully toward the long hill, eager to catch the first sight of the daily ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... reached it he found his professional friends hanging over the railing, watching every movement which the girl made with an intense and ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... greater part of the congregation, and he accordingly led them to the farthest extremity of one of the side galleries. Mary had been there at church before, but as she had always sat near the door, she did not know in what part of the building Mrs. Campbell's pew was located. As she leaned over the railing, however, she concluded that the large square one with crimson velvet cushions must be hers. Erelong the bell began to toll, and soon a lady dressed in deep mourning appeared, and passing up the middle aisle, entered the richly cushioned pew. She was accompanied by a little ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... feet in width, having their surfaces just level with the main floor, describes a circuit of the room. Except at the places of entrance or exit, this circular train or section of floor on wheels, is guarded on either side by a low railing. These railings also extend across the cars, far enough from the ends to allow a four foot passage between each one. In material and finish, the floor of the train is uniform with that of the room. The railings are all of polished oak. Two cute little gates on each car ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... yellow, and whitest yellow, Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow, All a-simmer with intense strain To let her through,—then blank again, At the hope of her appearance failing. Just by the chapel, a break in the railing Shows a narrow path directly across; 'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss— Besides, you go gently all the way uphill. I stooped under and soon felt better; My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple, As I walked on, glad to ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... laughter, and none had the ordinary heroism to intervene, and I with ever increasing rapidity was borne helplessly down the declivity towards the gates of Hyde Park Corner, when, by the benevolence of Providence, the anterior wheel ran under a railing, and I flew off like a tangent into the comparative security of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... waiting for a reply, and, returning with a rug, placed her chair in a sheltered spot; then he leaned against the railing. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... delight in a sort of summer-house, which is called a pondap; it is built to the height of sixteen feet or so on stout pillars, with a raised floor, and covered with a thatch made of the leaves of the palm. It is open at the sides, except a railing of netting three feet high, and sometimes blinds of split cane are rolled up under the eaves, and can be let down to exclude the sun ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... or a scavenger expatiating on the odors of Araby. His reverence (?) has become imbued with the idea that it spoils a boy to educate him, which goes to prove that the less a man knows the more he despises knowledge. But we can scarce blame Sam for railing at education. He is but obeying the law of self-preservation. When the people learn to distinguish between a hawk and a heron-saw they will drive this putrid-mouth little blatherskite from ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... bar and got hold of it at the expense of a broken finger. They strained and tugged. The slippery cadmium finally eluded both of them, bounded over the railing into the pit, struck a nomplate far below and was witheringly consumed in a flash ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns

... upon her as he stepped over the stone railing, but all power of independent action seemed to have left her. She was as one stunned or beneath some spell. She stood quite rigid while he groped for and found the ladder by which he had ascended. Then, as ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... the right or left, he mounted the stair, passed close to Archie, and entered the house. Instinctively, the boy, upon his first coming, had made a movement to meet him; instinctively he recoiled against the railing, as the old man swept by him in a pomp of indignation. Words were needless; he knew all—perhaps more than all—and the hour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Miss Isobel lay with her eyes closed, but whether asleep or not Dorothy couldn't decide. She was very pale and perfectly motionless, and a too-suggestive tin basin was fastened to the railing of ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... up and down the deck, pausing now and then to watch the destroyers and indulging in a very spasmodic conversation. At their fourth promenade, as they reached the stern extremity of their deck, the woman paused, and, holding to the railing with one hand, looked steadily back towards New York. The colour was fading slowly from the sky now, but it was ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... know that there is no actual danger in the case. Thus it is painful to most persons to see a carpenter upon a very lofty spire, or to go very near a precipice, or see any body else go, even when there is a strong railing; and so in all other cases. Therefore, our rule ought always to be, when we are in company with others, not only not to go into actual danger, but not to go so near as strongly to bring up the idea to their minds, and ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott

... then for the first time, saw how terribly he was feeling her interminable examination, and for a moment lost heart. The rows of people grew hazy and indistinct. Mr. Cringer's face got all mixed up with his wig, she had to hold tightly to the railing. How much longer could ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... well as a yardstick, and command, what the latter cannot hope, fame. He believed that independence was the first duty of a literary man, and that true dignity consists in diligent labor rather than in indolent railing at fate and the scoffings of "uncomprehended" genius. Monsieur Champfleury was no poet. He detested poetry, and his accurate perception of the world showed him that poetry is a good deal like paper money, which depends for its current value rather upon the credit possessed by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... the saffron robe, or sit besmeared with ashes, contemplating the eternal verities, unmoved by outward things. Like skeletons of death they sit; thorns tear their skin, their nails pierce into their hands, day and night one arm is held uplifted, iron grows embedded in their flesh, like a railing in a tree trunk, they hang in ecstasy from hooks, they count their thousand miles of pilgrimage by the double yard-measure of head to heel, moving like a geometer caterpillar across the burning dust. To overcome the body so that the soul may win her freedom, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... generally about eight by six inches, made as described on page 9, and of the right length to fit some window-sill, or the corner or top of a veranda railing. ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... just to get a two-minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for a body to remember and tell about for a thousand years. Why, Captain, just think of this: if Abraham was to set his foot down here by this door, there would be a railing set up around that foot-track right away, and a shelter put over it, and people would flock here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds of years, to look at it. Abraham is one of the parties that Mr. Talmage, of Brooklyn, is going ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... that we were on the twenty foot square grid of the observatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged against it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... felt that curtains of any other color would be wholly out of place in that house. The patch of a garden, scarcely bigger than a bathroom, in front of the house; the single fir tree that grew up in the middle of it; the black iron railing; the door steps, and the pavement—all took their share of beatitude from the joy within. Bog could hear love rustle in the boughs of the young maple, that stood in its long green case like a fancy boot top, at the edge ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... got up, and he led her to the side of a pond, where she found a duck with its head caught in a railing. She made haste to set the poor creature free, and the drake flapped his wings and gave ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot

... midnight. He may make slaves and hypocrites of his children; or friends and freemen; or drive them into revolt and enmity against the natural law of love. I have heard politicians and coffee-house wiseacres talking over the newspaper, and railing at the tyranny of the French king, and the emperor, and wondered how these (who are monarchs, too, in their way) govern their own dominions at home, where each man rules absolute? When the annals of each little ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tarpons in the fountain was fanning his tail and moving slowly through the water. On the railing at the edge of the pool sat a tired man with a baby hanging over his arm. If the tarpon had stuck his nose out of the water he could have grabbed the man by the coat-tail and pulled him backward. The mother was standing a few feet ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... readers will go on speculating, hoping to discover real people in the shadows, as they speculate about Swift's Stella and Vanessa, and his relations to them. It is enough for us to feel, however, that these poems railing at or glorying in Platonic love are no mere goldsmith's compliments, like the rhymed letters to Mrs. Herbert and Lady Bedford. Miracles of this sort are not wrought save by the heart. We do not find in them the underground and sardonic element that appears in so ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... vegetation which hung in marvellous richness and variety over the abyss gave a fairy-like aspect to the scene. The boys did not seem to appreciate it in the least, and prepared, sighing, for the steep ascent. A simple bridge led across the gully; it was made of a few trees, and even provided with a railing in the shape of a vine. The existence of this bridge surprised me very much; for, considering the thoughtless egotism with which the natives pass through life, I had thought them incapable of any work of public utility. They rarely think of repairing a road or cutting a vine, nor ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... above, with a narrow flight behind into the attic. The upper middle room was therefore an open space, from the sides of which a narrow gallery had been reserved to surround the well-like opening of the stairway. Next the stairs the gallery was furnished with a strong plain railing, to prevent the accident of falling into the "well," and all the bedrooms had doors ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... solemnly. When the people around him gabbled and pointed their fingers and piled up the same old adjectives he glanced around at them timidly and then stepped softly away where he could gaze without being interrupted. After boarding the car he stood up between the seats and held on to the railing. At each curve of the track, as new visions swung into view, he shook his head again and again, but said nothing. He had been for a good many years taking in a daily landscape of stubble-field, orchard and straight country roads. His experience had taught ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... to picking up a little bunch of violets I had dropped; you know I always wear a posy into town to give me inspiration. I didn't care for the dusty flowers, and told him so, and hurried away before any one came. At the top of the stairs I peeped over the railing, and there he was, gathering up every one of those half-dead violets as carefully as if they ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... in the grasp of his gardener and coachman, and foaming with a rage that rendered his explanation almost inarticulate, especially as the three women servants gathered around their mistress added their railing and ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... women and children partisans of the Commune, have in numerous instances been detected throwing petroleum into houses. Not a shop was entirely open, and those that opened only doors were inferior restaurants and wine houses. Around the railing in the Place Vendome troopers' horses were tied. The bronze figure of the Emperor was on its back, the shattered and prostrate Column lay about in fragments. On visiting the neighbourhood of Montmartre, and ascending ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy

... that the feeling of the place, influenced by "public sentiment" without, was subtly and profoundly hostile to Joe and his client; she read this in the spectators, in the jury, even in the Judge; but it seemed to her that day by day the inimical spirit gradually failed, inside the railing, and also in those spectators who, like herself, were enabled by special favor to be present throughout the trial, and that now and then a kindlier sentiment began to be manifested. She was unaware ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... consequently it might be wise to delay their final escape until the bulk of the population had retired to rest. Soon afterward, however, while pursuing their investigations, they reached a spot where the wall ended and where the grounds were enclosed for some distance by a lofty iron railing which, despite the fact that it was formidably spiked at the top, they thought might be easily scaled by two men who were accustomed, as they were, to climbing the masts and rigging of a ship. But on the other side of the railing was a wide, open ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... and seemed to the eyes of guests to be much larger than it was. The hall was spacious, and the stairs went up in the centre, facing you as you entered the inner hall. Round the top of the stairs there was a broad gallery, with an ornamented railing, and from this opened the doors into the three reception-rooms. There were two on the right, the larger of which looked out backwards, and these two were connected by an archway, as though made for folding-doors; but the doors, I believe, never were there. Fronting the top of the staircase ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... balcony and even pushed out the couch there, noticing for the first time that the balcony had curtains which could be drawn. But there was nothing behind couch or curtains. She put her hands on the little railing and looked down at the room below her, to see if she had missed anything. And her eyes fell on a cupboard which was level with the wall at one side, and had so escaped her eye heretofore. Also there was a scrapbasket ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... children, and so forth. No man who understands what it is to love, and to bless, and to do good, can mistake the meaning. But if they required any comment, the Scripture itself affords enow. If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing. They do not, indeed, want the comments of men, who, when they cannot bend their mind to the obedience of Scripture, are desirous to wrest Scripture to a ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... this reja, lit up by the lamp in the chamber, the young girl was standing in an attitude of graceful ease. In the calm and perfumed night she appeared even more charming than when seen in the brilliant saloon—for it is behind the railing of these balconies that the women of Spanish race ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... length he turned away, and seemed to find a supreme fascination in the sand- bank. He stood at the stern of the ship, looking fixedly toward the rock, his arms folded, and his thoughts all absorbed in that one thing. A low railing ran round the quarter-deck. The helmsman stood in a sheltered place which rose only two feet above the deck. The captain stood by the companion-way, looking south at the storm; the mate was near the capstan, and all were intent and absorbed in their ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... over all and in all things; All to his dictating word must submit themselves—all to his kingship— He with his nod to command—which I think will have scanty approval. Might in his spear if there be by the gift of the Gods everlasting, Do they uphold him for that in the measureless railing of insult?" Him, with a sidelong glance, thus answer'd the noble Achilleus:— "Worthless I well might be call'd, of a surety, and cowardly caitiff, Yielded I all at a word whensoever it pleas'd thee to dictate. Such be thy lording with others, but not as to me, Agamemnon! Waste ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... according to the claims of archaeologists, and covered all over with a mass of wild flowers. In this wall there is a huge entrance-gate with folding-doors. During the day one-half is opened, and a light, low open-work railing put in, which rings a bell as soon ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... green topside and bottom. We laid it together in Tom's shed, and got in Old Dibs to see if it would fit him, which it did beautiful, being six foot six by two and a half. Tom explained we'd put a natty railing around it, likewise painted green, and carry a width of fine netting below, so that pillows or things shouldn't slip overboard. Tom was hurt at Old Dibs not being more enthusiastic, and finally said: "Hell! Mr. Smith, what are ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... and the furniture was minutely and elaborately inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Three rooms more particularly attracted my attention. The first contained the throne of the kings of Savoy,—a gilded chair, under a crimson canopy, and surrounded by a gilt railing. I thought, as I gazed upon it, how often the power of that throne had lain heavily upon the poor Waldenses. The other room contained the bed on which King Charles Albert died. It is yet in my readers' recollection, that ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... he uttered the words when all the scouts of the little group were at the railing craning their necks and straining their eyes trying to see across the water. But the wind and rain beat in their faces and the driving ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... hoisted up his trousers, tightened his belt, and lounged against the railing outside the troop room, listening dutifully but rather ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... to the western wall there stood in the centre the factory itself, a good log building of somewhat spacious size; its big room, divided by a breast-high solid railing, with a small gate in the middle, serving as office and general receiving-place. Beyond the railing, in the smaller space toward the north, there stood the great wooden desk of the factor, its massive book of accounts always open on its face, its hand-made drawers filled ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... the railing of the veranda with a vindictive smile which would have astonished Osgood had ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various



Words linked to "Railing" :   fife rail, balusters, taffrail, guardrail, rail, material, barrier



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