"Upside down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entrance gate from the side of the Via dei Maroniti. The panels of serpentine were used in the new building, the picture of the Saviour was removed to the Grotte; the cover of porphyry was turned upside down, and made ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... the basket," said Daddy Bunker. He turned the net upside down over the peach basket. Out dropped Mr. Crab, letting go of the chunk of meat, which Laddie pulled out by the string. The crab crawled about sideways on the bottom of the basket, raising its claws into the air and clashing them together, at ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... that would be," said Rupert, laughing. "Why, all the rogues would stand betrayed, and honest folk would get the credit of their good intentions. The world would be turned upside down ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... back, the girl still speaking as they disappeared, but Westcott turned in his chair to watch them cross the room. He had no sense of anger, no desire to retaliate, but he felt dazed and as though the whole world was suddenly turned upside down. So she really belonged with that outfit, did she? Well, it was a ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... to denote frustration, usually at amazing stupidity. "I stuck the disk in upside down." "Weeble...." Compare {gurfle}. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... back; but I stood it out at the gate until they turned the bend, then I come on back to the house quick like some kind of hurted animal. But, dearie me, I never got a single tear shed, for there were Mis' Peavey with Buck in her arms, shaking him upside down to get out a brass button he hadn't swallowed. By the time we poured him full of hot mustard water and the button fell outen his little apron pocket, I had done got my ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had laid down hopelessly some time ago; it seemed to have arisen into life again within the last hour; he understood that he had started on a false tack, he had taken the wrong aspect of his idea. Of course the thing couldn't be written in that way; it was like trying to read a page turned upside down; and he saw those characters he had vainly sought suddenly disambushed, and a splendid inevitable sequence of events unrolled ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... of the bushes, and I'll tell you something real funny about it," Gwen said. "I planted it upside down just to see what it would do, and what do you s'pose? After it had been there 'bout a month I dug it up, and there were roses on it! It had blossomed down in the dirt! They were bigger than the ones that had been planted the right ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... the Yale Club a good deal more thoroughly than most pages, from the lobby to the upstairs dining-room. He even invaded the library to the suspicious annoyance of some old uncle who was pretending to read a book held upside down in his lap in order to camouflage his pre-prandial nap. No Ted—though half-a-dozen acquaintances who insisted on saying hello and taking up time. Back to the street and a slight dispute with a policeman as regarded the place where Oliver had ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... all the Mourzuk people very friendly—everybody friendly; the world seemed turned upside down after our treatment from the Tuaricks. I began to make little presents, for I am determined our friends shall have a portion of her Majesty's goods as well as our enemies; which latter, indeed, took them away from us by force. I must not forget to remark, that when I entered Zinder there ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... top flap, but the inside back of the envelope wasn't blank, as it should have been. It wasn't written on in Thompson's neat copperplate or in his neat phrases, either. A pencil scrawl stared at me, upside down, as I gripped the lower flap of the envelope unconsciously, under the ball of my big thumb. "Why, here's some more," I exclaimed like an ass, glaring at the envelope's inside back. "'Take care—something——' What's this? What on earth did ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... in a saucer or cup. If the whites and yolks are to be used separately divide them as you break the eggs and beat both well before using; the yolks until light and the whites to a stiff froth, so stiff that you can turn the dish upside down and the eggs will adhere ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... reason why the candle does not burn all down the side of the wick is, that the melted tallow extinguishes the flame. You know that a candle, if turned upside down, so as to allow the fuel to run upon the wick, will be put out. The reason is, that the flame has not had time to make the fuel hot enough to burn, as it does above, where it is carried in small quantities into the wick, and has all the effect of ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... like the lodging-houses in Paris, turned upside down; the first floor, or deck, being rented by a lord; the second, by a select club of gentlemen; the third, by crowds of artisans; and the fourth, by a whole ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... preach Christ and confess Him to be our Savior, we must be content to be called vicious trouble makers. "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar," so said the Jews of Paul and Silas. (Acts 17:6, 7.) Of Paul they said: "We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... repeatedly which they liked best, 'tea tea?' or 'cocoa tea?' They thought it so funny that they said it over and over again, screaming with laughter all the while, until Tommy got a piece of cake stuck in his throat and became nearly black in the face, and then Philpot had to turn him upside down and punch him in the back to save him from choking to death. This rather sobered the others, but for some time afterwards whenever they looked at each other they began to laugh afresh because they thought it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... carcases of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering in the water, and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of confusion ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... very great delusion. It isn't a cross. It is a kite, a kite upside down, an irregular kite upside down, with only three respectable stars and one very poor and very much out of place. Near it, however, is a truly mysterious and interesting object called the coal sack: it is a black patch in the sky distinctly darker ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... sure and fix everything up pretty, change everything in my bedroom, so as not to show them our daily life." We all said "Jur" (yes), but we knew it was going to be a hard task to turn the Palace upside down. ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... the Legislature," said Willy Cameron, "I'm going to have a bill passed compelling doctors to use typewriters. Take this now. Read upside down, its horse liniment. Read right side up, it's poison. And ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the hard ground, with a rug and guanaco robe, our saddles turned upside down making as good a pillow as any ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with an old face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried upside down over his father's shoulder, by one foot, and held by the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father's hand, according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Priscilla Perkins! The idea of all Boston being turned upside down for the sake of one little girl! People have come over from England before, big and little, and there's been a war and there may be another, and no end of things to happen. To be sure, I'd done my duty by her if I'd had her; and if the others spoil her—I ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... instance, that education is beneficial, that's a common-place; but to say that education is injurious, that's a common-place turned upside down. There's more style about it, so to say, but in reality ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... creation. While the democrat held no faith with the same fervour as his belief that "whatsoever is lovely and of good report" could only be obtained by mingling with the upper classes. It was the commercial glory of the great Industrial Reign that turned the whole character of London Society upside down in du Maurier's time. It became the study of the Suburbs to model themselves on Mayfair, to imitate its "rages" and "crazes" in every shade. It is all the vanities of this emulation which du Maurier records; there is little in his art to ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... had the shuffle of her footsteps died away than Kennedy was on his feet, listening intently at the door. There was no sound. He took a chair and tiptoed out into the dark hall with it. Turning it upside down he placed it at the foot of the stairs with the four legs pointing obliquely up. Then he drew me into a corner ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... day he told his father that he had swallowed some acephalus molluscus, which so alarmed him that he shrieked for help. The mother came in with warm water, and forced half a gallon down Benjamin's throat with the garden pump, then held him upside down, the father saying, "If we don't get those things out of Bennie he'll be poisoned sure." When Benjamin was allowed to get his breath he explained that the articles referred to were oysters. His father was so indignant that he whipped him for ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... so easy as it looks. The trouble is not in inverting, but in finding what to invert. Our language is full of ancient saws, but it takes wit to discover which to turn upside down. Anybody can stand anything on its head, but it is only the real humourist who knows which thing can stand on its head without falling or looking foolish. 'T is the same in stage dialogue. Many a man of moderate wit can find ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... in conclusion, 'that's not to be told to everybody. That is a secret—a great secret, Mr. Walker.' As the mulberry man said this, he turned his glass upside down, by way of reminding his companion that he had nothing left wherewith to slake his thirst. Sam observed the hint; and feeling the delicate manner in which it was conveyed, ordered the pewter ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... over thee, Horus hacketh thee in pieces, he spitteth upon thee; thou shalt not rise up towards heaven, but shalt totter downwards, O feeble one, without strength, cowardly, unable to fight, blind, without eyes, and with thine head turned upside down. Lift not up thy face. Get thee back quickly, and find not the way. Lie down in despair, rejoice not, retreat speedily, and show not thy face because of the speech of Horus, who is perfect in words of power. The poison rejoiced, [but] the heart[s] of many were ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... formally announced?" said he, holding the now empty bottle upside down, and squeezing it vigorously. "Let me fill your glass," he continued, holding the bottle to the light and examining it ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... villages; and the barns were all full of grain, to my very great regret. We came as far as Tournahan, where there was a large tower, whither the enemy withdrew, but we found the place empty: our men sacked it, and blew up the tower with a mine of gunpowder, which turned it upside down. After that, the camp was dispersed, and I returned to Paris. And the day after Chateau le Comte was taken, M. de Vendosme sent a gentleman under orders to the King, to report to him all that had happened, and among other things he told the King I had done very good work dressing the wounded, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... case, we can suppose this man's stream will last nine hours and a half when he dribbles it down on one spot, like the Atlas Building; but it will empty itself in about two hours when he turns her upside down over a whole city. There remains only the length of time necessary to refill the water-pot to round out our hypothesis. That is something more than nine hours and something ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... known, at least once in his life, what it is to lose some precious thing; and after hunting through his papers, ransacking his memory, and turning his house upside down; after one or two days spent in vain search, and hope, and despair; after a prodigious expenditure of the liveliest irritation of soul, who has not known the ineffable pleasure of finding that all-important nothing ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... was changed. Aged I would scarcely say, for this would seem as if he did not look young. But I think that the boy was altogether gone from his face—the boy whose freak with Steve had turned Medicine Bow upside down, whose other freak with the babies had outraged Bear Creek, the boy who had loved to jingle his spurs. But manhood had only trained, not broken, his youth. It was all there, only obedient to the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... in his throat, and then he perceived it was broad daylight, and that one of the Dyak servants was looking at him with a curious expression. Then there was the top of Thaddy's face upside down. Funny fellow, Thaddy, to go about like that! Then he grasped the situation better, and perceived that his head was on Thaddy's knee, and Thaddy was giving him brandy. And then he saw the eyepiece of the telescope with a lot of red smears on ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... am sure I don't know. I'm prepared for any thing strange that can possibly happen. Mother and Ester between them have turned the world upside down for me to-night. In case you are the happy man, I hope you ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... dangerous neighbours, not only from this cause, but also on account of their turning upside down at times, and even falling to pieces, so that Captain Harvey always kept well out of their way when he could; but this was not always possible. The little brig had a narrow escape one day from the ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... we continue our investigations, beginning to think that the world is here upside down. Here is a man who comes tripping along; but no, it cannot be a man, in spite of the small and carefully curled mustache. The dressing of the hair, the powder and paint on the face, the blackened eyebrows, the gold earrings, the bouquet of flowers ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... the horrifying declaration that this movement was in the nature of a spin, so that, at night, the whole of New York City, including skyscrapers, bridges, water, streets, vehicles and population, was upside down in the air! ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... belief that on the other side of our globe all things are of necessity upside down is startlingly brought back to the man when he first sets foot at Yokohama. If his initial glance does not, to be sure, disclose the natives in the every-day feat of standing calmly on their heads, an attitude which ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... aware of the use of the boat, intimating that it was turned upside down, and pointed to the N.W. as the quarter in which we should use her. He mistook the sheep net for a fishing net, and gave them to understand that there were fish in those waters so large that they would not get through the meshes. Being anxious to hear what ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... came home and found Soerine in a temper and the house upside down, he was not disturbed at all, but soon cheered them all up. He always brought something home with him, peppermints for the children, a new shawl for mother—and perhaps love from Granny to Ditte, whispering it to her ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a fellow in a rusty, black suit, with a beard of three weeks' growth, bleared eyes, and a red, Bardolph nose, took the writ, which he had more difficulty in reading than Tony Lumpkin, when he received the letter of Hastings. At first, he held it upside down, then reversed it, looking at it at arm's length, and then gave it a closer scrutiny. He finally gave it as his opinion, that it empowered the queer-cuffin (so he termed the sheriff) to seize upon the so called ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... writings, the second of which was inscribed upside down and was so faint and worn that, had it not been for the transcript of it executed by Vincey, I should scarcely have been able to read it, since, owing to its having been written on that portion of the tile which had, in the course of ages, undergone the most handling, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... tight on his corner of the hearthrug, with his eyes wide open, watching every movement intently. Dan said nothing, and went his way, voting the house to be upside down. ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... have remained quietly on shore, after so many hairbreadth escapes and singular adventures; but I found France so changed, that I was disgusted with my own country. Every thing was upside down—the nobles, the wealthy, the talented, either were murdered, or living in abject poverty in other countries, while the lower classes had usurped their place, and governed the land. But what decided me once more to go to sea, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... away and roll in hay in the center of the afternoon of the same day. There is no use in all of that, there is no use and that understanding is not reception it is a cook-stove solving emigration. So then the union of the palm tree and the upside down one makes a lying woman escape handling. So then the choice is not made and the cause is the same. That was the period of that ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... impute a monopoly of superstition to the seafarer. Sailors have superstitions which are not now exclusively theirs, though they may have been the originators of them; for instance, placing a loaf of bread upside down, spilling the salt (and nullifying the mischief by throwing a few grains over the left shoulder); these, as well as the leaving of stray leaves and stalks in teacups are considered sure indications of past or coming events, even by the large and enlightened public who pass their ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... to see one of the laws of nature turn upside down and stand on its head like an acrobat. Any grown-up persons would tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend. But the fairy money had been easy to get, and spending it was not only hard, it was almost impossible. The ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... infinitesimal earth motes thrown up constantly by the wind devils of the desert, drew before the scene a delicate and gauzy veil of lilac, of rose, of saffron, of amethyst, or of mauve, according to the time of day. Senor Johnson discovered that looking at the landscape upside down accentuated the colour effects. It amused him vastly suddenly to bend over his saddle horn, the top of his head nearly touching his horse's mane. The distant mountains at once started out into redder prominence; their shadows ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... mouldings, and the cords of his arm stood out like cogs. Then he took his long pipe, as he may have done perhaps every blessed night for the last fifty years; but that length of time ought to have learned him better than to go for to fill it upside down. 'Ha, ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I was a man under heaven—countries and nations and kindreds and duties; and why not a old tobacco-pipe? That's the way babies blow bubbles with them. We shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is busted up. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... handle upside down, he saw that from one of the horse's delicately finished shoes, a nail was missing, and its hole left empty. It was ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... plainly as she could see anything, that Quicksilver had turned the pitcher upside down, and consequently had poured out every drop of milk, in filling the last bowl. Of course, there could not possibly be any left. However, in order to let him know precisely how the case was, she lifted the pitcher, and made a gesture as if pouring milk into ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... off in the Minories, was just the sort of thing a fool would do. And he insisted on her reading all the society novels as they came out—you know the sort I mean,—where everybody snaps everybody else's head off, and all the proverbs are upside down; people leave them about the hotels when they've done with them, and one gets into the habit of dipping into them when one's nothing better to do. His hope was that she might, with pains, get to talk like these books. ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... the name of some uncivilised savage, as the uninitiated may think; far from it. It is Bob Armstrong—upside down, and slightly altered, and refers to the Hon. Robert Armstrong, stipendiary magistrate of ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... arrested. Horne Fisher's fragmentary hints, though he had refused to expand them as yet, had stirred the artistic temperament of the architect to a sort of wild analysis, and he was resolved to read the hieroglyph upside down and every way until it made sense. If it was something connected with a hole in the wall he would find the hole in the wall; but, as a matter of fact, he was unable to find the faintest crack in the wall. His professional knowledge told him that the masonry was ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... automatically as the clock and as silently as the dawn. Seen from the inside, it gives all its organisers a gasp of relief every morning to see that it has come out at all; that it has come out without the leading article upside down or the Pope congratulated on ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... could be found; and now that I have found a publisher, I cannot find the books. There is a treatise on the Curvature of the Square,—a Dissertation on Foreign Literature,—two or three novels,—a book on Human Life, that is going to turn the world upside down,—a book on Theology, dull enough to be sensible, that is going to turn it back again,—and a bandboxful of children's stories. Still, in spite of this formidable prospect, take the consolation that an end is sure to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... not want their homes turned upside down or whose houses are not convenient for a wedding, entertain their friends at an hotel or a restaurant. This has its advantages, but is not so homelike for the bride's farewell to her ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... anyone could so completely have turned upside down an orderly house. As an example of absolute disorder, the dining-room was a veritable work of art. The German orderlies had evidently prepared and served four or five meals to their officers. Each time they had set the table ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... factory," Snaffle went on, "and then the town is made, ain't it? Outside capital is invested, outside operatives brought in to turn the place upside down and to bring in all the deviltries that have been invented, and all the town has to show in the long run is a little advance in real estate over the limited area where they want to build houses for the mill-hands. There's no end of rot talked about improving ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... which arises from speculation and theories; too much dependence is placed on the aviator; the desire in the present condition of the art is to exploit the man and not the machine; dare-devil exhibitions seem to be more important than perfecting the mechanism; and such useless attempts as flying upside down, looping the loop, and characteristic displays of that kind, are of no value to ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... barrels from the jokers carrying press cards. They call it Operation Upside Down. At last three characters were really going to dig a hole and pull it in after them. Three hours before Dig-day, Exmud R. Zmorro interviews us. We ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... invaded Wentworth's cabin, throwing him out in the snow while they turned the interior upside down. Laura Sibley hobbled in and frantically ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Oswego, and on August 3 laid siege to Fort Stanwix, which then stood on the site of the present city of Rome, N.Y. On the 6th the garrison sallied forth, attacked a part of St. Leger's camp, and carried off five British flags. These they hoisted upside down on their ramparts, and high above them raised a new flag which Congress had adopted in June, and which was then for the first time ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... very slight earthquake may do fearful damage. People who only read of them, fancy that an earthquake, to destroy man and his works, must literally turn the earth upside down; that the ground must open, swallowing up houses, vomiting fire and water; that rocks must be cast into the sea, and hills rise where valleys were before. Such awful things have happened, and will happen again: but it does not need them to lay a ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and, still attired in his shirt and trousers, he wrapped a dressing-gown around him, drew a reading lamp to his side, and threw himself into an easy-chair, a book in his hand. It was some time before he realised that the volume was upside down, and even when he had righted it, the words he saw had no meaning for him. All the time a queer procession of women's faces was passing before his eyes—Caroline, with her half-flirtatious, wholly sentimental bon camaraderie; Stephanie, with ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... don't notice now as I go about that I am ill; my asthma is better, nothing is aching. The only trace left of my illness is extreme thinness; my legs are thin as they have never been. The German doctors have turned all my life upside down. At seven o'clock in the morning I drink tea in bed—for some reason it must be in bed; at half-past seven a German by way of a masseur comes and rubs me all over with water, and this seems not at all bad. Then I have to lie still a little, get up at eight o'clock, drink ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Socialist, Moses P. Handy the "Major," of Roswell P. Flower, of Judge Henry Hilton, of General Felix Agnus—and of Hermann, the original, the great, the magic wonder-maker of the times. They were the leading spirits of an army of bright men who pushed the world upside down, or rolled it over and over, or made it stand still, according to how they felt. Mingling with these arbiters of our fate were all sorts and conditions of men. At one of these dinners I remember seeing Inspector Byrnes, the Sherlock Holmes of American crime, Colonel Ochiltree, the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... sisters had against her that she could not make good shirts. Any one who could not make a shirt was deficient. Clarinda was deficient. She could not make a shirt. Meekly had she tried year after year. Humbly had she ripped out gusset and seam and band, having put them on upside down or inside out. Never could she learn the ins and outs of a shirt. But her old heart trembled with delight that the new girl, who was going to take the place in her heart of her old dead self and live out all the beautiful things which ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... a land upside down. We arrived at Madrid just at the close of the Carnival season. Masked balls began at three in the afternoon and many theatres not until ten or even eleven at night. Madrid sleeps late. The rich people get up ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... house forcing the peaceful inmates to drink from their bottles. Others take possession of certain sections of the street and resist "a l'outrance" the attempts of others to pass. Inoffensive citizens are stood on their heads, or shaken upside down until the contents of their pockets rattle on the street. Parenthetically, these contents are invariably returned to their owners. The riverman's object is fun, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... mind," said Cleary. "You won't have to see him long. We're going to Porsslania in a fortnight, you and I, and you'll have a chance to turn the world upside down there." ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... A.M.—My brain is reeling. My world is upside down. There is no use in trying to sleep. I will write down what has happened. It may calm me. This evening when I entered the house where I was to entertain others at the expense of my self-respect, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... me, an' I 'lowed she wus goin' to throw 'em away, but she turned 'em upside down an' helt 'em before my eyes. 'Do you call that a M?' sez she, an' shore 'nough it was as plain a W as ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... to the shore the fishermen would lay out their nets to dry. How nets look when they are so laid, their narrowness and the curve they take, everybody knows. Then on the spaces between the nets shanties would be built, or old boats turned upside down for shelter, so that the curing of fish and the boiling of tar and the serving and parcelling of ropes could be done under cover. Then as the number of people grew, the squatters' land got value, and houses were raised (you will find many small ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... and peeped into a broad, low room with a bar and beer engine, behind which were many bright and helpful looking bottles against mirrors, and great and little pewter measures, and bottles fastened in brass wire upside down with their corks replaced by taps, and a white china cask labelled "Shrub," and cigar boxes and boxes of cigarettes, and a couple of Toby jugs and a beautifully coloured hunting scene framed and glazed, showing the most elegant and beautiful people ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... nearly flat; upon his eyebrows and over his os frontis and scalp, a few straggling straight hairs were extended as an apology for a wig, but which was much more like a discarded crow's nest turned upside down. Immense black bushy eyebrows overhung a pair of the queerest looking oculars I had ever seen; below which sprung forth what had once been, no doubt, a nose, and perhaps in youth an elegant feature; but, Heaven help the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Morehead, Kennedy Riber, Laura Riber." These are the names of some of the streams north from Cooktown, George's country. On the other scrap of paper, according to him, the names of some of the islands in this neighbourhood were written. Though the papers were transposed and turned upside down, George could read them with equal facility. The list of rivers would be read for the islands, and the islands for the rivers, quite indifferently, and with entertaining naivete. But he treasured the papers, and continued to delude ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... and Venus. Those delightful chroniclers of the old religions provided themselves with a dozen different Loves. Study the fathers and the attributes of these Loves, and you will discover a complete social nomenclature,—and yet we fancy that we originate things! When the world turns upside down like an hour-glass, when the seas become continents, Frenchmen will find canons, steamboats, newspapers, and maps wrapped up in seaweed at the bottom of what ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... remarked the Wizard. "I'll use my own hat, if you please. Now, good people, observe me carefully. You see, there is nothing up my sleeve and nothing concealed about my person. Also, my hat is quite empty." He took off his hat and held it upside down, shaking it briskly. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... of Lazarus, Mary sat alone in his room beside the empty couch, which was turned upside down, as were the chairs also. The clothing that hung on the wall was covered with sackcloth and the tightly drawn window curtains were ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... to you:—"Dear Lou," she says, "you've made a great deal of trouble, and I hope you're satisfied. Things are all upside down, and I've never seen dada"—that's Mr. Higgins, of course—"I've never seen dada in such a bad temper, not since first I knew him. Mr. B."—that's Mr. Bowling, you know—"has told him plain that he doesn't think any more of Cissy, and that nothing mustn't be expected of him."—Oh ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... perhaps from this very defect of humor) were predominantly religious, and their theology, which was that of their times, was crude and cruel. The deep, sympathetic earnestness, which is the basis of the best humor, they had, but, to use an illustration of Richter, they could not turn sublimity upside down,—a great feat, only possible through sense of the comic, which, in its highest manifestation of humor, pillows pain in the lap of absurdity, throws such rays upon affliction as to make a grin to glimmer through gloom, and, with the fool ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... his cup, turned it upside down, put a gnawed crust on the top of it, and said, "Thank you." But it was quite plain that he wanted to be asked to ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... to sell the pigs, but they certainly began to feel very tired, especially Gabriel, who, having remained manfully upright all the morning, now felt such an aching in the legs that he was obliged to take a seat on a basket turned upside down. ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... these youngsters? I don't know what I ought to do to him for playing me this trick.' Mrs. Morris said this to the maid as they came to my side of the room. 'Think of all the work to be done, and which will have to be stopped for the day—the house all upside down—no chance for preparations for an extra supper for his company. And that big girl bespoke ice-cream as soon as she entered.' And then Mrs. Morris and Sarah turned into the recess of the bay window and laughed softly. Her vexation ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... reflected, upside down, in the still mirror through which the launch ploughs its rapid way. But looking backward where the inverted picture is broken and tossed by the waves from the launch's prow, he looks upon a kaleidoscope of color which ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... the plaque, and may be seen by the public in the rotunda of the restoration of Radio City. Though technically counterfeit, it looks like perfectly good money, except that Mr. Lincoln is missing one of his wrinkles and the words "FIVE DOLLARS" are upside down. ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn
... Lady This or Mrs. That to have made up her mind to give a ball, where will she give it? At home, no doubt, in the great majority of cases; but if her rooms happen to be small, or she wishes to avoid the nuisance of having her own house turned upside down (as it must be for a couple of days at the least if a ball is to be held in it), she may prefer—I am assuming expense to be no object—to hire some public rooms, like Willis's, or an empty house for the occasion; of which alternatives it is ten to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... cartridge-box and cap-box were slung to a single waist-belt, the scabbard for the bayonet also, but there was no bayonet. The brass plate on the lid of the cartridge-box was a U.S. plate; the belt-buckle also was Federal; both plate and buckle had been turned upside down, so that each bore the inverted letters S U. There were a few cartridges in the box—such cartridges as I had not seen before. I found that the rifle was not loaded, and I allowed it to ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... though the wind whistled over it as though it were the roof-pole of the world. More than once it seemed to Eric as though the apparatus-cart would be turned upside down by some of the terrific gusts, and the boy had a mental picture of the crew ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was apparent in the garret lodging in the gable. In front of the little window, an old bent bird-cage hung in the sunshine, which had not even a proper water-glass, but instead of it the broken neck of a bottle, turned upside down, and a cork stuck in to make it hold the water with which it was filled. An old maid stood at the window; she had hung chickweed over the cage, and the little linnet which it contained hopped from perch to perch and sang ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... see what good that would do, sir,' said Susan. 'The men is gone and nothing hasn't been took. The police would only come in and turn the place upside down and take up ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... placed a brass lamp, whose light was what he had discerned at the extremity of the passage. He could distinctly observe the furniture and inmates of the room. Of the former, the only articles were a table—on which were placed the remains of a homely meal—an iron bedstead, and a barrel, turned upside down, which served as a substitute for a chair. The bedstead had no curtains, but in lieu of them, there were hangings around it, which struck Delme as resembling mourning habiliments. Whilst the light operated ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... weakening—that the editors of, and writers upon, the Free Papers probably underestimate their own effect even now. They are never mentioned in the great daily journals. It is a point of honour with the Official Press to turn a phrase upside down, or, if they must quote, to quote in the most roundabout fashion, rather than print in plain black and white the three words "The New Age" ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... do with it," said Keith, positively, and to close the discussion, he lifted his satchel through the window, and, turning it upside down, emptied before the astonished teller a pile of bills which made him gasp. "Enter that ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their hands. The cross of St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; I have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the waving of the trees ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Isabel the Queen is herself under ward in the Castle of Berkhamsted, and all matters turned upside down. Man saith that the great men with the King be now Sir William de Montacute and Sir Edward de Bohun, and divers more of like sort. And my Lord of Lancaster, man saith, flung up his cap, and thanked God that he had lived to ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... the various crews to lend each other a hand in pushing off the boats, and so it happened now. When, however, they came to the Femboering, which was drawn up a good distance ashore, they found the oars and the thwarts turned upside down in the boat, and, more than that, despite all their exertions, it was impossible to move the boat from the spot. They tried once, twice, thrice; but it was of no use. But then one of them, who was known to have second sight, said that, from what he saw, it ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... With an excitement pardonable under the circumstances, yet tempered with thankful humility, I now applied my last and severest trial, my experimentum crucis. I turned the stone, now doubly precious in my eyes, with scrupulous exactness upside down. The physical exertion so far displaced my spectacles as to derange for a moment the focus of vision. I confess that it was with some tremulousness that I readjusted them upon my nose, and prepared my mind to bear with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... over the city and cast the sun into shadow. There, too, no little fear was felt for several days, since the people did not know and could not conjecture what had happened. They like the rest thought that everything was being turned upside down, that the sun was disappearing in the earth and the earth was bounding up to the sky. This ashes for the time being did them no great harm: later it bred among ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... and full of boughs: but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk. It is now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air. It is now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself. At length, worn ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... conscience will not allow him to accept it, but he will go murdering you by night and walking off with your cashbox, with a clear conscience! He does not call it a dishonest action but 'the impulse of a noble despair'; 'a negation'; or the devil knows what! Bah! everything is upside down, everyone walks head downwards. A young girl, brought up at home, suddenly jumps into a cab in the middle of the street, saying: 'Good-bye, mother, I married Karlitch, or Ivanitch, the other day!' And you think it quite right? You call such conduct estimable and natural? The 'woman question'? Look ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... startled Lloyd so that she dropped the pan, and the great mud pie turned upside down on ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... unload and store, turned to go. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they clattered down the worn old stairway. Josie snapped the cord that bound the third box. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She turned it upside down. Then she pawed it over. Then she went back to the contents of the first two boxes, clawing about among the limp garments with which the table was strewn. She was breathing quickly. Suddenly: "It ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Jester, who in happier days Amused us with your Prefaces and Plays, Acquiring a precarious renown By turning laws and morals upside down, Sticking perpetual pins in Mrs. Grundy, Railing at marriage or the British Sunday, And lavishing your acid ridicule On the foundations of imperial rule;— 'Twas well enough in normal times to sit And watch the workings ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... upside down, and instantly a sheet of oil covered the whole surface of the water. The billows fell as if by magic, the whole foaming sea seemed leveled, and the DUNCAN flew over its tranquil bosom into a quiet basin beyond ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... do nothing, for the boat almost immediately again fell over, bottom up. But a second comber, lifting her with redoubled violence, threw them all clear of the boat, turned her momentarily right way up, and then breaking into the masts and sails, tipped her for the third time upside down, flinging her at the same instant in mad fury clear of the angry water. So violent had been the blow which had thrown them clear, that they must inevitably all have perished, had not the last effort of the breakers actually hurled the boat again almost on the top ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... didn't seem to appear; not even after the teapot was turned upside down and shaken by both grandma's and Polly's anxious hands. Every other "receet" seemed to tumble out gladly, and stare them in the face—little dingy rolls of yellow paper, with an ancient odor of spice still clinging to them; but ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... let you in. A duke! Here has everything been respectable from the beginning of the world, as you may say, to the present day; and all of a sudden everything is turned upside down. ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... half-inch advertisements," said Flattner. "It will be a rotten-looking newspaper if it's anything like the sheet the Doraine put out on the trip down. No two letters matched, and some of 'em were always upside down. Why were they upside down, Pete? You're an old ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... reason if this dark gospel of despair were ever to gain currency; but, fortunately, it is only the morbid dream of a closet philosopher, who fancied the world was upside down because he could not unriddle it with his logical Rule ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... them; dexterously dodge tendency of sword to get between their knees; sit down with the consciousness that they are the cynosure of every eye, including those of JOSEPH GILLIS, regarding them across House through horn-bound spectacles. To-day everything upside down. Instead of moving the Address, HARCOURT on with question of Privilege—HARCOURT, a plain man, in civilian costume! Worst of it was, they could not go away and change their clothes. No one knows ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... the Pup git hung by her apron to the wheel of your car out in the road and her head is dangersome kinder upside down. It might run away. Can you come and git her ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... small things of need away, meaning to be no more than five minutes at the work; but, to my amazement, the whole of the place had been turned utterly inside out by one who had been there before me. My trunk lay upside down; my writing-case was unlocked and stripped, my diary was torn and rent, my clothes were scattered; I thought at first that a common cheat of a hotel thief had been busy snapping up trifles; but I got a shock greater than any ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Besides the fellows with their cocked hats tilted rakishly over their ears, and the clubs fastened to their wrists, whom I had already seen in the morning, and who were now running here and there, and turning everything upside down, there was the bailiff, Zimmer, standing before one of the tables, dressed in black, with a grave air and penetrating glance, and near him the secretary Roth, with his red wig, imposing countenance, ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... insufferable London taxi-drivers drove everybody into the splendid busses; and in another month immense excitement because the strike of all the insufferable London bus-drivers drove everybody into the splendid taxis. M. Pegond accomplished the astounding feat of flying upside down at Juvisy without being killed and then came and flew upside down without being killed at Brooklands. One man flew over the Simplon Pass and another over the Alps. Colonel Cody flew to his death in one waterplane, and Mr. Hawker made a superb failure to ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... top of a high green rock, all covered with barnacles, on a huge tuft of sponge, sat Lord Cuttle-fish, playing on three musical instruments at once. His great warty speckled head, six feet high, like a huge bag upside down, was bent forward to read the notes of his music book by the light of a wax candle, which was stuck in the feelers of a prickly lobster, and patiently held. Of his six pulpy arms one long one ran down like the trunk of an elephant, fingering ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... is used to make intransitive verbs, thus: renversi, to overthrow, turn upside down, renversigxi, to turn (intr.) upside down, to get overthrown; fari, to make, farigxi, to become; perdigxi, to get ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann
... delicatessen, silk, and churches. At the top of every hill—and there's a hill every block—is a chapel or a convent, and Notre Dame de Fourviere dominates them all. From a distance this pile looks like an eighteenth century dresser turned upside down, but the interior, which is in process of completion, is amazing. You ought to go and take a look at it some day. You will see the most extraordinary jumble of Assyrian, Roman, Gothic, and God knows what, jacked together by Bossan, the only ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... freely around the table as water flows in the Seine. It was like a brook overflowing after a rainstorm when the soil is parched. Coupeau raised the bottle high when pouring to see the red jet foam in the glass. Whenever he emptied a bottle, he would turn it upside down and shake it. One more dead solder! In a corner of the laundry the pile of dead soldiers grew larger and larger, a veritable cemetery of bottles onto which other debris ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... to investigate his domestic arrangements. Needle and thread. Now what do you suppose he is doing with needle and thread? Oh, it's that little lacework that Mrs.——Sketches! I wonder whom he's sketching. You, Helen? Me? Upside down, of course. No, it's——Yes, we may ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Buddhas, of crystal, glass, silver, copper, and other materials. In the entrance hall, likewise, are several stone statues of different gods, with other ornaments, most of them roughly and stiffly executed. In the middle stands a small plain monument of stone, resembling a bell turned upside down; it is said to cover the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... lives to a too dreadfully subtle eminence. In our day—in our many days—we have adored everything conceivable, and now we have to fall back on the inconceivable. We stand our idols on their heads, it is newer to do so, and we think we prefer them upside down. Talking constantly, we reel blindfold through eternity, and perhaps if we are lucky, once or twice in a score of lives, the blindfolding handkerchief slips, and we wriggle one eye free, and see gods like trees walking. By Jove, that gives us enough to talk about for two or three lives! ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... other. They traverse it like measuring-lines on some great glass table—you see the reflection of the mountains of Tihany, with the double tower of the church, as distinctly as if it were real, only the towers are upside down. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway, took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... was running in a tiny circle, but his mind was compassing large revolutions. The events of the last few days had cut deep. His life had been turned upside down. All his predispositions had been suddenly brought to check, his habits turned upon the flank and routed, his mental postures flung into confusion. He had to start life again; but it could not be in the way of any previous travel of mind or body. The line of cleavage was sharp and wide, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for a moment. One big, mottled arm shot out and caught Toad by a fore-leg, while the other gripped him fast by a hind-leg. Then the world turned suddenly upside down, the barge seemed to flit lightly across the sky, the wind whistled in his ears, and Toad found himself flying through the air, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... had settled in a tree. He was clinging upside down, with his wings folded over his eyes. Up the trunk of the tree, the oddest kind of a cat was climbing ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... the help of the little girl, would try to be everything that the billboards pictured, from the roaring lion in his cage to the painted clown who cut such side splitting capers and the human fly that, with her gay Japanese parasol, walked upside down upon a polished ceiling. When circus day was coming, the fairies and knights and princes and soldiers and all their tried and true companions were forced to go somewhere—anywhere—out of the boy's way. There was no time, in those busy days, even for fishing. The ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright |
