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Perilous   /pˈɛrələs/   Listen
Perilous

adjective
(Written also perillous)
1.
Fraught with danger.  Synonyms: parlous, precarious, touch-and-go.  "A parlous journey on stormy seas" , "A perilous voyage across the Atlantic in a small boat" , "The precarious life of an undersea diver" , "Dangerous surgery followed by a touch-and-go recovery"



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"Perilous" Quotes from Famous Books



... established, both Uncle James and Emanuel being, at bottom, men of peace. But it was undeniable that Uncle James had lost more than gold, and that Emanuel had been touched in a perilous place—his ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... enemies into hewers of wood and drawers of water. The modern Jews have to turn themselves into hewers of wood and drawers of water. If they cannot do that, they cannot turn themselves into citizens, but only into a kind of alien bureaucrats, of all kinds the most perilous and the most imperilled. Hence a Jewish state will not be a success when the Jews in it are successful, or even when the Jews in it are statesmen. It will be a success when the Jews in it are scavengers, when the Jews ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... nameless apprehensions, every fiber of you is tense with a watchful strain, you start a cautious and gradual curve, but your squirmy nerves are all full of electric anxieties, so the curve is quickly demoralized into a jerky and perilous zigzag; then suddenly the nickel-clad horse takes the bit in its mouth and goes slanting for the curbstone, defying all prayers and all your powers to change its mind—your heart stands still, your breath hangs fire, your legs forget to work, straight on you go, and there are but a couple ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... morning, before day-break, a mule-litter was brought to the back door of the mission garden. Quickly and silently Mr. and Mrs. Ogren, with their little nine months' old boy, mounted, and started on their perilous journey ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... perilous task, and some might blame Morgan for assigning the boy to it. As it has already appeared, he would ask no one to attempt that which he wouldn't do himself, and the conclusion must be that he thought the boy the best one he could send on the duty ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... one of the small windows in the elevated roof of the car. Would it hold? On its strength depended his only chance of life. He drew himself up slowly with every ounce of his strength. The rod bent but held and once more he was back on the roof. So he took his perilous way along and at last he reached the foreward coach. The door was guarded and he came near being shot by the suspicious conductor, who took him for ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... member of parliament is, let me tell you, no easy task; especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigour is absolutely necessary; but it is extremely difficult. We are now members for a rich commercial CITY; this city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial NATION, the interests ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... not power to do? What art of reasoning, or what magic words, Can still the storm of fears these lines have rais'd? The wife's, the mother's fears? Ye innocents, Unconscious on the brink of what a perilous Precipice ye stand, unknowing that to-day Ye are cast down the gulf, poor babes, ye weep From sympathy. Children of sorrow, nurst, Nurtur'd, midst camps and arms; unknowing man, But as man's fell destroyer; must ye now, To crown ...
— Andre • William Dunlap

... say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there: Oh, say, does that ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... believe. Much of this opinion is in the hands of the newspapers. At the same time, the minds of the greater thinkers of the country are often clarified by reading the opinions mirrored by the press. One cannot praise too highly the wisdom and discretion of our newspapers during the perilous days of war when a word from them might have been as a match to tinder, and when they held many important secrets in their keeping. The great dailies were loyal to the last degree and the confidence that was placed in them was never betrayed. It was unavoidable that they ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch voice, the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and perilous eye, some wild words, some household cares, something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a "fremyt" voice, and he starting up, surprised, and slinking off as if he were to blame somehow, or had been dreaming he heard. Many eager questions ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.

... landward gate of the city, and looked out over the level of brilliant sand which stretched out from there to Lake Tchad. What a voyage! What a lure! Perhaps there is no more perilous journey on earth than that, and if a traveller would vanish into the past, into such Oriental countries as the voyagers of Hakluyt saw with wonder, then to leave Sfax, and go across country to the Niger, would equal what once came of fooling with the arcana of the Djinn. Though, after all, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... that it was a boat with five men. What might this boat be bringing? There need be no fear of five men. Here were five and twenty servants, hunters and haiduks already, and all armed with guns and halberds. The men in the boat were making a truly perilous attempt; the masses of ice threatened every moment to sink the boat. Often they jumped out to pull it through the ice blocks. At one moment a giant slab of ice rose and then suddenly plunged down, almost destroying them all, like so many water rats. A man must have a deeply ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... and purple, to the ashy lavenders of twilight and so into gray and the metallic, glittering coldness of the mountain night. It was the purple hour when she said good-bye to Saint Mark on the far side of a swift and perilous ford. She was left standing in the shadow of a near-by mountain-side while he rode away into the still golden expanse of valley beyond the leafy course of the stream. Hidden Creek had narrowed and deepened. It ran past Sheila now with a loud clapping and knocking at its cobbled bed and with an ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... Indeed, a line from the Ode to a Nightingale, in common with one of the loveliest passages in "Epipsychidion," haunted him above all others: and again and again in his poems we may encounter vague echoes of those "remote isles" and "perilous seas"—as, for example, in "the dim clustered isles of the blue sea" of "Pauline," and the "some isle, with the sea's silence on it—some unsuspected isle in the far seas!" of ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... and sadness there are in her eyes! What a gentle smile is upon her lips, as if she would deny the deep foreboding of a spirit that peered into a perilous future! Her dark hair falls in rich strands over her forehead in an elfin and elegant disorder. Her slender throat rises gracefully from an unloosened collar. This picture was made from a drawing done by a friend of my father's four months ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... up the automobile and made a circle on the top of the hill. Then, just as there came another flash of lightning and a loud crash of thunder, the boys began the long and perilous journey down the rough road leading from ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer

... however, been entrusted to Bottot in so indefinite a way that he could only hesitate, and give a vague reply. Bonaparte wished for more precise orders. In the interval peace was concluded, and the idea of that perilous and extravagant undertaking was no longer agitated. Bottot, soon after his return to Paris, wrote a letter to General Bonaparte, in which he complained that the last moments he had passed at Passeriano had deeply afflicted his heart. He said ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... deathbed, however, the long-estranged wife seemed to live a double life. The recollection of the past—of the short and secret courtship with its illusions, greater and more perilous than love's illusions commonly are—of her first days of married life, when, in spite of her rash disobedience, she was feverishly happy; of the awaking, and total disenchantment, and the wretched years that followed, all came to her ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... before commencing their journey of thousands of miles for home, worn as they were by exposure and incessant labor—physical and mental. I need not attempt to say with what gratitude I welcomed back these weary, brown-faced men and officers from a field so difficult and so perilous; none the less did the gratitude go out to my faithful and capable secretary, who had toiled early and late, never leaving for a day, striving with tender heart ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... judgment of God and a triumph for his own party. Though there was no hope of reconciling the Swiss, the South German Zwinglians, headed by the Strassburg Reformers Bucer and Capito, hastened to come to an understanding with Wittenberg, without which their position would have been extremely perilous. Bucer claimed to represent a middle doctrine, such as was later asserted by Calvin. As no middle ground is possible, the doctrine is unintelligible, being, in fact, nothing but the statement, in strong terms, of two mutually exclusive propositions. After much humiliation the divines ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... on this side of the Marne, and whistled and shrieked a long time before we began to wiggle across the unfinished bridge, with workmen hanging up on the derricks and scaffoldings in all sorts of perilous positions, and all sorts of grotesque attitudes. I was glad ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... had a consciousness of unknown dangers, sweet and perilous, closing around her—dangers which she must avoid she scarcely knew how, only vaguely conscious as she was that they were about. Then she said, with an effort, "I do not like myself talked of. It does not matter what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... But, on the 10th of June, as he was pursuing his course from a bay to which he had given the name of Trinity Bay, the Endeavour fell into a situation, as critical and dangerous, as any that is recorded in the history of navigation; a history which abounds with perilous adventures, and almost miraculous escapes. Our voyagers were now near the latitude assigned to the islands that were discovered by Quiros, and which, without sufficient reason, some geographers have thought proper to join to this land. The ship had the advantage of a fine breeze, and a clear moonlight ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... to abandon his basket of food, which became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and, with the indomitable spirit ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... description must have been limited by his power and his willingness to see things as they were. In some ways there is no greater stranger to the youth of twenty than the man of forty who was once that youth, and if he overcomes that strangeness it is often by the perilous process of concealing the strangeness and the difference. The result is—or is it an individual misfortune of mine?—that the figure of "Lavengro" seems to me, more often than not, and on the whole, to be nearer the age of forty than of twenty. The artist, that is to say, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... flakes, and sloping two ways at once. The greater length forms a rough line, at an angle of what seemed to the eye to be one of forty-five degrees,—not so steep as the Terabeh that we came to afterwards, but longer and more perilous. Yet this is the only approach to Judaea from the desert for many leagues around. Was it here that King Amaziah destroyed his Edomite prisoners after his victory in the "valley of salt?" (2 ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... done with the ineffable FUSSELL. By this time he was on the top of a step-ladder. Slowly he selected six tomes, and began his perilous descent. Our eyes were riveted upon him. Crash, bang! His arms were empty, and the unconscionable books fluttered and clattered to the floor. Slowly and ruefully did FUSSELL descend into the cloud of dust and gather his bruised treasures from the carpet. At last he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various

... dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with perilous rapidity. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... Among others, he mentions his passage of the Tagus in 1809, which is thus described by Mr. Hobhouse:—"My companion had before made a more perilous, but less celebrated, passage; for I recollect that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from old Lisbon to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and counter current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... But it sacrificed too much—the future to the present; it ignored the undemonstrable duty which a man owes to the permanent idea of the State through working for a future which he shall never see. It rested partly on a conviction of security; but that feeling of security was the most perilous sign of all. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... manner in which that vulgar rascal, Jack Sheppard, was elevated into a hero of romance. The outcry was not entirely without justification, nor was it without effect on the novelist, who thenceforward avoided this perilous ground. "Jack Sheppard" appeared in Bentley's Miscellany, of which Ainsworth became editor in March, 1840, at a monthly salary of L51. The story is powerfully written. In 1841 he received L1000 from ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... preparations for the journey ahead; he gave directions for the temporary closing of the Refuges, recognising, doubtless, that the time while he was still on earth, but unable to exercise control, might be an even more perilous period than that which would follow his death. Mrs. Hsi herself fell ill, and so seriously that her life was at one time despaired of. She was barely able to stand the fatigue of the public funeral to which hundreds gathered, yielding to their grief and sobbing as children who had lost a parent. ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... one theme? The stranger assumes ignorance, in order to win to a full outpouring. Jesus wishes us to put all fears and doubts and shattered hopes into plain words to Him. Speech to Christ cleanses our bosoms of much perilous stuff. Before He speaks in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... were more at home with their queer steeds, and mounting and dismounting was no longer a painful and even perilous performance. The camels also had become accustomed to the drill, and learned to know what was expected of them. All animals work better and pick up ideas quicker in company. Sometimes, indeed, one would drop suddenly on his knees without rhyme or reason that any one could guess at, and send ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... could have no better time to get away. A note would relieve his parents of a certain amount of anxiety; and if they did not know where he was they could not be held accountable. His blood tingled at the presentiment of the adventures he should have in that perilous journey through a country of which he knew nothing beyond his father's and the adjoining rancho. And as adventures would be but half spiced if experienced alone, he determined—and not from selfish motives only—to save his best ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... of them were bearded and some were bald. However, they all remained rather indistinct, as their side of the court was steeped in shade. After them came the judges, headed by M. de Larombiere, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Appeal Court, who in assuming the perilous honour of conducting the trial had sought to increase the majesty of his long, slender, white face, which looked the more austere as both his assessors, one dark and the other fair, had highly coloured countenances. The public prosecutor's ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... first light, first teaching, and first practices, we have always put ourselves close beside the man irrespective of whether his condition is fair or foul; whether his surroundings are peaceful or perilous; whether his prospects are promising or threatening. As a people we have felt that to be of true service to others we must be close enough to them to lift part of their load and thus carry out that grand injunction of the Apostle Paul, "Bear ye one another's ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... no river at the New Sestros settlement, though geographers, with their usual accuracy in African outlines, have often projected one on charts and maps. Two miles from the short and perilous beach where I built my barracoons, there was a slender stream, which, in consequence of its shallow bed, and narrow, rock-bound entrance, the natives call "Poor River;" but my factory was at New Sestros proper; and ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... it suited Jean to risk leaping upon the man. Jean did not waste time in trying to understand the strange, deadly instinct that gripped him at the moment. But he realized then he had chosen the most perilous plan to ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... which breed in the high fissures of Taurus and descend below the clouds to seek their prey. Above the wooded hills all is bare rock, that is, from the clouds upwards; and the rock is the purest white. And it is impossible to walk to the high summit on account of the rough and perilous ascent. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... the subtlest and most perilous of all intoxications, it needs immense presence of mind to conduct ourselves always with decorum. But she was looking, just as before, at the miniature, as it seemed to me, in fancy infusing some of the spirit I had described into the artist's record, and she said, only in soliloquy, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... perhaps I might not find its merits so hard to understand; but I possess it in abundance, and it does not feed me, nor make music for me, nor fan me when the sun is hot, nor cause me to sleep when I am weary; therefore when my slaves have told me how merchants go out and brave the perilous wind and sea, and live in the unstable ships, and run risks from shipwreck and pirates, and when, having asked them why they have done this, they have answered, 'For gold,' I have found it hard to believe them; and when ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... was a tolerable month with a fair proportion of sunny, moderately calm days. A year later, the first eight days of this month were signalized by the blizzard in which the 'Aurora' had such a perilous experience. While the winter began in 1912 with the advent of March, now in 1913 it came on definitely in early February. Autumn was a term which applied to a few brilliant days which would suddenly intervene in the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... saw that the pursuing ship flew a black pirate flag. When, a few moments after, a round shot came dangerously close to their stern, they leaped over the side without more ado and succeeded in swimming ashore, glad to come out of the adventure with whole skins. After a perilous journey of many leagues overland, they had just arrived in Charles Town and reported the affair to Rhett, their employer. "So you see," said the Colonel in conclusion, "we're in for another siege of the kind we had with Blackbeard unless we take ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... and giving us nothing but evil in return. Hence our ruthlessness. We say: "Vermin," and destroy them. To regard a human being as an insect is always the first step in treating him without remorse. It is a perilous attitude and in general is more likely to beget crime than justice. There has never, I believe, been an empire built in which, at some stage or other, a massacre of children among a revolting population has not been excused on the ground that ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... at fault,—-a detail so slight that I now forget what it is. In reading the Log kept by the discharged mate, Amerzeen, on the return trip in the Alert, I find that every incident there recorded, from running aground at the start at San Diego Harbor, through the perilous icebergs round the Horn, the St. Elmo's fire, the scurvy of the crew and the small matters like the painting of the vessel, to the final sail up Boston Harbor, confirms my father's record. His former shipmate, the late B. G. Stimson, a distinguished ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... rope to secure the eggs or young, when he was attacked by the female eagle with such fury that he was obliged to defend himself with his knife. In doing so, by a mis-stroke, he nearly severed the rope that held him, and was drawn up by a single strand from his perilous position. Audubon, from whom this anecdote is taken, figures and describes this bird as the golden eagle, though I have little doubt that Wilson was right, and that the golden ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... which blew up a depot of powder, as was expected, and in the confusion returned unhurt. La Fayette then presented him with his purse. "No, monsieur," replied he, "money did not make me venture upon such a perilous undertaking." I understood my man, promoted him to a sergeant, and recommended him to Rochambeau, who, in some months, procured him the commission of a sub-lieutenant. He is now one of Bonaparte's Field-marshals, and the only ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... everything else—everything outside the ship and the sea and our perilous plight! The death of Alresca, the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps, the plot (if there was one) against Rosa—what were these matters to me? But Rosa was something. She was more than something; she was all. A lovely, tantalizing vision ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... whilst the Venetians again took a whole year's time to pass all those great deserts and mighty rivers. Indeed that the difficulty of travelling to Cathay was so much greater than that of reaching the New World, and the route so much longer and more perilous, may be gathered from the fact that, since those gentlemen twice made this journey, no one from Europe has dared to repeat it,[3] whereas in the very year following the discovery of the Western Indies many ships immediately retraced the voyage thither, and up to the present day continue to do so, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... exclaimed; "the villains have fastened a rope to her rudder, and were towing us on the rocks." He cut the rope as he spoke, and with comparative ease we got the ship out of her perilous position. Still she was so near the high cliffs which almost surrounded us that we might be seriously annoyed, not only by musketry but by stones and darts. It was evident, also, that should a breeze set in from the sea, the single anchor would not hold, and that we must be driven back ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... never saw such a sight. It was packed as the Brookline street-cars used to be on the days of a baseball game. Men were absolutely hanging on the roof; women were packed on the steps that led up to the imperials to the third-class coaches. It was a perilous-looking sight. I opened a dozen coaches—all packed, standing room as well as seats, which is ordinarily against the law. I was about to give it up when a man said to me, "Madame, there are some coaches at the rear that look as ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... this occasion; in all other cases of need he sent his sons or his barons into the field. But this time he would have none go in command but himself, for he regarded the presumptuous rebellion of Nayan as far too serious and perilous an affair to be otherwise ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Some boatmen, sailing by, saw her, and, taking a successful aim, mortally wounded her. Said she: "O wretched creature that I am! to take such precaution against the land, and, after all, to find this seashore, to which I had come for safety, so much more perilous." ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... novelist, was one of those who went through this great test of courage, and Lady Dorothie Feilding, one of Lord Denbigh's daughters, won everybody's love by her gallantry and plucky devotion to duty in many perilous hours. She takes all risks with laughing courage. She has been under fire in many hot skirmishes, and has helped bring away the wounded from the fighting around Ghent when her own life might have paid the forfeit for ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... is portrayed. The hero's flight to the Whigs is most entertaining reading, and then we meet with Aubrey many more men, who have made glorious history for Americans. Is it all war? By no means; Margaret is a girl we love with Wilton Aubrey, and revel in the descriptions of his perilous trips to see his beloved, for who can help liking bravery in love as well as in war. In the closing pages episode follows episode in rapid succession, and the reader is carried to the end all too soon.... It is a book, which if all the qualities that make a good book ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... this perilous peculiarity in the Pruss, or Positive Barbarian, should be seized. He has what he fancies is a new idea; and he is going to apply it to everybody. As a fact it is simply a false generalisation; but he is really trying to make it general. This does not ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton

... of Italy signified perilous enticement, and she was beginning to feel it. The people amid whom she lived were all but avowed scorners of her belief, and yet she was beginning to like their society. Every letter she wrote to Bartles seemed to her despatched on a longer journey than the one ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... contribute to the preservation of his own health, but would also secure him the respect and veneration of the natives. At the commencement of his narrative, he relates the feelings which animated him in deciding on this perilous journey. The prospects of personal advantage held out, even should he prove successful, were so inconsiderable, that in his acceptance of the offer, he was evidently actuated by an ardent desire of adding to the slender knowledge ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... which, as they stated, was already far advanced toward maturity. Presently a man named Martin, Gabriel's brother, proposed religious services, caused the company to be duly seated, and began an impassioned exposition of Scripture, bearing upon the perilous theme. The Israelites were glowingly portrayed as a type of successful resistance to tyranny; and it was argued, that now, as then, God would stretch forth His arm to save, and would strengthen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... depicted rather than to the genius of the painter, the answer is that the mind of man could satisfy itself equally well in this case, were the man to remain in bed and not make pilgrimages to places which are perilous and hard of access, as we so often see is the case. But if such pilgrimages continually exist, what is then their unnecessary cause? You will certainly admit that it is an image of this kind, and all the writings in the world could not succeed in ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... fortunes, tunic and hose, spur and glove, seemed strange to him, and he would have felt more at home in a friar's hood. So he felt that in his life he should never again quite lose the monastic instinct, and that it was well for him that he could not. He stood on that perilous thin ridge between past and future to which almost every man of heart is sooner or later led by fate, where every step may mean a fall, and where to fall is almost to be lost. The things he had lived for, the things he had hoped, the things he had ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... away. Iris was the only lady left in the saloon. She watched a set of whist players for a time and then essayed the perilous passage to her stateroom. She found her maid and a stewardess ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... word to his wife and father of his perilous situation, shut up within the walls of London, and the whole country in possession of Henry, and entreated them to send him reinforcements. Fear of the Pope prevented Philippe from putting himself forward, but he connived at Blanche's ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... arose, a sheer, unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... interference. May heaven forgive her if she fibbed!—for a dental display of purer ivory never slily solicited a lover's kiss, than what her joyous laugh exhibited. My poor mother entered a protest against the "spes ultima gregis," meaning myself, being left at home in times so perilous, and when all who could effect it were hurrying into garrisoned towns, and abandoning, for crowded lodgings, homes whose superior comforts were abated by their insecurity. The order for a general movement was consequently issued, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... face with the Five in the hall of ephors; and thus gave clear proof that he would not accept the whole earth in exchange for the land of his fathers, nor newly-acquired in place of ancient friends, nor base gains ingloriously purchased rather than the perilous pursuit of honour ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon

... you to the most serious enterprise in your history without your previous knowledge or consent, and can then keep you in ignorance of vitally important documents and activities in order to insure your full support of their perilous undertaking? Such is the thought which has always led America to denounce as false the old theory of "divine right of kings," long imposed upon the German people in the more subtle and, therefore, more dangerous ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson

... lordship of Prester John there is another marvellous thing. There is a vale between two mountains, that dureth nigh on four miles; and some call it the Vale of Devils, and some call it the Valley Perilous. In that vale men hear often time great tempests and thunders and great murmurs and noises all days and nights; and great noise, as it were sown of tabors, and of trumpets, as though it were of a great feast. This vale is all full of devils, and hath been always. And ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... imagine a more outlandish, ridiculous, awkward, complicated, cruel and fearful system of reproduction than that which we are under yoke to pursue? Without the elaborate details of the perilous stages of life's development, this is the method of incubation Nature imposes upon us. Before the birth of a human being, one male and one female—that is, one man and one woman—must have sexual intercourse. Whether this intercourse is prompted by all the finer impulses of life or is accomplished ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... reinforcement of the Guards, leaving behind a small garrison at Placentia, and before long, Otho sent the consul-elect, Flavius Sabinus,[293] to take command of Macer's force. This change pleased the soldiers, but the frequent mutinies made the generals unwilling to assume such a perilous command. ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... but he was also Schiller's rival. There is a perilous period in the lives of great men, namely, the time when they begin to feel that their position is made, that they have no more rivals to fear. Goethe was feeling this at the time when he met Schiller. He was satiated with ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... adventure, and there I shall obtain the blessing and generous permission of the peerless Dulcinea, with which permission I expect and feel assured that I shall conclude and bring to a happy termination every perilous adventure; for nothing in life makes knights-errant more valorous than finding themselves favoured ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... so far advanced that travel on the creeks became perilous, and on the last of the thawing ice the miners travelled down to the bunch of islands below the mouth of the Stewart, where they went into temporary quarters or crowded the hospitality of those who possessed cabins. Corliss and Bishop located on Split-up ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... youthful days suggested the idea of making the panther answer to this name, now that he began to admire with less fear her graceful swiftness, agility, and softness. Toward the close of the day he had so familiarized himself with his perilous position that he was half in love with his dangerous situation and its painfulness. At last his companion had grown so far tamed that she had caught the habit of looking up at him whenever he called in ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... this period he took part in the capture of some Korean forts in 1871, and later he commanded the relief expedition that rescued the Arctic explorer Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greeley and six of his companions near Cape Sabine, when they were near death, and brought them safely home after a perilous voyage through ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor

... more important and equally perilous, called loudly for solution. What line should separate Canada and her western dependencies from the British colonies? Various principles of demarcation were suggested, of which the most prominent on the French side was a geographical one. All countries watered by ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... always been in all tyranny, whether wielded by an individual or an oligarchy or a committee, whether under the pretext of liberty or of order, to persecute all dissenting parties, under profession of preventing division and promoting unity. But the true friends of liberty, even in perilous times, have always relied upon the justice of their principles and excellence of their policy and measures for support and success, and not upon the prison, the gallows, and the impoverishment of the dissenters ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... my ears. Oh yes, that collusion with dim sleeping infancy is lovely to me; but I was too advanced in intellect to have been tempted by such temptations. Still there was a perilous attraction for me in worlds that slept and rested; and if the Erl-king's daughter had revealed herself to my perceptions, there was one 'show' that she might have promised which would have wiled me away with her into ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... them from all past sin and seals them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute acquaintance with which ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... consideration the cautious ruler, who usually carefully regarded every detail, gave to the war with Cyrene, in which he took no personal part. The four thousand Gauls whom he had sent across the frontier as auxiliary troops promised to become perilous to the foe, who was also threatened in the rear by one of the most powerful ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you now why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which he had to break a perilous passage with his ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable quickness it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not, though he knew how perilous a sound was—he could not keep back a cry of disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and the linen face was thrust close ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... cried Dickenson, in such a homely, grandmotherly style that, in spite of their perilous position, the sergeant could ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... Baruch, and three other knights climbed to the foot of the tower. During the rather perilous ascent Max and Fario noticed that no damage to the embankment, nor even trace of the passage of the barrow, could be seen. Fario began to imagine witchcraft, and lost his head. When they reached the top and examined into the matter, it really seemed a ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... to the principal hostelry, where the young baron was well known, and where great interest was excited by the news of the narrow escape which he had had from the attack of the wolves. A journey across the Alps was in those days regarded as a very perilous enterprise in the winter season, and the fact that he should have been rescued from such a strait appeared almost miraculous. They stayed for two days quietly in the city, Cuthbert declining the invitation of the young noble to accompany him to the houses of his ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... His body, posited sidewise from his hands, was vaulted across, the perilous spurs a full foot above the glossy white surface. And simultaneously Lute ducked and went under the piano on hands and knees. Her mischance lay in that she bumped her head, and, before she could recover way, Forrest had circled the piano and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... they were resolved not to let him go. They therefore formed a brutish extravagant design to kill him, that they might keep at least his body among them, imagining it would be their protection and safeguard on perilous occasions. The saint being informed of their design, had recourse to David's stratagem, and feigned himself mad upon which the people, losing their high opinion of him, guarded him no longer. Being thus at liberty to execute his design, he set out on his ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... a mile, had been hove to to wait until daylight ere she attempted the perilous entrance to Fuatino. It was a perfect tropic night, with no hint of rain or squall. For'ard, wherever their tasks left them, the Raiatea sailors sank down to sleep on deck. Aft, the captain and mate and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... they laid down their own necks.' We do not know to what Paul is referring: perhaps to that tumult in Ephesus, where he certainly was in danger. But the language seems rather more emphatic than such danger would warrant. Probably it was at some perilous juncture of which we know nothing (for we know very little, after all, of the details of the Apostle's life), in which Aquila and Priscilla had said, 'Take us and let him go. He can do a great deal more for God than we can do. We will put our heads on the block, if he may still live.' That ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... before arose Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose. Old Eolus would stifle his mad spleen, But could not: therefore all the billows green Toss'd up the silver spume against the clouds. The tempest came: I saw that vessel's shrouds 660 In perilous bustle; while upon the deck Stood trembling creatures. I beheld the wreck; The final gulphing; the poor struggling souls: I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls. O they had all been sav'd but crazed ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... Vincent, (to borrow Luttrel's quotation,) "that that master of arts would 'cleanse his bosom of that perilous stuff.' I should like to know in what recess of that immense mass now cantering round the corner is the real body of Sir Henry Millington. I could fancy the poor snug little thing shrinking within, like a guilty conscience. Ah, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... awakened by heartfelt gratification at the event, filling the eyes of thousands with tears of joy, which they neither could nor desired to repress, you would have felt, as every person present felt, that the time had arrived when all sectional or other perilous dissensions had ceased, and that nothing should be heard in the future but the voice of harmony proclaiming devotion to a common country, of pride in being bound together by a common Union, existing and protected by forms of government proved ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... Roman impression? It is compounded of so many things, it says so much, it involves so much, it so quickens the intelligence and so flatters the heart, that before we fairly grasp the case the imagination has marked it for her own and exposed us to a perilous likelihood of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... one. It might be death to remain on the ship, but to a landsman it seemed still more perilous to embark on an angry sea in a ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger

... leaving Eowa, the weather changed; and as on these perilous coasts there was no possibility of landing, two days and the intervening night had to be spent in the open four-oared ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... I of course directed her to make choice of him as her assistant and confidant on the occasion, as far as necessity demanded, I only hope he may not be brought into trouble thereby, and only wish I could reward him for the perilous service he was so ready to undertake. I slipped two guineas into his hand, by way of remembrance, as he stood in the doorway, holding the candle to light our departure, with a tear in his honest grey eye, and a host of good wishes depicted on his solemn countenance. ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... lacklevel in, if all had bread: What! Country is honour enough in all us—lordly head, With heaven's lights high hung round, or, mother-ground That mammocks, mighty foot. But no way sped, Nor mind nor mainstrength; gold go garlanded With, perilous, O no; nor yet plod safe shod sound; Undenizened, beyond bound Of earth's glory, earth's ease, all; no one, nowhere, In wide the world's weal; rare gold, bold steel, bare In both; care, but share care— This, by Despair, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... Magic Mead, and he thought that this was a fine opportunity of getting it into his possession. So he bargained with the dwarfs, and they gladly promised to give him the whole brew if only he would save them from their perilous plight. ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... abode of the gods; The conditioned promise of godhood in Man. What is Nirvana? The Vedantan idea. The Christian idea. Did Jesus teach the kingdom of God on earth? Is there a basis for belief in physical immortality? A new explanation. The perilous paths. Those who "will see God." Evolution of consciousness from prehistoric man to the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which astonished me. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Department, requesting him to ascertain the possibility of obtaining a supply of brick for Fort Clinch from the brickyard which had furnished the original materials, but which had not been visited since the perilous river-trip of the Ottawa. Lieutenant Hughes wished to obtain information for the Admiral respecting a Rebel steamer—the Berosa—said to be lying somewhere up the river, and awaiting her chance to run the blockade. I jumped ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... outlet switch, Gallagher had a sharp attack of memory. The day before, in the Horse Creek yard, he had seen and remarked a jagged scratch on the side of the Nadia. Hence, he was watching for the narrow rock cuttings, and the three passages perilous on the cliff face ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... suffered such vices even in a boy, I need not speak of one, who is devoted to God's Word and the common salvation of men. As to this, wise and gracious Lords, let it be far from you to put faith in any one, who speaks what he pleases against others or myself; for the times are perilous. The devil, who is an enemy of the truth, has used all his arts to cast down and destroy it. Therefore it is my humble prayer to Your Worships, that, as heretofore, if they have somewhat to say to me, or any one somewhat against ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... lunged, and Desmond at that moment knew that he was at a perilous crisis of his life. The movements of the practised swordsman could not be mistaken; he himself had little experience; all that he could rely on was his quick eye and the toughness of his muscles. He gave back, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... home base, or within the legal range of the bat. The startling fact is never considered that several umpires have been killed outright while occupying this dangerous position. Neither does any one reflect for a moment that the umpire occupies this perilous position while regarded as a common enemy by both of the contesting teams, and as a legitimate object for insulting abuse from the partisan portion of the crowd of spectators. In fact, the umpire stands there ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... they would have it that the Indians, who made them prisoners, would have dragged them into the interior, and it was impossible, they said, to hunt all through Patagonia for three men—three Scotchmen; that the search would be vain and perilous, and cost more lives than it saved. In short, they assigned all the reasons that people invent who have made up their minds to refuse. The truth is, they remembered Captain Grant's projects, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... from facts the law which that trend obeys, and make a reasonable deduction as to whether or not the world is moving toward peace. If we do this we shall follow the inductive method of modern science, and avoid the error (with its perilous results) of first assuming the law and ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... prayers for the increase of Ministers, for Missions, or Missionaries, for the Christian teaching of the young; for sponsors on occasions of Baptism; for persons setting out on long journeys by land, quite as perilous as voyages by sea; for the sick desiring the prayers of the Church when there is no prospect of or desire for recovery; for the bereaved at funerals, and many other occasions for which there might as well be provision ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... to resound awfully with terrible blows, harsh blustering thunders, and every sound of war. I could see Lucifer turn black, and become like a statue; at this moment, in rushed a little crooked, horned devil, panting and shivering. "What is the matter?" said Lucifer. "The most perilous to you of all matters since Hell has been Hell," said the imp; "all the extremes of the kingdom of Darkness, have broken out against you, and against one another; particularly those who had any old field in common. They are now at it, tooth and nail, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... the lady gasp, and knew my message was received and understood. I waited for no other response. I scuttled away from that perilous spot as fast as caution permitted my legs to travel. Jack Shreve was no Newman; I had not his cool nerve when it came to flouting hell-ship rules. In truth, I was in a blue funk all the time I was aft, for fear I would be discovered. And there was another reason for my haste in getting forward. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... well as Asiatic folk-tales. Muslims have a tradition that Alexander the Great despatched the prophet Al-Khizar (who is often confounded with Moses and Elias in legends) to procure him some of the Water of Life. The prophet, after a long and perilous journey, at length reached this Spring of Everlasting Youth, and, having taken a hearty draught of its waters, the stream suddenly disappeared—and has, we may suppose, never been rediscovered. Al-Khizar, they say, still lives, and ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... Virtuous restraint—ah, speak it, think it, not! Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw So many bars between his present state And the dear haven where he wished to be In honourable wedlock with his Love, 60 Was in his judgment tempted to decline To perilous weakness, [2] and entrust his cause To nature for a happy end of all; Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed, And bear with their transgression, when I add 65 That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife, Carried about her for a secret ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... disposed to say that disagreeable was hardly the right word. No doubt, all things that are perilous, horrible, awful, ghastly, deadly, and the like, are disagreeable too. But when we use the word disagreeable by itself, our meaning is understood to be, that in calling the thing disagreeable we have said the worst of it. A long and tiresome sermon is disagreeable; but a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... their bodies to the inclemencies of the seasons, of climates, of elements; to hunger, thirst, fatigue; plunge them into the water of the Styx. Before the habits of the body are acquired we can give it such as we please without risk. But when once it has reached its full vigor, any alteration is perilous to its well-being. A child will endure changes which a man could not bear. The fibres of the former, soft and pliable, take without effort the bent we give them; those of man, more hardened, do not without violence change those they have ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... his position. The descent was a perilous one, and he wanted to be on the watch to check it at once if the Mermaid was liable to dash upon some pointed rock or fall into some fiery pit. His hand was on the ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... looking round upon my peaceful room, and pressing more closely the arm of Prue, I feel that I have reached the port for which they hopelessly sailed. And when winds blow fiercely and the night-storm rages, and the thought of lost mariners and of perilous voyages touches the soft heart of Prue, I hear a voice sweeter to my ear than that of the syrens to the tempest-tost sailor: "Thank God! Your only cruising is in the ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... even Egypt never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... besides those I told you about yesterday. At this moment of writing I have a hundred of these importunates on my shoulders, who will make me hate Saint Denis as much as you hate Mantes. 'Tis to-morrow that I take the perilous leap. I kiss a million times the beautiful hands of my angel and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... inaugurated on the police," grumbled the corporation lawyer. "It's less dangerous to the public than these financial crusades, but decidedly more so for yourself. You are regarded as a dangerous agitator, a marplot! I tell you, Wilfred, aside from all other considerations the thing is perilous to yourself. You are riding for a fall. These men whom you are whipping out of public ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... friends; but in us it will be purified from everything inordinate or imperfect. What a delight that meeting must be for the blessed! We can even now form some faint idea of that heavenly joy, by reflecting on what takes place when a beloved father returns home from a long and perilous Voyage, or from some cruel war, where he was daily exposed to captivity and death. What outbursts of gladness among the members of his family! How happy they are to see him and embrace him! If these joys are so great in this world, what ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux

... the law of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend that Lieutenant William B. Cushing, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks from Congress for his important, gallant, and perilous achievement in destroying the rebel ironclad steamer Albemarle on the night of the 27th of October, 1864, at ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... latter word which Brenton was using, as a spiritual flail, upon himself. Reed Opdyke's overthrow no longer filled the whole horizon of his doubtings. It was merely the starting-point whence he had embarked on a voyage long and perilous. At first, he only had felt a vague suspicion concerning the inherent justice and clemency of the manifestations of special Providence, a little wondering whether the God whom he had chosen to preach to all men was of necessity so much more merciful and fatherly in his dealing with the sons of men ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... silver halo, and passed more and more into mythology, it seemed, indeed, as if she had never lived for him at all, save in dreams, or on another star. Still, his memory held by those great shells, and he had come at last to the fabled country on the perilous quest—who of us dare venture such a one to-day?—of a 'lost saint.' Enquiry of his friends that evening, cautious as of one on some half-suspected diplomacy, told him that one with the name of his remembrance did live ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... us go forth; ye shall not see me this day return back,' and said, 'Advance, banner, in the name of God and of Saint George,' The knight that bare it did his commandment: there was then a sore battle and a perilous, and many a man overthrown, and he that was once down could not be relieved again without great succour and aid. As the prince rode and entered in among his enemies, he saw on his right hand in a little bush lying ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... is a wild cry ringing through the upper air! Ha! Zyps of Zirl, thou hunted and hunting outlaw, art thou out upon the heights at this fearful moment? Watch the hardy mountaineer! He binds his crampons on his feet,—he is making his perilous way towards his failing Emperor;—now bounding like a hunted chamois; now creeping like an insect; now clinging like a root of ivy; now dropping like a squirrel:—he reaches the fainting monarch just as he relaxes his grasp on the jutting rock. Courage, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... Mr. Sharp with a laugh. "And I'm glad to say that we're better off than when I was last in the air over this same body of water," and he could scarcely repress a shudder as he thought of his perilous position in the blazing balloon, as related in detail in "Tom Swift and ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton

... things, all along, that happened to us, and of others that didn't happen; but you'll remember the spot where they were invented. You will see how the imaginary perilous trip up the Riffelberg is preposterously expanded. That horse-student is on page 192. The "Fremersberg" is neighboring. The Black Forest novel is on page 211. I remember when and where we projected that: in the leafy glades with the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... in England were only too pleased to have it so. The world had gaped with astonishment at these revelations long enough, and its credulity had come near to the breaking point, on which account the raking up of these perilous matters by the queen was ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... passions which need restraint. Indeed, even in our streets moral perils assail the young and innocent, which no Christian nation ought to tolerate. We often meet the assertion that we cannot make people moral by Acts of Parliament; but if dens of infamy, which it is perilous to enter, are swept away, if gin-palaces and public-houses which flood the land with ruin are diminished in number, and in their hours of trade, it would certainly lessen the evils we deplore. Vested interests fight against such a change, ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... of their general rendezvous on such occasions. Flattered by the pleasing hope that Providence might be about to complete her work of mercy, and was conducting to the dreary island some friendly aid, to rescue me from my perilous situation, I mustered courage to ascend to the roof of my hovel, to discover if possible the cause of the alarm, and what ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... little way, and that on the level of familiar effort and within sight of familiar things. It is another thing to hear the call of the mountains and to feel the fascination of some far and glittering peak. That is a call to perilous and painful effort. And yet again, high desire sometimes leaves life where it found it because the heart attaches an intrinsic value to vision. It is something to have seen the Alpine heights of possibility. Yes, it is something, but what is it? It is a golden hour to the man who sets ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... the margrave. "solemnly adjure your majesty not to confide the chief command of your forces to the Duke of Lorraine, for it is evident that he does not desire so perilous an appointment. His highness has no confidence in our ability to prosecute the war successfully; and no general can lead his soldiers to victory who beforehand is convinced that they are ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... perilous journey more than an hour before dawn on the following morning. Nobody was stirring, and as it was practically impossible to arouse the slumbering Kafirs from the various holes and corners where they were taking their rest—for a native hates the cold of the dawning—Mouti and he were ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... ruddy, his moustache, on one side at least, beginning to turn grey. His features, which Nature had cast in a harsh and imperious mould, were relieved by a constant sparkle and animation such as I have never seen in any other man, but in him became ever more conspicuous in gloomy and perilous times. Inured to danger from his earliest youth, he had come to enjoy it as others a festival, hailing its advent with a reckless gaiety which astonished even brave men, and led others to think him the least prudent ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... each passed through questionable and perilous experiences. Both together and alone they had adventured unwillingly along many of the more dubious channels of life. They had surrendered to temptation; they had sown and reaped and suffered, and become ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... already said to Emily, on the subject of delirium generally, Mrs. Ellmother's proceedings became intelligible: they proved that she knew by experience the perilous course taken by her mistress's wandering thoughts, when they expressed themselves in words. This explained the concealment of Miss Letitia's illness from her niece, as well as the reiterated efforts of the old servant to prevent ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... spent two days at the forest lodge in bliss, as though paradise had come down on earth; and albeit it is a perilous thing to rejoice in the love of a man who has wandered far beyond seas, yet has it this good side: that many matters which to another seem far away and out of reach, he deems near at hand, and half the world is his as it were. And how well could Gotz make me to feel as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... one of the quartermasters at the helm. Several shipmates and friends had fallen around him. He saw the enemy's shot striking the ship's sides between wind and water, and he could not help feeling the very perilous position in which the old ship was placed. In spite, however, of the tumult, the death and havoc which raged around him, his thoughts turned anxiously towards his little charge down in the distant hold. ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... on the granite; but of this I might not be sure. Therefore I determined to investigate, and straightway began climbing the rocks—with my heart in my mouth, it must be confessed, for the foothold was undesirable and the way perilous. And all the time I was conscious that the white face of Camille watched me from above. As I reached the cleft I fancied I heard a queer sort of gasping sob issue from his lips, but to this I could give no heed in the sudden wonder that broke upon me. For, lo! it appeared that the cleft led straight ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... revealing a splendid set of powerful white teeth, without a flaw. Above the chasm two large blue eyes glistened and glowed with delight. It was all so infectious, so contagious that both Will and Boyd grinned in return. They were not only securing for a perilous quest a man who was beyond compare, but they were also giving the most exquisite mental pleasure to a ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... may be thus summed up: Either our frontier had to be defended on the spot under conditions which the British retreat rendered extremely perilous, or we had to execute a strategic retirement which, while delivering up to the enemy a part of the national soil, would permit us, on the other hand, to resume the offensive at our own time with a favorable disposition of troops, still intact, which we had ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... of Canada there have always been generous and noble souls for whom the missions of the West have had a mysterious attraction. Who can read without emotion of the heroic deeds of the first Jesuits who followed the explorers and courreurs-des-bois in their perilous adventures? What tribute of admiration and gratitude do we not owe to the Oblate missionaries who lived and died with the wandering children of the plains, who have kept the fires of Faith burning, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... all his servants whom you have slain shall haunt your sleep; never shall you know one more hour of happy rest. Through life henceforth you shall fly from a shadow, and if you climb a throne, it shall be such a one as that on which I stand encircled with the perilous depths of darkness. Thence you shall fall at last, dying by a death of shame, and the evil gods shall seize upon you, O Traitor, and drag you to the maw of the Eater-up of Souls, and therein you shall ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard



Words linked to "Perilous" :   Siege Perilous, dangerous, unsafe, touch-and-go, peril



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