"Tread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than this thievin' and murderin' hooker and her cut-throat crew! Yes, sir, I'm with you, for life or death. But, please God, it shall be life and not death for all hands of us. Let us get away aboard at once, sir; I'm just longin' to tread the beauty's planks again; and as to scuttlin' her—why, I'll make it my first business, when I get aboard, to shape out a few plugs and take 'em down into the run with me—that's the only place where they'll be able to get at her under-water plankin'—and as soon as they've gone I'll ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... there waiting for George's father to enter, and listening to his slow, deliberate tread on the stairs, the heavy, laborious tread of a man who is uncertain of his strength, she remembered vividly, as if she were living it over again, the night she had waited by her fire to tell George that his first child was ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... May she tread the stage of Denver with the grace and charm of an Ellen Terry and return to New York covered with ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... he, " whoever of this throng One instant stops, lies then a hundred years, No fan to ventilate him, when the fire Smites sorest. Pass thou therefore on. I close Will at thy garments walk, and then rejoin My troop, who go mourning their endless doom." I dar'd not from the path descend to tread On equal ground with him, but held my head Bent down, as one who walks in reverent guise. "What chance or destiny," thus be began, "Ere the last day conducts thee here below? And who is this, that shows to thee the way?" "There up aloft," I answer'd, "in the life ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... King and the Inquisition.) And if you speak unadvisedly of the one, you may find you within the walls of the other. I speak in kindness, Senora, and of what I know. This palace is not all bowers and gardens. There be dungeons beneath those bowers, deep and dark. Santa Maria defend us! You tread on mines—hold your peace!' ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... all over with trap-doors and sliding panels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depth from the boards to the ground below the stage is twenty-two feet, divided into two floors, the lower deck—if I may so call it—being also furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... eagerness. She was possessed for the moment by an urgent desire to get back to the commonplace. She had been whirled off her feet, and albeit the flight had held rapture, she had a desperate longing to tread solid ground once more. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... one impressive sound, one could have closed his eyes and imagined himself in a world of the dead. That one sound was all that visited the ear in the summer stillness—just that one sound—the muffled tread of the marching host. As the serried masses drifted by, the men put their right hands up to their temples, palms to the front, in military salute, turning their eyes upon Joan's face in mute God-bless-you and farewell, and keeping them there while they could. They still kept ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... That did enchant the waters with his noise, And made stones, birds, and beasts, to lead a dance, Constrained the hilly trees to follow him, Thou couldst not move the judge of Erebus, Nor move compassion in grim Pluto's heart; For fatal Mors expecteth all the world, And every man must tread the way of death. Brave Tantalus, the valiant Pelops' sire, Guest to the gods, suffered untimely death, And old Tithonus, husband to the morn, And eke grim Minos, whom just Jupiter Deigned to admit unto his sacrifice. The thundering trumpets of ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... color. The tall chimneys detached themselves from the buildings and sprang into the air. The factory in which Rosalind stood had such a chimney. It also was leaping upward. She felt herself being lifted, an odd floating sensation was achieved. With what a stately tread the day went away, over the city! The city, like the factory chimneys yearned after ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... and in lifting our hands against it, we are presuming to measure arms with a Power which will be sure to overwhelm us with confusion and defeat. We must consent to go with the grand movements of the Universe, and to march to the step of Destiny, or be crushed under the resistless tread of advancing peoples! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Salutatory" to the people of Dry Bottom he had announced in a quiet, unostentatious paragraph that while he had not come to Dry Bottom for a free fight, he would permit no one to tread on his toes. His readers' comprehension of the metaphor was complete—as was evidenced by the warm hand-clasps which he received from citizens who were not in sympathy with the Dunlavey regime. It surprised him to find how many such there were in town. He was convinced that all ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... JOHN. Do not I know thou would'st? Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye On yon young boy; I'll tell thee what, my friend, He is a very serpent in my way; And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread He lies before me: Dost thou understand me? Thou art his keeper. HUB. And I'll keep him so, That he shall ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... causes are. I did not live till now; this my first hour; Wherein I see my thoughts reach'd by my power. But this, and gripe my wishes. Great and high, The world knows only two, that's Rome and I. My roof receives me not; 'tis air I tread; And, at each step, I feel my advanced head Knock out a star in heaven! rear'd to this height, All my desires seem modest, poor, and slight, That did before sound impudent: 'tis place, Not blood, discerns the noble and the base. Is there not something more ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... not come, and presently he heard the cry of the panther again but much nearer. He was lying with his ear to the ground. Now the earth is a conductor of sound and Henry was sure that he heard a soft tread. He rose upon his elbow and gazed into the darkness. There he beheld at last a dim form moving with sinuous motion, and slowly it took the shape of a great cat-like animal. Then he saw just behind it another as large, and he knew that they were ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... learn!" replied Otto. "Uncertainty gives the book something piquant. In such a small country as ours it is good for the author to be unknown. Here we almost tread upon each other, and look into each other's garments. Here the personal conditions of the author have much to do with success; and then there are the newspapers, where either friend or enemy has an assistant, whereas ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... senses, so you cannot study the astral world without the astral senses, nor the mental world without the mental senses. Therefore, calmly choose your ends, and then think out your means, and you will not 'be in any difficulty about the method you should employ, the path you should tread. ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... of feet up or down an almost vertical rock face, where a slip or a false step meant instant death; now crossing some ghastly chasm by means of a frail and dilapidated suspension bridge constructed of cables of maguey fibres and floored with rotten planking, which swung to the tread until the oscillation threatened to precipitate the entire party into the terrible abyss that yawned beneath them, and perhaps half an hour later forcing their way, slowly and with infinite labour and difficulty, up the boulder-strewn bed of some half-dry ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... sit from sunrise to sunset by the thrashing machine and write down the number of poods and pounds of corn that had been thrashed; the whistling, the hissing, and the bass note, like the sound of a whirling top, that the machine makes at full speed, the creaking of the wheels, the lazy tread of the oxen, the clouds of dust, the grimy, perspiring faces of some three score of men—all this has stamped itself upon my memory like the Lord's Prayer. And now, too, I have been spending hours at the thrashing and felt intensely happy. When the thrashing engine is at ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... fragrant morning. She had taken off her shoes and stockings, for the dew lay heavy upon the ground; and these, wrapped in a fish net, were flung across her shoulder. There was a good half mile to tread before the little hut could be reached bodily, but the whistle's call, going on before, would open the gates of Paradise if Thornly were there! The girl did not put her doubt to the test just yet. There was bliss in dallying ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... He heard the green baize door on the floor below swing back as Strangwise went out to the back stairs and Bellward's heavy step ascended the main staircase. There was something so horribly sinister in that firm, creaking tread as it mounted towards him that for the moment he lost his head. He looked round wildly for a place of concealment; but the corridor was bare. Facing him was the red enamel door. Boldly he turned the handle and walked in, softly closing the ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... content habitually to slumber. The Captain's gait we have described as "rolling;" which in fact it was; but without meaning at all, by that expression, to derogate from its firmness: for firm it also was as the tread of a hippopotamus; and wheresoever the sole of his vast splay foot was planted, there a man would have sworn it had taken root like a young oak: but a figure as broad as his could do no other than roll when treading ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life; Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate, O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate, Where wavering man, betray'd by venturous pride, To tread the dreary paths without a guide, As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude, Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good; 10 How rarely Reason guides the stubborn choice, Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice; How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress'd, When Vengeance ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... like that! I often and often put slugs and snails and worms, and that sort of thing, out of the path for fear any one should tread on ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... said M. d'Asterac. "It suffices to tread on a mandrake to become involved in a love crime, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... smile came back again, for he knew that the hours of his captivity were numbered; and he hummed, in time with the sentry's tread: ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the land. Twice I looked down the steep sides of the mountain, sorely tempted to risk a plunge. Still I hesitated and kept along on the brink. As I stood on a rock deliberating, I heard a crackling of the brush, like the tread of some large game, on a plateau below me. Suspecting the truth of the case, I moved stealthily down, and found a herd of young cattle leisurely browsing. We had several times crossed their trail, and had seen that morning a level, grassy place on the top of the mountain, where they had passed the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... the seed, Which quickens only where thou say'st it may: Unless thou shew to us thine own true way No man can find it: Father! thou must lead. Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind By which such virtue may in me be bred That in thy holy footsteps I may tread; The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, That I may have the power to sing of thee, And ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... indignation had seized her because life could be so brutal to death, because the terror and the pity that flamed in her soul shed no burning light on the town where her father had worked and loved and fought and suffered and died. A little later the ceaseless tread of visitors to the rectory door had driven this thought from her mind, but through every minute, while he lay in the closed room downstairs, while she sat beside her mother in the slow crawling carriage that went to the old churchyard, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... himself in his prison with what remains of his herbarium and zoology. But better help comes in the shape of the loving princess, Myrania, who is resolved to save him. By her command her maid entices the gaoler to her room, and causes him to tread "upon a false bord" that had apparently been there in all times, ready for this very emergency. The gaoler falls "up to the shoulders;" then he disappears into a hole, where he dies, and his keys are taken ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... is a necessity which, as Sultan, he cannot avoid. Were he disposed to content himself with the empire descending from his great father, envious neighbors would challenge him to the field. He must prove his capacity in defence. That done, he vows to tread the path made white and smooth by Abderrahman, the noblest and best of the Western Kaliphs. He will set out by founding a capital somewhere on the Bosphorus. Such, O Princess, is my Lord ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... dispatched another woman, I heard something tread, and breathing or panting as it walked. I advanced towards that side from whence I heard the noise, and on my approach the creature puffed and blew harder, as if running away from me. I followed the noise, and the thing seemed to stop sometimes, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... walked quickly, as active men do when they are alone, and there is no one to hinder them, stopping now and then to see which way a hare sprang, or pausing to listen when his quick ear caught the distant tread of a buck. He knew that he might walk for miles without meeting a human being. The road was his, the land was his, the trees were his. There was no felling to be done in the neighbourhood, and no one but himself or his men had any ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... knocks at the door brought Mr. Dallas to his chamber window. Recognizing Mr. Walker, and fearing that his daughter, who was in Washington, was ill, he hastened down- stairs, half dressed and in slippers, when, to his utter amazement, in walked sixty or more gentlemen, two by two, with the tread of soldiers, passing him by and entering his front parlor, all maintaining the most absolute silence. Mr. Dallas, not having the slightest conception of their object, stood thunderstruck at the scene. Mr. Walker then led him into the back parlor. "My dear Walker," ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... huge, hairy creatures gazed at the hunters in stupid surprise; then they turned and fled. They appeared, at the outset, to run slowly and with difficulty, and the plain seemed to thunder with their heavy tread, for there could not have been fewer than a thousand animals in the herd. But as the horsemen drew near they increased their speed and put the steeds, fleet and strong though they were, to ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... but man, however capable, will blunder therein, if he walks in darkness; nay, the more resolute and conscientious he is, the more certainly will he stub his big toe on a root, and impale his open, unseeing eye on a dead twig, and tread on nothing, to the kinking of his neck-bone and the sudden ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Venice. There it stretched for miles, the long, narrow strip of sand and masonry, and as the steamer plied the waters of the lagoon, hour after hour, in the bright June morning, they could hear the tread of the breakers on the beach outside, and realise something of the mighty forces that must be resisted in ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... moved by the contrast: "We look around in vain," says he, "for any traces of the wonderful remains we have just seen, and are half inclined to believe that we have dreamed a dream, or have been listening to some tale of Eastern romance. Some, who may hereafter tread on the spot when the grass again grows over the Assyrian palaces, may indeed suspect that I ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... A heavy tread sounded in the hall and Mr. James Kennedy, Detective of the Meadville Police Force, stood before them. As Jimsy had said, he was not impressive as to outward appearance, although his fat, heavy face, and rather vacant eyes, might ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... and taking the lamp, stole very cautiously into the entry, and down stairs, having nothing but his night-clothes upon him. The snapping of the stairs, under his tread, was the only noise that was heard, and this did not awake any of the household. He proceeded at once to the kitchen closet, and commenced helping himself with a free hand to its contents. He began upon a dish of corned beef and vegetables, from which he ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... treading a measure to the rhythm of the bagpipes blown by a younger member of their crew. The words of the tune are the old words "La illaha illallah," set to an air endeared from centuries past to the desert-roving Bedawin, and long after distance has dulled the tread of the dancing feet the plaintive notes of the refrain reach you upon the night breeze. About midnight the silent streets are filled with the long-drawn cry of the shampooer or barber, who by kneading and patting ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... their ancient possessions. A general conflagration revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment, enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed; and the suppliant ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... ficelle, not of the true agent; they may run beside the coach "for all they are worth," they may cling to it till they are out of breath (as poor Miss Stackpole all so visibly does), but neither, all the while, so much as gets her foot on the step, neither ceases for a moment to tread the dusty road. Put it even that they are like the fishwives who helped to bring back to Paris from Versailles, on that most ominous day of the first half of the French Revolution, the carriage of the royal family. The only thing is that I may well be asked, I acknowledge, why then, in the present ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... right granted her by the charter, I can see you putting on a mild and deliberate air, hiding your dagger under a bouquet of roses, and as you plunge it cautiously into her heart, saying to her with a friendly voice, 'My darling, does it hurt?' and she, like those on whose toes you tread in a crowd, will probably ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... eleven the street is quiet, and only gives a last flicker of life when a drunken man comes swearing down the street, full of beer, and offering to fight anyone for the pleasure of the thing. By twelve the street is dead, and the tread of the policeman echoes with a forlorn sound as if he were walking through ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... senses, had wrapped a carpet round the injured man, and, throwing another over his own head, had borne him back through the fire, the steps of the wooden staircase, already in flames, almost breaking under his tread. But he had done the deed, and had lived ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide; And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan, Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on. And somehow you're sick of the highway, with its noise and its ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... caution arrested him—the sound of his approach might precipitate a catastrophe, and he soundlessly felt his passage about the house to the portico. The steps creaked beneath his careful tread, but the noise was lost in the wind. At first he could see no light; the hall door, he discovered, was closed; then he was aware of a faint glimmer seeping through a drawn window shade on the right. From without he could distinguish nothing. He listened, but not a sound ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... necessity of a sound philosophical basis, and both, I venture to add, make a conspicuous exhibition of its absence. The Quarterly Reviewer believes that man "differs more from an elephant or a gorilla than do these from the dust of the earth on which they tread," and Mr. Mivart has expressed the opinion that there is more difference between man and an ape than there is between an ape and a piece of granite. [Footnote: See the ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... with interest, old memories of his early boyhood thronging back on him, before his people had moved from Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an accurate purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified reminiscence of his tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically in a turmoil of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again, sleek and wet as seals. To these the man paid no attention, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... expect shortly to sail for America; and, with the blessings of Divine Providence, hope soon to tread my native soil. My opportunity of comparing my own country and the condition of its people with those of Europe, has only served to increase my admiration and love for our own blessed land of liberty, and I shall ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... are bound to tread in the path of Justice, but on this day we secure our approach to the Redeemer by the path of Forgiveness. Therefore we forswear punishments of all kinds, we condemn the torture, and thus feel ourselves, in forgiving, to be more truly ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... stairway now. Just ahead, her aunt's black silk skirt rustled luxuriously. Behind her an open door allowed a glimpse of soft-tinted rugs and satin-covered chairs. Beneath her feet a marvellous carpet was like green moss to the tread. On every side the gilt of picture frames or the glint of sunlight through the filmy mesh of lace curtains flashed ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... I think, venture further than we have been accustomed to," said Mary. "We shall have to stoop now and then to get under the vines, or squeeze ourselves between the trunks of the trees. We have no wild animals to fear, and need only be careful not to tread upon a snake." ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... with snow-white, and russet-hued marbles; and echoed to the tread, as if all the Paris catacombs were underneath. I started with misgivings at that hollow, boding sound, which seemed sighing with a subterraneous despair, through all the magnificent spectacle around me; mocking it, where most ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... morrow the wedding-feast took place, and at two o'clock Dantes, radiant with joy and happiness, prepared to accompany his bride to the hotel de ville for the civil ceremony. But at that moment the measured tread of soldiery was heard on the stairs, and a magistrate presented himself, bearing an order for the arrest of Edmond Dantes. Resistance or remonstrance was useless, and Dantes suffered himself to be taken to Marseilles, where he was examined ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and her heart fluttered in fear at the meeting. She, who had for months marked the brisk tread of military men, sensed now the drag, the slow cadence of his approach; wherefore she realized that he knew! In the knowledge that she would not have to break the news to him, a sense of comfort stole ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... desolate shore! Where no tree unfolds its leaves, And never the spring wind weaves Green grass for the hunter's tread; A land forsaken and dead, Where the ghostly icebergs go And come with the ebb ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... ears hear the song of birds, the cooing of babes, the heart- beat in the organ tone, then the swift little messengers that fly hither and thither in my mind and yours, carrying echoes of sweetness unspeakable, tread more slowly here, and never quite reach the spirit in prison. A spirit in prison, indeed, but with one ray of sunlight shining through the bars,—a vision of duty. Lisa's weak memory had lost almost all trace of Mr. Grubb as a person but the old instinct ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Rome: I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After his just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the fullness ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... men will be able to find it. The magical properties of this plant, as well as the rites requisite to obtain it, disclose its sacredness to the old divinities. It shines at a distance like gold, and if one tread on it he will fall asleep, and will come to understand the languages ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... happened in the discussion about Mr. CALDERON's picture of "St. Elizabeth's Heroic Act of Renunciation." In this instance the Clarke got the better of the Abbott, and the others, including Professor HUXLEY, who is always ready to rush in and invite somebody to tread on the tail of his coat, were nowhere. The Times issues its fiat, concluding the arguments on both sides—"The Times has spoken, causa finita est"—and the picture will remain one of the chief attractions in the Royal Academy Exhibition until such time as it ascends ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... would have laughed, with a rosy scorn, If the merchant, or slave-girl, had mockingly said, "The feet will pass, but the shoes they have worn Two thousand years onward Time's road shall tread, And still be footgear as good as new!" To think that calf-skin, gilded and stitched, Should Rome and the Pharaohs outlive—and you Be gone, like a dream, from the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... and vales Cloven seaward by their violent streams, and white With bitter flowers and bright salt scurf of brine; Heard sweep their sharp swift gales, and bowing bird-wise Shriek with birds' voices, and with furious feet Tread loose the long skirts of a storm; and saw The whole white Euxine clash together and fall Full-mouthed, and thunderous from a thousand throats; Yet we drew thither and won the fleece and won Medea, deadlier than the sea; but there ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... more like a bandit than an honest husbandman. The evening gun had long since boomed over the waters of the land-locked harbor from the grim, walls of Moro Castle, the guard had been relieved at the governor's palace and the city walls, and now the steady martial tread to the tap of the drum rang along the streets of Havana, as the guard once more sought their barracks in the ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... veteran troops than those which he has under his command. The outcry against this excellent but vain man grows stronger every day, and sorry, indeed, must he be that he "rushed in where others feared to tread." "Action, speedy action," shout the newspapers, much as the Americans did before Bull's Run, or as M. Felix Pyat always calls it, Run Bull. The generals well know that if they yield to the cry, there will most assuredly be a French edition of that battle. In ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... candle attracts a moth. He was always striving to attain it. The life that was so swiftly expanding within him, urged him continually toward the wall of light. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he was predestined to tread. But he himself did not know anything about it. He did not know there ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... bark from Cinders was the only answer—a warning bark, as though he would have the intruder tread softly. ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... it?" asked Greening, coming in on tiptoe, his voice lowered to a whisper, in the cautious fashion of people who move in the vicinity of the sound-sleeping dead. The tread of living man never more would disturb old Isom Chase, but Sol Greening moved as silently as a ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Still unfulfilled. And lo, along the ways Crowded with nations, there arose a strife; Disturbance of men; tongues contradicting tongues; Madness of noise, that scattered multitudes; A trample of blind feet, beneath whose tread Truth's bloom shrank withered; while incessant mouths Howled "Progress! Change!"—as though all moods of change ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... wilderness world about me, the sun was shining brightly, and the wind blowing cool from the near mountains; but I was too much exhausted to stir; and laid there, kept alive by the pure air alone, until sunset. About that time of day I heard the tread of cattle coming, and the rumbling of wagons. The shock of joy caused me to faint, in which condition I was found by the advance guard of a large train bound for the mines in California. I need not tell you all those men did for me to bring me round, but ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the careless victors play, Dancing the triumphs of the hay, When every mower's wholesome heat Smells like an Alexander's sweat. Their females fragrant as the mead Which they in fairy circles tread, When at their dance's end they kiss, Their new-mown ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of the cargo and his Jewish fellow-passengers were to be landed, Aaron was tantalized for days by the quarantine, so that he must needs fret amid the musty odors long after he had thought to tread the sacred streets of Jerusalem. But at last he found himself making straight for the Holy Land; and one magic day, the pilgrim, pallid and emaciated, gazed in pious joy upon the gray line of rocks that changed gradually into ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... said Evangelist to him, Thy sin is very great, for by it thou hast committed two evils; thou hast forsaken the way that is good, to tread in forbidden paths; yet will the man at the gate receive thee, for he has good-will for men; only, said he, take heed that thou turn not aside again, "lest thou perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Lisbeth to Wenceslas, "go home, I beg. You are quite ridiculous. Your eyes are fixed on Valerie in a way that is enough to compromise her, and her husband is insanely jealous. Do not tread in your father-in-law's footsteps. Go home; I am sure Hortense is ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... complaining To the evening dew that fell; And its tufted bosom heaving, Thus its 'plains began to tell: 'Ah! men love you, bloom and sunshine, Long its rosy glow to see, Feed their eyes on luring flowers Whilst their feet tread rude on me!' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... photos as a matter of course. Also, they investigated some of the big, octagonal machines in the streets, finding them to be similar to the great "tanks" that were used in the war, except that they did not have the characteristic caterpillar tread; their eight faces were so linked together that the entire affair could roll, after a jolting, slab-sided, flopping fashion. Inside were curious engines, and sturdy machines designed to throw the cannon-shells they had seen; no explosive was employed, apparently, but centrifugal force generated ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... Him come to Jerusalem. Multitudes followed Him and accompanied Him, casting their mantles and palm-branches in the way that His mule might tread upon them." ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... geese and cranes and swans that in long-drawn strings fly tirelessly onward, so poured they forth, while the earth echoed terribly under the tread of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... has a great cat which she is very fond of. Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat's tail is the man she is ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... uplifted veil was of a type to accompany the youthful but womanly figure and the spirited tread. Beautiful she would be counted, without doubt, by many an observer; those who loved her would call her beautiful without stint. But more appealing than her beauty was the fine spirit—a strong, free spirit, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... to amass a tolerable fortune. His methodical habits, and strong religious principles, have been already mentioned. His eldest son was named after him, and resembled him both in person and character, promising to tread in his footsteps. The younger sons require little notice at present. One was twelve, and the other only half that age; but both appeared to inherit many of their father's good qualities. Basil, the elder, was a stout, well-grown lad, and had never known a ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference because they are greener? No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... at me. The Romish was a comfortable faith; Lambourne spoke true in that. A man had but to follow his thrift by such ways as offered—tell his beads, hear a mass, confess, and be absolved. These Puritans tread a harder and a rougher path; but I will try—I will read my Bible for an hour ere I again ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... home! the thought of it gave him an immense uplift. He walked with a lighter tread. His heart was full of happiness. He threw aside all hesitances and confessed to himself that he was glad through and through that he was going to give up this experiment and go back to his home again. His eagerness to get his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... are generally so shy, that they are seldom to be found for some days after hatching; and it is very wrong to pursue them, as many ignorant people do, under the idea of bringing them home. It only causes the hen to carry the young ones through dangerous places, and by hurrying she is apt to tread upon them. The cock bird kills all the young chickens he can get at, by one blow on the centre of the head with his bill, and he does the same by his own brood, before the feathers of the crown come out. Nature therefore directs the hen to hide and keep them out of his way, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... of few things more enjoyable than to sit, when the sun is shining, on the bank of a well-shaded burn, and, soothed by the soft melody of running water, watch the forktails moving nimbly over the boulders and stones with fairy tread, half-flight half-hop. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... tread lightly in these rarefied regions and get on to more practical concerns. By finding and emphasising in his work those elements in visual appearances that express these profounder things, the painter is enabled to stimulate the perception of ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... and this he mounted with vigorous determination. There was no likelihood of chance encounters, for there was not a soul in the vast building: the police were making their rounds outside it. Our adventurous journalist did not make his way upwards with stealthy tread—there was no need for that. Having gained the top floor, he went straight to a corner where an ebony ladder was ensconced, a ladder which had long been the joy and pride of the grand master of this part of the Palais, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... under a hopeless attachment for an object too pure almost to tread the earth—can a man, whose affections are set upon an unattainable object, be otherwise than unhappy?" asked Vernon in a solemn tone, no bad imitation of Macready; indeed the speaker, whilst uttering these sentiments, thought it sounded very like it; for he had often seen ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... will take place at this point. While this occurs rapidly in unshod hoofs, the shoe prevents wear of the hoof, though it is itself more rapidly worn away beneath the high (long) side than elsewhere, so that by the time the shoe is worn out the tread of the shoe may be flat. If this mistake be repeated from month to month, the part of the wall left too high will grow more rapidly than the low side whose pododerm is relatively anemic as a result of the greater weight falling into this half of the hoof, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... grip on my courage, walked across to the doorway, and peered into the summer-house. It was empty, and I stepped inside—superstitiously avoiding, as I did so, to tread on the spot where ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... must evidently soon face the stern factor again that disquieted Owen so; the way in which he tried hard to throw off his morose mood, and answer the sallies of his comrades in a spirit of frolic proved that he was fighting against his nature, and had laid out a course which he was determined to tread, no matter what pain or distress it brought ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... among his curly locks. But that was over now. They had parted forever. She was lying where he left her, cold, and white, and faint with dizzy pain. He was riding swiftly toward Aikenside, his heart beats keeping time to the swift tread of his horse's feet, and his mind a confused medley of distracted thoughts, amid which two facts stood out prominent and clear-he had lost Maddy Clyde, and had promised her to ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... winding high, Roofed far up with light-green flicker, Save one midmost star of sky. Underfoot 'tis all pale brown With the dead leaves matted down One on other, thick and thicker; Soft, but springing to the tread. There a youth late met a maid Running lightly,—oh, so fleetly! "Whence art thou?" the herd-boy said. Either side her long hair swayed, Half a tress and half a braid, Colored like the soft dead leaf, As she answered, laughing sweetly, On she ran, as flies the swallow; ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there, so in the tie that united them were intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They went heavenward supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and took his leave. I accompanied him to the door and watched him as he walked down the street. There was something buoyant in his tread, and his gigantic shoulders rolled from side to side like a seaman's on the quarter-deck. Soon he started whistling, and I smiled as I caught the tune. It was one of his chapel hymns, and there was a note of exultation in the ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... cavern, Andrew would not let Christina enter it with him. He said he knew perfectly well the spot to which he must go, and he would not have her tread again the dangerous road. So Christina sat down on the rocks to wait for him, and the water tinkled beneath her feet, and the sunshine dimpled the water, and the fresh salt wind blew strength and happiness ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... said, ought to be molested so long as he disturbed neither his neighbors nor the government. "This maxim has always been the guide of the magistrates of this city, and the consequence has been that from every land people have flocked to this asylum. Tread thus in their steps, and we doubt not you ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... predicted that impartial history would hang up Governor Bernard as a warning to his successors who had any sense of character, and perhaps his future fortune might be such as to teach even the most selfish of them not to tread in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... which he turned over so gently that not the slightest sound could possibly disturb the patient. All his manifestations were gentle and soft, but of a simplicity most unlike the feline softness which we are apt to associate with a noiseless tread and movement in the male sex. The sunshine came through the ivy and glimmered upon his great book, however, with an effect which a little disturbed the patient's nerves; besides, he desired to have a fuller ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and conform myself to them, I took it into my head to adopt others of my own, to enable me to dispense with those of society. My foolish timidity, which I could not conquer, having for principle the fear of being wanting in the common forms, I took, by way of encouraging myself, a resolution to tread them under foot. I became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness which I knew not how to practice. This austerity, conformable to my new principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... be free and abroad in the woods. He heard the wind singing in the pines. Their fine, penetrating aroma pervaded the air, and the rusty needles, covering the ground, muffled his tread. Once he paused—was that the bleat of a fawn, away down on the mountain's slope? He heard no more, and he walked on, looking about with his old alert interest. He was refreshed, invigorated, somehow consoled, as he went. O wise mother! ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... him (carefully advancing with right foot foremost, for it is bad luck to tread a threshold with the LEFT) we notice above the lintel some such inscription as "Let no evil enter here!" or "To the Good Genius," then a few steps through a narrow passage bring us into the Aula, the central court, the indispensable feature ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... freshness of the morning air together; 'they shall be free of mountain solitude;' they will be encompassed with the loftiest images of liberty upon every side; and if time shall have stolen its suppleness from the father's knee, or impaired the firmness of his tread, he shall lean on the child of her that watches over him from heaven, and shall look out from some high place, far and wide, into the island whose greatness and whose glory shall be ever associated with his name. In your love of justice; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... with an automatic precision, his eyes must have beheld glorious vistas, in which he rode a chariot of triumph at the head of a splendid procession, while his ears rang with chaste tributes to his worth trumpeted by outriding heralds. And the good earth was firm beneath his tread, stretching broadly off for him to walk upon and behold ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the girl's face, the hunted look in her eyes, and the trembling of the lashes on her cheeks, and realized the ordeal through which she was passing. Her prejudice against the minister had relaxed under his genial talk and presence, but feeling that Mrs. Burch was about to tread on dangerous ground, she hastily asked her if one had to change cars many times going from Riverboro to Syria. She felt that it was not a particularly appropriate question, but ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... stairs a creakin' under the tread of heavy steps, and when I got to the door there was two men a comin' up instead o' one. 'It's him! mother! it's him!' I shouted with all my might, for I see a sailor's cap and jacket, and took the rest for granted. I swung the door wide, and stood a-dancin' in it, and yet I didn't like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are dining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, and traverse Barca's desert sands; Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings,—yet—the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... one end of the Cape to the other and he had bought the empty lot opposite and made it into a miniature park, with flower beds and gravel walks, though no one but he or his might pick the flowers or tread the walks. He had brought on a wealthy friend from New York and a cousin from Chicago, and they, too, had bought acres on the Boulevard and erected palatial "cottages" where once were the houses of country people. Local cynics suggested that the sign on the East Harniss railroad station ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... you maintain an upright position as in walking. Some one says: "To tread water is like running up-stairs rapidly." Try running up-stairs and you will get the leg movement. While the water is up to your neck, bend your elbows and bring your hands to the surface, then keep the palms pressing down the water. The principle is the same ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... window at each end. The blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed into a small room lighted by two windows—one in front, the other at the end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay. There were four doors in this room—the one through which I had just entered, another ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... son, after the longest and most perilous absence of Master Headley's life, and he then presented Giles, to whom the kindly dame offered hand and cheek, saying, "Welcome, my young kinsman, your good father was well known and liked here. May you tread in ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of approaching summer. Thoughts of home, in a warmer and more hospitable climate, fill his heart with joy and longing, as meadows filled with daisies and buttercups spread out before him, while he stands upon the crest of a granite hill that knows no footstep other than the tread of the stately musk-ox or the antlered reindeer, as they pass in single file upon their frequent journeys, and whose caverns echo to no sound save the howling of the wolves or the discordant cawing of the raven. He is a boy again, and involuntarily ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... lovely face bending gratefully towards me through the glare of a sudden release from some emergency in which she stood. One thing was sure; if that was the way I must go, I had at least been taught how to tread it; and all through the dizzy, blurred day that followed, I saw, as I sat at my work, repeated visions of that stealthy, purposeful figure stealing down the stairs and entering with uplifted pistol into the unconscious presence of my employer. I ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... the influence of bustle, heat, and great weariness, the eyes of Vinicius began to close. The monotonous calls of boys playing mora, and the measured tread of soldiers, lulled him to sleep. He raised his head still a number of times, and took in the prison with his eyes; then he leaned against a Stone, sighed like a child drowsy after long weeping, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But those who walk in epos, drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting day with all its ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... six men could hardly keep him off, his fury was so hot. Then John Reeve said unto the people standing by, 'Friends,' said he, 'I pray you stand still on both sides of the room, and let there be a space in the middle, and I will lay down my head upon the ground and let this furious man tread upon my head and do what he will unto me....' So John Reeve pulled off his hat and laid his face flat to the ground, and the people stood still. So the man came running with great fury, and when he came near ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... his doubt still unsolved—his doubt whether his jealousy was right or his high opinion of his hero friend whose series of ever-mounting successes had filled him with adoration. He knew the way of success, knew no man could tread it unless he had, or acquired, a certain hardness of heart that made him an uncomfortable not to say dangerous associate. He regretted his own inability to acquire that indispensable hardness, and envied and admired it in Fred Norman. But, at the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... door was suddenly opened. Slowly, with a heavy tread, a tall man approached the catafalque, and, sinking on his knees beside it, hid his pale face in the folds of the burial cloth. The count looked neither to the right nor to the left; he saw only his son. Not a sound issued from his troubled breast; but with ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... dead, Like one that of his danger hath no feeling, The while with silent tread Those restless orbs are wheeling, And, as they fly, his ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... do with it. I think all the world of him. I'm a foolish wench'—her speech wandered as she settled herself cosily, one elbow on the arm-rest. 'We'd been engaged—I couldn't help that—and he worships the ground I tread on. But it's no use. I'm not responsible, you see. His two sisters are against it, though I've the money. They're right, but they think it's the dri-ink,' she drawled. 'They're Methody—the Skinners. You see, their grandfather that started the Patton ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Will lead my ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... the Arkansas River, near Fort Dodge. I was delayed near Kansas City under circumstances which preclude the supposition of chance and indicate a subtle and Inexorably fatal power at work for the preservation of my life—a force which with the giant tread of the earthquake devastates countries and lays cities in ruins; that awful power which on wings of the cyclone slays the innocent babe in its cradle and harms not the villain, or vice versa; that inscrutable spirit which creates and lovingly shelters the sparrow over ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... group of women. Marie's curiosity—like that which would undoubtedly precipitate all Paris into the Jardin des Plantes to see a unicorn, if such an animal could be found in those mountains of the moon, still virgin of the tread of Europeans—intoxicates a secondary mind as much as it saddens great ones; but Raoul was enchanted by it; although he was then too anxious to secure all women to care very much for ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... to see a little brother in trouble or pain, and this the beasts knew very well. He would not willingly tread upon an insect, but would step aside and gently bid the Brother Worm depart in peace. The fish which a fisherman gave him he restored to the water, where it played about his boat and would not leave him till he bade ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... sent her contributions; it appeared on the Pacific, and all orientalism felt the signal. They are coming in two endless fleets, eastward and westward, and the highway is swung between the ocean for them to tread upon. We have lightened Ireland of half her weight, and Germany is coming by the village load every day. England, herself, is sending the best of her working men now (1869), and in such numbers as to dismay her Jack Bunsbys. What is to be the ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... its customary effect; and the men looked jaded and exhausted. No one who has not stood at a pump-break on board a vessel, can form any notion of the nature of the toil, or of the extreme dislike with which seamen regard it. The tread-mill, as we conceive—for our experience extends to the first, though not to the last of these occupations—is the nearest approach to the pain of such toil, though the convict does not ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper |
