"Rocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stupidly ignorant. I know papa used to say it was always the most experienced sportsman who took most care about unloading his gun on going into a house. Why, if you're walking along the pier, and see some young fools standing up in a boat and rocking it until the gunwale touches the water, you may be sure they're haberdashers down from the borough for a day, who have never been ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... here are delightful watering-pots, exquisitely painted; wonderful cake covers, powder-boxes, blotters, brackets;—every single thing a little gem of clever design and individual workmanship. It is more fascinating than Toyland or Santa Claus' shop. These "rocking toys" are particularly fascinating: the dreadnought that careens at perilous angles, and the kicking mule which knocks its driver over as often as you like to make it. Shelves on shelves of these wonder-things complete, and a whole great ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... was filling his room, and basking in its rays in the parlor or rocking-chair sat "Mr. Charley," pale and wasted to a most interesting degree. He was sitting, looking at Miss Edith, digging industriously in her flower-garden, with one of the boarders for under-gardener, and listening to Mr. Darrell proposing he should tell them his name, in order ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... may say, Perhaps upon a rainy day, Perhaps while at the cradle rocking. Instead of knitting at a stocking, She 'd catch a paper, pen, and ink, And easily the verses clink. Perhaps a headache at a time Would make her on her bed recline, And rather than be merely idle, She 'd give her fancy rein and bridle. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... against the sky, A fir tree rocking its lullaby, Swings, swings, Its emerald wings, Swelling the song that my ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... how she held my arm against her with that loving, familiar, rocking motion of a woman who is soothing a baby at her breast and kissed my coat sleeve? She released my arm and, turning to the window, leaned her head upon its sill and shook with sobs. The dusk had thickened. As I returned ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... of two minutes the masterly woman advertised the emotions she had suffered by burying her face in the Rose's coat; rocking gently. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... fairly cramped with astonishment Rae Malgregor doubled up very suddenly at the waist-line, and thrusting her neck oddly forward after the manner of a startled crane, stood peering sharply round the corner of the rocking-chair at Zillah Forsyth. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sudden the ship was smitten from under the keel with a heavy, soundless blow, and the waters of the firth ebbed and flowed fiercely about us; and then the sound passed on and down the firth swiftly and strangely as it had come, and left us rocking on the troubled waters that plashed and broke along the rocks of the shore, while the still, thick air seemed full of the screams of the terrified eagles and sea birds that had ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... and glides swiftly past on its long, long race. Pleasantly the ripples break over the prostrate monarch of the forest that is lodged against the beach, and projects, branchless and barkless, into the stream; and mournfully the worn trunk sways up and down, as though tired of this rocking which has continued the same year after year; weary, and desiring to be at rest. Floods come rushing down upon floods with heavy tread, glance successively under the moonlight that is poured into the channel before me, and then are forced forward into the darkness of the future. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... home-made rocking chairs, before an open fire place in which was a roaring fire of oak logs, it was, as Zim Smith expressed it, "solid comfort." Finally supper was announced, and the announcement was never more welcome than to that hungry crowd. ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... waiting inside. That Mrs. Sprockett from across the street, who was with his mother, had whispered to him to be brave. His mother sat very still in her rocking chair, her head bowed, her hand pressed to her eyes. He knew she was praying. Unable to hold himself, he had dropped at her feet and buried his head in her lap. He had cried brokenly, his shoulders heaving spasmodically, and he had felt her hand ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... walked about the dooryard and out-buildings—Tunis and the visitor—and Aunt Lucretia watched them from her rocking-chair on the porch. What her thoughts were regarding her nephew and the girl it would be hard to guess, but whatever they were, they made her face no grimmer than usual, and the light in her bespectacled eyes was scarcely one of dislike or even of disapproval. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Plenty of rocking chairs, lounges that make one sleepy just to look at them, open fires in every room, and nothing too fine for the sun to glorify; butter, eggs, cream, vegetables, poultry—simply perfect, and the rare, ecstatic privilege of eating onions—onions raw, boiled, baked, ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... herself beside her, and John her husband seated himself on the other side of her, and Mr Boffin stood beaming at every one and everything he could see, with surpassing jollity and enjoyment. Mrs Boffin was then taken with a laughing fit of clapping her hands, and clapping her knees, and rocking herself to and fro, and then with another laughing fit of embracing Bella, and rocking her to and fro—both fits, of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... man have received your Article in the Critic, and send you in return my thanks and New Year's greeting on the wings of this east-wind, which, I trust, is blowing softlier and warmlier on your good gray head than here, where it is rocking the elms and ilexes of ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... fled about her yet seemed to grow no shorter ahead, and the dark line of cloud mystery, with the towering mountains beyond, were no nearer than when she first started. It seemed much like riding on a rocking-horse, one never got anywhere, only no rocking-horse ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... red; the room was reeling, the walls rocking dizzily. She made a step forward with both hands blindly outstretched, and ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... in the rocking-chair, at the furthest corner from the window, and perfectly engrossed with the last monthly magazine. But she came out of them all with wonderful ease and promptness, shook hands very cordially with the new comer, seated him in her corner and chair before he could make ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... feature about him was that a saddle appeared to fit him so snugly it never slipped. And another feature, infinitely the most attractive to me, was his easy gait. His trot and lope were so comfortable and swinging, like the motion of a rocking-chair, that I could ride him all day with pleasure. But when it came to chasing after hounds and bears along the rim Stockings gave me trouble. Too eager, too spirited, he would not give me time to choose the direction. He jumped ditches and gullies, plunged into bad jumbles or rock, tried to ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... gave way by degrees. At first he sat up straight and stiff with polite astonishment before the spectacle of a British "rag." He paid the dubious tribute of a weak giggle to the bombardment of Dr. Bird. He was convulsed at the first performance of Prosper Panne. In his final collapse he was rocking to and fro and crowing ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... nothings," said Mrs. Mogilewsky sadly. "No money, und your papa, he has all times a scare he shouldn't to get no more, the while the boss"—and here followed incomprehensible, but depressing, financial details, until the end of the interview found Morris and his mother sobbing and rocking in one another's arms. So Morris was helpless, his mother poor, and Teacher ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... one of the great naked arms of the sails projected from it. Her lantern was blown out by now, but she clung to the arm, and became aware that the wooden cap of the structure, still anchored to its brick foundation, lay upon its side rocking to and fro like a boat upon an angry sea. The water was near her; that she knew by its seethe and rush, although she could not see it, but as yet it did not even wet ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... eunuchs and waiting-women. But in a palace the gossip of the kitchen scullions will creep to the throne. Soon there was a pretty to-do. The palace was the pulse of Cho-Sen, and when the palace rocked, Cho-Sen trembled. And there was reason for the rocking. Our marriage would be a blow straight between the eyes of Chong Mong-ju. He fought, with a show of strength for which Yunsan was ready. Chong Mong-ju disaffected half the provincial priesthood, until they pilgrimaged in processions a mile long to the palace gates and frightened the ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... world honors, sat in a rocking-chair in her room in the Domain Hotel, Almaville, the stopping place of the wealthiest and most aristocratic visitors. Her small well shaped hands were lying one upon the other, resting on the back of an open book which was in her lap, face downward. Slowly she rocked backward ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... boy on a lean pony was seen approaching them in a cloud of dust. The pony's short canter made his pace as easy as a rocking-chair; and Lara's son, who rode him, was half asleep in the heat. The post-bag dangled from his saddle, and the reins lay on ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... mother about the waist with both arms, Tad whirled her dizzily, the full length of the porch and back, finally dropping her into a rocking chair ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... were supplied with good bedding and very white sheets. A large cypress table, on which we saw a pile of books and our workboxes; a washstand, also of cypress, but well furnished and surmounted by a mirror; our trunks in a corner; three rocking-chairs—this was all our furniture. There was ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... boat was of good size, and it was flat-bottomed, which meant it would not easily tip over. Flossie and Freddie each knew how to row, though they had to have oars made especially for them. But they knew how to keep in the middle of a boat, and never thought of rocking it or changing seats, so they were much safer than most children of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... one to be with her! Oh for something she could grasp, and stop this endless swaying and rocking and trembling of all things else! And then, following close, came other words, more lately learned. Not now read over, with those pencil marks beside them; but read often enough before, happily, to have been learned by heart; and now passing and re-passing in unceasing ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... one a good deal like another, except, as the summer deepened, the weather became warmer, the foliage changed, a drowsy haze gathered along the valleys and on the mountain-side. He sat more often now in a large rocking-chair, and generally seemed to be looking through half-dosed lids toward the Monadnock heights, that were always changing in aspect-in color and in form—as cloud shapes drifted by or gathered in those lofty hollows. White ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... compelled his trembling slaves to row him across the stream; several times the boat was near being swamped, but he had seized the helm himself with his uninjured hand, and guided it firmly and surely, though the rocking of the boat kept his broken hand in great and constant pain. After a few ineffectual attempts he succeeded in landing. The storm had blown out the lanterns at the masts—the signal lights for which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself, and he feasted his eyes upon her, forgetful for a time of all else. But afterward when Katy left him for a moment he noticed the well-worn carpet, the six cane-seated chairs, the large stuffed rocking chair, the fall-leaf table, with its plain wool spread, and, lastly, the really expensive piano, the only handsome piece of furniture the room contained, and which he rightly guessed must ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... in a few minutes she tripped down stairs, and when her mamma followed soon after, she heard the creak of Fay's little rocking chair, and the words, "Sleep, baby, sleep," which told her as she peeped through a crack in the door, that Susy was getting her last lullaby from the fond little mother, who at the proper time presented Susy all dressed for her journey ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 2, February 1888 • Various
... little sitting room of the farmhouse, where Rosebel had sank down in a rocking-chair, crying silently. In a broken voice she asked to be told about Paul, and sitting beside her, Deck gave her the particulars just as they had occurred, and told where the money was to be found. The recital brought tears to Deck's eyes, also, which he hastily brushed away, and ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... boat new before the wind, dancing and rocking on the waves to the intense delight of the older children; but Gracie was afraid till her father took her in his arms and held her fast, assuring her they were ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... gravely; then he held out both his hands and Mrs. Cobb, stooping, gathered him like a harvest. Being lifted into her arms, he at once tore her spectacles from her nose and laughed aloud. Taking them from him gently, she put them on again, and set him in the cushioned rocking chair under the lilac bushes beside the steps. Then she took one of his soft hands in hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like birds before his eyes, and snapped them like castanets, remembering all the arts she had ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Forests, and inchantments drear, Where more is meant then meets the ear. Thus night oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appeer, Not trickt and frounc't as she was wont, With the Attick Boy to hunt, But Cherchef't in a comly Cloud, While rocking Winds are Piping loud, Or usher'd with a shower still, When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the russling Leaves, With minute drops from off the Eaves. And when the Sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me Goddes bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... entrance. The sunlight fell upon his flat right side, and Chinn wondered. Never had he seen a tiger marked after this fashion. Except for his head, which was staringly barred, he was dappled—not striped, but dappled like a child's rocking-horse in rich shades of smoky black on red gold. That portion of his belly and throat which should have been white was orange, and his tail and ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... the Nonsuch rode concealed was so completely land- locked that not a breath of air stirred within it as the boats left the ship's side, the surface of the water was mirror-like in its absolute placidity, and it was only when the men began to descend into the boats, rocking them more or less as they entered them, and so sent a few ripples undulating away across the glassy surface, or when some fish stirred in the depths below, that the phosphorescence latent in the black water awakened ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... is rightly left in the open air—turned out into some sweet meadow or paddock. It would be cruel to make him spend his declining years inside a house, where no grass is. Is it less cruel that a fine old rocking-horse should be thrust from the nursery out into the open air, upon ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... dead. In the first two months of the war the corps of field correspondents, in proportion to its numerical strength, lost almost as many men from death and casualty as did the army and navy of the United States. The letters and telegrams which they wrote on their knees, in the saddle, and on the rocking, swaying cabin tables of despatch-boats while hurrying to West Indian cable-stations were not always models of English composition, nor were they always precisely accurate; but if the patrons of their respective papers had been placed in the field and compelled to write under similar conditions, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... himself swaying and rocking, as though tossed gently on the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took shape in his struggling brain—he was at sea; he was on a ship in the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He tried to call out, but his tongue ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... for some 60 or 70 yards. In these wings are the bed-rooms of guests, while the centre building contains the drawing-room, dining-room, and sleeping apartments of the host and hostess. Under the verandah of the front portico stands a large round marble table, surrounded by about a dozen rocking-chairs. Here the men of the house congregate before dinner and breakfast for "Peyt," a villainous compound which is drunk with gin, and is supposed to stimulate ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... ablaze. He passed the twenty-five room "cottage" of the gentleman from Chicago. Then he halted. Opposite him was the little Edwards dwelling and shop. The curtains were up and there was a lamp burning on the small counter. Beside the lamp, in a rocking chair, sat Olive Edwards, the widow, sewing. As he gazed she dropped the sewing in her lap, ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nurse's exasperation with her, first for leaving the child alone, half uncovered, in a chilly room, and now for again withholding it, Louie put the little creature against her neck, rocking and crooning to it. The sudden warm contact stilled the baby; it rubbed its head into the soft hollow thus presented to it, and its hungry lips sought eagerly for their natural food. The touch of ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her now; and under its dominion she was uplifted, carried along. Her mind moved toward it with a reckless rocking speed, the perilous certainty ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... its mournful chestnut-tree, on which the blood of the murdered man is yet red. The gridata, or wake, is assembled in a dark room. On the wooden board, called tola, the corpse lies stretched; and round it are women, veiled in the blue-black mantle of Corsican costume, moaning and rocking themselves upon their chairs. The pasto or conforto, food supplied for mourners, stands upon a side table, and round the room are men with savage eyes and bristling beards, armed to the teeth, keen for vengeance. The dead man's musket and pocket-pistol ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... the former would have been enough for the interior, but for the fact that a visitor had preceded Mike, and because of his presence a roaring fire was burning on the hearth. In front of this sat a young man leaning back in a rocking chair, with a bandaged leg resting on a pillow laid upon a second chair in front of him. He was smoking a cigarette, and despite the fact that something ailed him, looked ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... able to lie down, a Japanese woman will lift her long sleeve before her face era she begins to nod. In this second-class railway-carriage there are now three women asleep in a row, all with faces screened by the left sleeve, and all swaying together with the rocking of the train, like lotos-flowers in a soft current. (This use of the left sleeve is either fortuitous or instinctive; probably instinctive, as the right hand serves best to cling to strap or seat in case of shock.) The spectacle is at once pretty and ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... escaped across a stone causeway from the kitchen, and all the Menard negroes, in their best clothes, were collected on the causeway to serve it. Through open doors they watched the flying figures, and the rocking of many a dusky heel kept time to ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... beyond my hopes; month after month passing away like days, and as for days,—I almost fancied that I could see the sun move. How comfortable, thought I, thus to travel over the world in my closet! how delightful to double Cape Horn and cross the African Desert in my rocking-chair,—to traverse Caffraria and the Mogul's dominions in the same pleasant vehicle! This is living to some purpose; one day dining on barbecued pigs in Otaheite; the next in danger of perishing amidst the snows of Terra del Fuego; then to have a lion cross my path in the heart ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... whilst they believe that the danger of sexual stimulation in climbing results from the use of too thin a pole, and does not occur in climbing a thick pole, or in climbing a rope. It has been suggested, in this connexion, that the rocking-horse should be eliminated from the list of permissible toys. Objections have also been made, on the ground of the possibility of improper sexual stimulation, against bicycling and horseback-riding; but I think these objections are largely unfounded, for, as far ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... the timely help of Madonna Camilla, who sent us part of her supper from her barge, I for one," writes the lively lady-in-waiting, "should have certainly been by this time a saint in Paradise." As for going to bed, all wish for sleep was put out of their heads by the rocking of the ship and the uncomfortable berths, and the poor Marchesana was so cold and wretched without a fire that she wished herself dead, and her lady-in-waiting could not keep back her tears. However, at length these miseries were ended, Piacenza was safely reached, on the 12th of January, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... rocking-chair, and gave a sigh of satisfaction. 'I feel I deserve a rest. I've done a good day's work this morning. I'm afraid I've tired you, Mr Howroyd, and taken up a lot of your time. I'd no idea it took so long to look over a mill. Why, we must have ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... kept, of course, and there was a slight alarm once, but it passed off; and the sun rose again, with the wind dropping, and leaving us once more rocking gently upon the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... however, that Mary Erskine was inclined to accept this proposal, from a conversation which took place between her and Mrs. Bell the next evening. It was after tea. The sun had gone down, and the evening was beautiful. Mrs. Bell was sitting in a low rocking-chair, on a little covered platform, near the door, which they called the stoop. There were two seats, one on each side of the stoop, and there was a vine climbing over it. Mrs. Bell was knitting. Mary Bell, who was then about six years ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... sit down, Miss Lenox." And Keziah drew a rush-bottomed rocking chair toward the doorway. Susan was looking at the interior. The lower floor of the house was divided into three small rooms. This central room was obviously the parlor—the calico-covered sofa, the center table, the two dingy chromos, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... when Billy bade her a bluff and friendly farewell, and he was practically driven from the room by Isabel; who then returned to her charge, gathered her close in her arms, and sat with her so, rocking her gently till gradually ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... obtaining the meaning of the writer. They seldom indicate the length of the pause to be made; this must be determined by the sense. A Hyphen (-) is used between syllables in a word divided at the end of a line; as, "be-cause," "ques-tion," and between the parts of a compound word; as, Rocking-chair, good-by. ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... showing much loyalty and more wit; and the interest with which he followed the education and amusements of the Heir-Apparent, the anxiety with which he made suggestions for the best appointments, in his nursery-household, to the office of the "Master of the (Rocking) Horse," the "Clerk of the Pea-Shooter," and so forth; the delight with which, by the hand of Leech (1846), he published a charming cartoon of the lad as a man-o'-war's man, thus popularising the dress of English boys, while the sketch itself was widely reproduced as a bronze or plaster ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... happened and how sorry she was that she had been so cross and peevish when she dressed them. And while the dolls said never a word they looked at their little mistress with love in their eyes as she sat in the little red rocking chair and held Raggedy Ann ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... Neyoor nursery. Ponnamal had one small infant so cross that nobody wanted her. She would cry half the night, a snarly, snappy cry, that would not stop unless she was rocked, and began again as soon as the rocking was stopped. ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... forward—as if he had been a shuttlecock between two battledores—and it was just as much as he could do to keep his hold among the branches, much less finish the loading of his fusil, which he had only half accomplished when the rocking began. Had he been alone, his position would have been one of great danger: for no doubt, in process of time, the bear would have torn down the tree. But the efforts of Bruin were brought to a sudden termination; for Ivan and Alexis, having now reloaded, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... she lay, I feel her fingers in my hair"... But your lamp is bright across the way, And your mother knits in the rocking chair. ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... a weird, savage, hurried chorus, interspersed with hoots and flapping of wings, all talking together and rocking ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... motion they make, glinting and bubbling about the crags of the summit, sifting through the woods, feeling their way from grove to grove, ruffling the loose hair on the shoulders of the bears, fanning and rocking young birds in their cradles, making a trumpet of every corolla, and carrying ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... occasion serves the rare harpooner, when the whale and canoe appear as if about to meet each other straight head-on. Then, in a flash, the man in the bow is up on his feet, with the harpoon so poised that the rocking water, the mettlesome canoe, and his watchful comrade in the stern, all form part of the concentrated energy with which he brings his every faculty to a single point of instantaneous action. There, for one fateful ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... The floor was covered with a carpet like green velvet. There were fine lace curtains at the windows and beautiful pictures on the walls. There was a little white bed, and a dressing-table, a bookcase full of books, a stand with a work basket on it, and a rocking-chair. There was a woman's picture above the bookcase. Mrs. Griggs says she thinks it was a coloured photograph, but she didn't know who it was. Anyway, it was a very pretty girl. But the most amazing thing of all was that A WOMAN'S DRESS was hanging over ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... so kind and interested about the money, too," went on Miss Flora, gently rocking to and fro. "Bert Benson sells stocks and invests money for folks, you know, and Mis' Benson said he'd got some splendid-payin' ones, and he'd ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... modern dwelling, till then invisible, nestling on its very brink. The symmetrically-trimmed foliage he had noticed were the luxuriant Madeira vines that hid the rude pillars of the veranda; the moving object was a rocking-chair, with its back towards the intruder, that disclosed only the brown hair above, and the white skirts and small slippered feet below, of a seated female figure. In the mean time, a second voice from the interior of the house had replied to the figure in the chair, who was evidently ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... you must know, was the pride of Mandeville, the adored, the admired of all, with her petite, half-Spanish, half-French beauty. Whether rocking in the shade of the Cherokee-rose-covered gallery of Grandpere Colomes' big house, her fair face bonnet-shaded, her dainty hands gloved to keep the sun from too close an acquaintance, or splashing the spray from the bow of her little ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... child Marjory Had one white hour of life brim full; Now the old nurse, the rocking sea, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... grave half-moon, The Sakya children sang the mantra through, And learned the greater and the lesser gods; The dyers stretching waistcloths in the sun Wet from the vats—orange, and rose, and green; The soldiers clanking past with swords and shields, The camel-drivers rocking on the humps, The Brahman proud, the martial Kshatriya, The humble toiling Sudra; here a throng Gathered to watch some chattering snake-tamer Wind round his wrist the living jewellery Of asp and nag, or charm the ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... the open air. She wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking her spirit. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... could not but sharply remind him of his wounds. He had forty miles to travel before he could reach Schlestadt; and in the villages on the road there was gossip that day of a man with a tormented face who rode rocking in his saddle as though the furies were at ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... and beside the fire in Mrs. Ginniss's attic-room sat a little figure, propped in the wooden rocking-chair with pillows and comfortables; while upon a small stand close beside her were arranged a few cheap toys, a plate with some pieces of orange upon it, a sprig of geranium in a broken-nosed pitcher of water, and a ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... not waiting to call a servant, procured three or four sticks of wood from some unknown quarter, and began piling them into the stove. They burned feebly, for the fire was very low indeed, and I still shivered; so, catching up the rocking chair, he ran off with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was promptly worshiped by a hackman of marked conversational powers, who, whip in hand, assured her that his carriage was widely celebrated under the titles of the "Rocking Chair," the "Old Shoe," and the "Glider," on account of its incredible ease of motion; and that, owing to its exquisite abbreviation of travel to the emotions, those who rode in it had actually been known to dispute that they had ridden ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... swimming eyes, kissed her, hurriedly replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the fire with the tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion. Flip had withdrawn to the window, and was looking out upon the rocking pines. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... with its mouth upward, rocking on the bend in its midst, so that it might well have had a gill or two left in it, for it had a twist as well as the curve in its length, which was somewhat longer ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... few paces and leaned for support against the gnarled trunk of a scrub pine, watching him with a fascinated gaze as he stood bracing himself against the inward storm under which his own world and hers seemed rocking. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... rocking in her small splint chair by the rose-draped window, her thoughts dwelling on long dark green grass, the shade of elms, and cows knee-deep in river-shallows; this was California—hot, arid, tedious in ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... a new land. I want to be born again. I want to be what you patently are, an American. That is why I risked life a hundred times in coming all these miles, why I sit in this chair before you, with the room rocking because they battered in my head. I do not offer a human wreck, an illiterate mind, in exchange for citizenship. I bring a tolerably decent manhood. Try me! Always I have admired you people. Always we Russians have. But there ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... over. We lost all the glory of the sunset except what we got by reflection, being on the side of the mountain we were, with the dense woods between. Big sullen clouds kept drifting over and a wind got lost in the trees that kept them rocking and groaning in a horrid way. But we were just as cozy as we could be and rest ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... a premium in that gruesome madhouse. Close beside the fellow on the rocking stone there hung two ropes from rings in the roof. There were iron hooks on their lower ends, and these were passed through the back muscles of another naked man, who kept himself swinging by touching the floor with one toe. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... Dicky!" she implored. "Sit down, you're rocking the boat! Save your mathematics for Martin. Don't you know that I could never find out why 'x' was equal to 'y' or to anything else ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing: "Wahonowin! Wahonowin! Would that I had perished for you, Would that I were dead as you are! Wahonowin! Wahonowin!" And he rushed into the wigwam, Saw the old Nokomis slowly Rocking to and fro and moaning, Saw his lovely Minnehaha Lying dead and cold before him, And his bursting heart within him Uttered such a cry of anguish, That the forest moaned and shuddered, That the very stars in heaven Shook and trembled with his anguish. Then he sat down, still and speechless, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... it, mother; as you and I have conceived of it while up here among these sheep pastures." He glanced inimically for a moment at the barren slopes above them. "I have you to thank for making me comprehend the difference." He continued the rocking movement for a while, his hands still clasping his knees. Then he ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... the left-hand wall is a door, and beyond it a window. Near the window are a round table, armchairs and a small sofa. In the right-hand wall, at the farther end, another door; and on the same side, nearer the footlights, a stove, two easy chairs and a rocking-chair; between the stove and the door, a small table. Engravings on the wall; a cabinet with china and other small objects; a small book-case with well-bound books. The floors are carpeted, and a fire burns in the stove. ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... his county, whereupon, being called to order, I blushed and begged pardon, but put myself at ease by informing the gentlemen that in all the bygone years while they had been studying parliamentary rules, I had been rocking the cradle. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... type-wheel at a time, it becomes necessary to shift them back and forth from time to time, in order to bring the desired characters in line with the paper tape. This is accomplished through the movements of a three-arm rocking-lever attached to the wheel-sleeve at the end of the shaft. This lever is actuated through the agency of two small pins carried by an arm projecting from the press-lever, PL. As the latter moves up and down the pins play upon the under side of the lower arm of the rocking-lever, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... was rocking up and down; sometimes it turned round so quickly that the Tin Soldier trembled; but he remained firm, he did not move a muscle, and looked straight ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... reason to believe him dead. Or maybe— Oh, what if Albert Gaston had come back and kidnapped Billy! The thought was too awful. She dropped right down in the kitchen where she stood by the old patchwork rocking chair that always stood handy in the window when she wanted to peel potatoes, and prayed: "Oh, God, don't let it be! Don't bring that bad man back to this world again! Take care of my Billy and bring him back to me, Amen!" Over and over again she prayed, and it seemed to ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... thunder!" "I feel rain!" they begin shouting, and such ill omens, if really in evidence, would be enough to force an adjournment; but the sky is delightfully clear. The president simply shrugs his shoulders; and now the Pnyx is fairly rocking with the yell, "A ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the trees on the terrace outside the Marvis Bay Golf and Country Club. It ruffled the leaves and cooled the forehead of the Oldest Member, who, as was his custom of a Saturday afternoon, sat in the shade on a rocking-chair, observing the younger generation as it hooked and sliced in the valley below. The eye of the Oldest Member was thoughtful and reflective. When it looked into yours you saw in it that perfect peace, that peace beyond understanding, ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... crafty, but men saw his face, and heard that which was in the voice, and they needed no word of reward to come, but shouted as we had shouted when the bride came home to Grimsby, and I thought that with the shout the throne of Hodulf was rocking. ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... over his mother's face as she seated herself in her low rocking-chair. Fred washed the dishes and put them in the closet. He swept the kitchen, brought up the potatoes from the cellar for the dinner and washed them, and then set out ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... heralds of greater dolls yet to come, which shall be wound up to fetch and carry, to sew on buttons—nay, it is even possible (in the wildest of dreams) that they may be made to boil potatoes properly. And I have been told that a recent improvement in boys' rocking horses, by means of which a trotting motion is given to the legs of those docile animals, has suggested to a mechanic of this city the construction of a very good automatic steed, whose only fault ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... abolish sea-sickness for ever! The principle was that of a huge swinging saloon, moved by hydraulic power, while a man directed the movement by a sort of spirit-level. Previously the inventor had set up a model in his garden, where a number of scientists saw the section of a ship rocking violently by steam. I recall that pleasant day down at Denmark Hill, with all the engineers assembled, who were thus going to sea in a garden. A small steam-engine worked the apparatus—a kind of a section of ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... there is this among other differences—that some people do not wake up, because they want a new brain first, such as they will get when they die, perhaps; while others do not wake up, because their whole education has been a rocking of them to sleep. And there is this difference between the girls, that the one is full of herself, and the other is not. The one has a close, the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... scintillated from every quarter of the horizon: the thunder broke over the Castle, as if the keep were rocking with artillery: amid the momentary pauses of the explosion, the rain was ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... have a chance to tell her," he explained to his wife late in the evening, as he sat in a tiny rocking-chair several sizes too small for him, "that the baby wasn't a her at all, though if I thought he'd grow up into such a lovely one as she is, I don't know but ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... thanks, not one single word; and now this! This little box came last year, and I never even troubled to read this paper about it. Think how he planned it as a surprise for me, and what he must have paid to have it done. God forgive me! for I've been a wicked woman." And she wept afresh, rocking herself to ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... A—— was reading, Hum established himself on the top of his head just over the middle of his forehead, in the precise place where our young belles have lately worn stuffed humming-birds, making him look as if dressed out for a party. Hum's most favorite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair, which, being covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he could catch his little claws. There he would sit, balancing himself cleverly if its occupant chose to swing to and fro, and seeming to be listening to ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... every joy in seeing her pass before him, of hearing the swish of her skirts on the pavement of the city; it meant the giving up of all hope ever to win her, of all thought of a future home, the patter of children's feet, the rocking of a tiny cradle. It meant the sacrifice of every thought of happiness and of every desire of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... twinkling of eyes, both of mine and hers, I had taken her bundle from her, seated her in the largest rocking chair, and she had untied her bonnet strings, which denoted that she had ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... smouldering slowly with some scarcely dry sticks on the top of them, served as an apology for a fire, and threw out the smallest possible heat to warm the shrivelled palms held up ever and anon before it. As she sat, occasionally rocking herself backwards and forwards, she sang, in a voice which sometimes sounded high and shrill, till it rose into almost a shriek, and then again sank down into a long-continued moan. She uttered words often with great rapidity, though even ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... window and threw himself at full length into the cradle, where he commenced rocking himself with a force and rapidity that ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... than ever, struggling and sobbing. The nurse, with a gesture of despair, went to it, took it from the wet-nurse's arms, and began walking up and down, rocking it. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... her thin breast to her nursing babe, rocking slowly, her blue eyes straining into the future ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the boughs, rocking the flowers to sleep; the wild birds sang their evening hymns, and all within the wood grew calm and still; paler and paler grew the purple light, lower and lower drooped little Annie's head, the tall ferns bent to shield her from the dew, the whispering pines sang a soft lullaby; ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... room as little the look of a public house as possible. Easy chairs, as Mrs. Carleton remarked with a disgusted face, one could not expect to find in a country inn; there were instead as many as half a dozen of "those miserable substitutes" as she called rocking-chairs, and sundry fashions of couches and sofas, in various degrees of elegance and convenience. The best of these, a great chintz-covered thing, full of pillows, stood invitingly near the bright fire. There Mr. Carleton ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... neighboring village. Every one was strolling about in Sunday attire, the houses were gay, and there was melody in the very air. But I walked off and sat solitary, like a bittern among the reeds, by a lonely pond in the garden, rocking myself in a little skiff tied there, while the vesper bells sounded faintly from the town and the swans glided to and fro on the placid water. A sadness as ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... unwontedly refined and gentle, was sitting in a big rocking-chair with her feet on a stool, her eyes fixed on the mountains, which showed through the open window. All the morning a sense of profound change, of something passing, had oppressed her. Now that she was about to ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... the woman went about some little work. Presently the girl arose and dressed herself. She felt much stronger than when at the home of Martha Sampson, in spite of what she had experienced in running away. She sank down in a rocking chair, to ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... midst of the uproar, while the men were shouting into each other's faces, and the trunk was rocking between them shoulder high, a sunburnt man, with a thick beard and a formidable voice, a stalwart fellow in a pilot jacket and wide-brimmed hat, came hurrying up the cabin-stairs, and a dog came running behind him. A moment later he had ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... quite easy to play the philosopher if only they would have listened, but they would not. Mrs. Day was rocking herself backwards and forwards in her chair, the screaming Franky in her arms; Bessie had flung herself upon the floor and was beating it with her palms and calling upon the name of papa. George Boult was sorry for their misfortune, but ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... It's as good as any in the town!" She coaxed John with her voice. "You can marry some nice, respectable girl and bring her here," she said, "and I'll gladly give place to her when she comes!" She rocked herself gently to and fro in the rocking-chair. "I'd like well to have the nursing of your children in the house that you ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... cares of the day and the reek of black gunpowder together in a warm bath, dressed himself with more than ordinary spruceness, and was descending the stair on his way to Bias's garden, when at the foot of them he was amazed to find Mrs Bowldler, seated and rocking herself to and fro with her apron cast over her head. Nay, in the dusk of the staircase he but just missed turning a ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... swayed to the first shock, and the ice was rocking under their feet. Frona seized a paddle and smashed the Scotsman's knuckles; and the instant he loosed his grip, Corliss carried the canoe up in a mad rush, Frona clinging on and helping from behind. The rainbow-wall ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... to guide the elephant better," said Ned, as this rocking motion went on. "He is letting it put its feet in ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... the flowers make me think of you. I catch sight of some rock, and stop to laugh over those blessed times." Nate said: "Mother, when I am reading a psalm in the pulpit, there always comes to me a picture of those old evenings, with you in the rocking-chair by the firelight, and I hear all your voices again." Johnnie wrote: "Mother, I think that every thing I have has come to me through you." When Jerry, who remained faithful always, had listened to his brothers, he put his arm ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... of furniture in the room, however, which were placed with an eye to attract attention, and these the Girl prized most highly: one was a homemade rocking-chair that had been made out of a barrel and had been dyed, unsuccessfully, with indigo blue, and had across its back a knitted tidy with a large, upstanding, satin bow; the other was a homemade, pine wardrobe that had been rudely decorated by one of the boys of the camp ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... can mistake great thoughts They seize upon the mind; arrest and search, And shake it; bow the tall soul as by wind; Rush over it like a river over reeds, Which quaver in the current; turn us cold, And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain A rocking and a ringing; glorious, But momentary, madness might it last, And close the soul with heaven as with a seal! In lieu of all these things whose loss thou mournest, If earnestly or not I know not, use The great and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... glistening from the water, and the waves rippling and dancing round her buoyant form. As Harry swam farther and farther out, his head was hidden from view by her small person, and she might have passed for a red seabird rocking on the gentle waves. It was one of the regular delights of the household ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... them) are outside the shops, as well as inside. The fronts of the houses are festooned with raiment of all kinds, until they look like tents made of variegated dry-goods. Here is a stall so confined that the occupant, rocking in his chair near the farther end of it, stretches his slippered feet well out upon the threshold. It is near closing time now, and many of the dealers, with their wives and children, are sitting out in front of their shops, and, if not under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various |
