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Sail   /seɪl/   Listen
Sail

verb
(past & past part. sailed; pres. part. sailing)
1.
Traverse or travel on (a body of water).  "He sailed the Pacific all alone"
2.
Move with sweeping, effortless, gliding motions.  Synonym: sweep.  "Shreds of paper sailed through the air" , "The searchlights swept across the sky"
3.
Travel on water propelled by wind.  "The ship sails on"
4.
Travel on water propelled by wind or by other means.  Synonyms: navigate, voyage.



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"Sail" Quotes from Famous Books



... to the east. Yoking up the yaks. Gathering samples of plants and flowers. The beach. Following the shore line. Discovering the boat which had disappeared from the Falls in South River. Surprising find of strange oars and unfamiliar rope in the boat. Harry and George decide to sail the boat around the cliff point to the Cataract River. The Professor takes the team home. Sighting an object on the cliffs. Going ashore at the foot of the cliffs for an examination. Ascending the cliffs. Discovering ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... Bulgarian service, performed the military exercise before the general of this little army with so graceful an address, with so intrepid an air, and with such agility and expedition, that he was given the command of a company of foot. Now, he was a captain! He set sail with Miss Cunegonde, the old woman, two valets, and the two Andalusian horses, which had belonged to the ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... would stare Aghast. Salaman eyed the Sea, and cast about To cross it—and forthwith upon the Shore Devis'd a Shallop like a Crescent Moon, Wherein that Sun and Moon in happy Hour, Enter'd as into some Celestial Sign; That, figured like a Bow, but Arrow-like In Flight, was feather'd with a little Sail, And, pitcht upon the Water like a Duck, So with her Bosom sped to her Desire. When they had sail'd their Vessel for a Moon, And marr'd their Beauty with the wind o' th' Sea, Suddenly in mid Sea reveal'd itself An Isle, beyond Description beautiful An Isle that all was Garden; not a Bird Of Note ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... our recent experiences with her had proved that she sailed like a witch. We secured our prisoners; conveyed our own wounded—amounting to nine in all—on board the schooner; and then, having put Pierrepoint and a prize-crew on board the barque, both vessels made sail in company for Sierra Leone, where we arrived safely, after a passage of exactly a week, and where we were rejoined by Gowland and the prize-crew of the Conquistador, which vessel had ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... aristocracy of the settlement consists principally of retired factors and other members of the company, who possess large fortunes, dine on juicy roast beef, with old port, ride in their carriages, and enjoy life in a very comfortable manner. Two of the company's ships sail up into Hudson's Bay every year to bring merchandise to the settlement and take away furs. [1] But the greatest portion of the trade is done with Minnesota. Farming is carried on in the neighborhood of the settlement with cheerful ease ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... Phormio were famous Athenian generals. The former was celebrated for his conquest of all Boeotia, except Thebes, in 458 B.C.; the latter, with a fleet of twenty triremes, equipped at his own cost, defeated a Lacedaemonian fleet of forty-seven sail, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... twice again over the road between New York and Boston, as the packet by which I intended to leave America was fixed to sail from the former port. I had promised myself, and had promised others, that I would spend in Boston the last week of my sojourn in the States, and this was a promise which I was by no means inclined to ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... breeze to-night," he cried when Jake's boat approached within easy hailing distance, "and if it should come you must rig up something to serve as a sail, for your only chance of keeping afloat will be to run before it. You have a compass, and remember that land is to ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... mainland where they exist; compelled therefore either to build entirely with brick, or to import whatever stone they use from great distances, in ships of small tonnage, and for the most part dependent for speed on the oar rather than the sail. The labor and cost of carriage are just as great, whether they import common or precious stone, and therefore the natural tendency would always be to make each shipload as valuable as possible. But in proportion to the preciousness of the stone, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... practicability of his conclusions, because he has dealt with facts—since 1867. "For," to quote Carlyle, "you are in contact with verities, to an unexampled degree, when you get upon the ocean, with intent to sail on it ... bottomless destruction raging beneath you and on all hands of you, if you neglect, for any reason, the methods of keeping it down and making it float you ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... saw the wild North Sea Such a gallant company Sail its billows blue; Never, while they cruised and quarrelled, Old King Gorm or Blue Tooth Harold, Owned a ship so well apparelled, Boasted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various

... meteorologist is able to tell with mathematical accuracy in his laboratory, after a glance at his instruments, not only the direction of the prevailing wind, but the atmospheric pressure and the degree of humidity as well. I am able only, however, to say with the pilot: "I sail this way," and then make head ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... dropped in his hearing, but above all an unaccountable impression upon his spirits, all combined to fill his mind with a foreboding conviction that he was very near some overshadowing danger. It was as the chill of the ice-mountain towards which the ship is steering under full sail. He felt a strong impulse to see Helen Darley and talk with her. She was in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... head of the mariner, Its weight some billow heaping, Falls even while the castaway, With strained sight far sweeping, Scanneth the empty distances For some dim sail in vain; So over his soul the memories Billowed and gathered ever! How oft to tell posterity Himself he did endeavor, And on the pages helplessly ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... or three hundred feet from the shore Deerslayer took in his sail, and he dropped his grapnel as soon as he found the ark had drifted in a line that was directly to windward of the rock. The motion of the scow was then checked, when it was brought head to wind by the action of the breeze. As soon as this was done Deerslayer ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... us a very good passage," taking them within sight of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras, within twelve days of their leaving Plymouth. The wind continued fair when they stood to the westward, after sighting the Canaries, so that neither ship so much as shortened sail "untill 25 dayes after," when the men in the painted tops descried the high land of Guadaloupe. They stood to the south of Guadaloupe, as though to pass between that island and Dominica, but seeing some Indians busily fishing off a rocky ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... eyes, roving desperately about the room, fell upon the bottle of Bourbon which Kirk's kindly hospitality had provided. His emotions at the sight of it were those of the shipwrecked mariner who see a sail. He sprang at it and poured himself out a stiff dose. Before Mrs. Porter's disgusted gaze he drained the glass and then turned ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... that, come what might, her homegoing was finally settled this time. It was to take place immediately after Annie's marriage. For of course Annie would marry—perhaps a rich gentleman from the town—who knew? Then, when Annie was settled, Jean must leave school and keep house, and she would sail away ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... too fine a point on it, dearest, the game is up. The Napoleon of Finance is about to meet his Waterloo. And all for twenty thousand pounds. That is the really bitter part of it. To-morrow we sail for the Argentine. I've got ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... it behooved her to stop talking. Though her little picture was an oval of three inches by four, it had cost her more strokes than any canvas of ten times the size had ever done. And Eleanor was to sail in a fortnight! ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... morning of our departure we made Cape de Gaete. As the day dawned we discovered four sail in the wind's eye, and close in shore. The wind was light, and all sail was made in chase. We gained very little on them for many hours, and towards evening it fell calm. The boats were then ordered to pursue them, and we ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... it can do to repair the ship and make it ready to sail on to Virginia, since you insist ...
— The Landing of the Pilgrims • Henry Fisk Carlton

... of the breakfast table, sped down the long avenue on her bicycle. Across the handle bars was tied a bundle, her towel and scarlet bathing dress. From the back of the saddle, wobbling perilously, hung a much larger bundle, a new lug sail, the fruit of hours and hours of toilsome needlework on the wet days of ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... silver squadrons sail close to the waiting earth. The angels fling down their wreath of natal song and the virgin mother cradles upon her white and unsullied breast ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... in anger oft, are blusterers, An idle breath, forgot when sense returns. And for thy foemen, though their words were brave, Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find The seas between us wide and hard to sail. Such my firm purpose, but in any case Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here. My name, Though I be distant, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... the white pebbles shine through the mottled stream,—where you find great pied pan-sies under your hands, and catch the black beady eyes of orioles watching you from the thickets, and through the lush leafage over you see patches of sky flecked with thin clouds that sail so lazily you cannot be sure if the blue or the white is moving? Existence without these luxuries would be very much like ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... twenty-three, and not only to fight the world but her own family, particularly her brother's widow, owing to certain ambiguities in her father's will which are given forth in dreary detail in Dr. Knapp's Life.[140] It was these legal quarrels that led Mary Clarke and her daughter to set sail for Spain, where Mary had had the indefatigable and sympathetic correspondent during the previous year of trouble. Borrow and Mary Clarke met, as we have seen, at Seville and there, at a later period, they became 'engaged.' ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... holds in her left hand a wreath of oak, and with her right is preparing to inscribe the name of the recipient on a monument which is surmounted by the American eagle, and to the right of which are a mast, a yard with its sail bent, an anchor, a sextant, and a branch of laurel. Exergue: ACT OF CONGRESS ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... replied the captain with emphasis; "I made the contract to carry the shooting irons and we are loaded ready to sail, but ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... am giving a going away dinner for some soldiers of the Rainbow Division who are about to be sent to the transports. It's an official secret, of course. No one is supposed to know that they are going to sail soon, but everyone does know. None of their friends or relatives are to be allowed to be there to wish them God-speed or anything like that, and they need cheering up just now. So I arrange one of these dinners when I can. My plans ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... way from near Berbera to near Aden with large trustfulness in Allah and with certain less creditable goods. It was a long, unwieldy vessel which ten men could row, one could steer with a broad oar, and a small three-cornered sail could ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... She stands: amid its stagnate waters, hoarse The long sedge rustled to the gales of night. An age-worn bark receives the Maid, impell'd By powers unseen; then did the moon display Where thro' the crazy vessel's yawning side The muddy wave oozed in: a female guides, And spreads the sail before the wind, that moan'd As melancholy mournful to her ear, As ever by the dungeon'd wretch was heard Howling at evening round the embattled towers Of that hell-house [3] of France, ere yet sublime The almighty people from their tyrant's ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... peculiar construction, Harmouth High Street acts as a funnel for the off-shore breezes; they rush through it as they rush through Windy Gap, that rift in the coast before which the wary fisherman slackens sail. Just such an air was careering seawards when Mr. Pilkington was about to perform the difficult feat of folding his paper backwards. It smote one side of the broadsheet and tore it from his grasp, making it ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... the skipper, putting his hand on the cook's shoulder, "this is the man that found you, cap'n. Smartest and best chap I ever had sail ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... Mayes, and no other," said Plummer, when I had made my report and described the man with the eyes. "I've seen him twice, once with his beard and once without. The question now is, whether we hadn't best sail in straight away and collar him. But there's the window at the back, and a ladder, I think you said. Can he ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... human appeal to lovers of the outdoor world—these are but half the magazine. A year of OUTING will make you an outdoor man or woman, practical articles, by men like John Burroughs, Stewart Edward White, and Caspar Whitney will tell you how to sail a boat, swim, skate, hunt, walk, play golf and tennis; how to enjoy camps and dogs and horses; how to breathe God's air and ...
— Wholesale Price List of Newspapers and Periodicals • D. D. Cottrell's Subscription Agency

... and earth. You see the black plain that stretches away and away? That's our world, so dark, so full of ruts, so ugly; but it is the rough plain we all must travel to reach the shore of light. When life is over, we come to the end of night—over there. Then we sail ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... battle with better hopes. Xerxes, however, was intimidated, and in a transport of rage, disappointment, and fear, gave the order to retreat. He distrusted the fidelity of the allies, and feared for his own personal safety; he feared that the victors would sail to the Hellespont, and destroy the bridges. Themistocles, on the retreat of the Persians, employed his fleet in levying fines and contributions upon the islands which had supported the Persians, while Xerxes made his way ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... on the SW. coast of Belgium, 65 m. due W. of Antwerp; attracts 20,000 visitors every summer; it is an important seaport, having daily mail communication with Dover, and it manufactures linen and sail-cloth; fishing is the chief industry; it is famed for oysters, which are brought over from ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... let him loose. Being informed of this Megabates was exceedingly angry and broke out in rage against Aristagoras; and he replied: "What hast thou to do with these matters? Did not Artaphrenes send thee to obey me, and to sail whithersoever I should order? Why dost thou meddle with things which concern thee not?" Thus said Aristagoras; and the other being enraged at this, when night came on sent men in a ship to Naxos to declare to the Naxians all the danger ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... board ship was a vision of beauty from morning till night,—the sea like a mirror and the sky dazzling with light. In the afternoon we passed a ship in full sail, near enough to exchange salutes and cheers. After tossing about for six days without seeing a human being, except those on our vessel, even this was a sensation. Then an hour or two before sunset came the great sensation of—land! At first, nothing but a shadow on the far horizon, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... team realized in that fraction of a second when they saw the ball sail into the half-back's arms that their advantage, their prestige and their hope of glory in the annals of Jefferson football were at stake. They were after Teeny-bits like wolves on the trail of a rabbit, but only three of them had a chance to reach the Ridgley player. The first of these—the ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... target for the eyes of many women, who passed him rapidly, like ships in sail. The special fastidious shyness of his face attracted those accustomed to another kind of face. And though he did not precisely look at them, they in turn inspired in him the compassionate, morbid curiosity which persons who live desperate lives necessarily inspire ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... heaven the night mist gray, Close beside me, prankt in pride, Sister Tamar rose, and cried, 'Sluggard, up! 'Tis holiday, In the lowlands far away. Hark! how jocund Plymouth bells, Wandering up through mazy dells, Call me down, with smiles to hail, My daring Drake's returning sail.' 'Thine alone?' I answer'd. 'Nay; Mine as well the joy to-day. Heroes train'd on Northern wave, To that Argo new I gave; Lent to thee, they roam'd the main; Give me, nymph, my sons again.' 'Go, they wait Thee,' Tamar cried, Southward bounding from my side. Glad I rose, and at my call, Came ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... the crew of a submarine, you can now understand what show the battleship of coming days will have against a single hostile torpedo boat. Why, the captain of a torpedo boat, if he has but one torpedo on board, could sail in under a fleet, pick out his battleship, sink it and then scuttle away, under water, from the rest ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... what angry power Elpenor led To glide in shades, and wander with the dead? How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoined, Outfly the nimble sail, and leave ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... Tom and the children, on the fearful day of their sail up the beautiful stream? Bessie's eyes had not deceived her when, in one agonized glance, she had seen Tom dash into the forest bearing Rudolph and Kitty in his arms, followed by yelling savages. The chase, however, was a short one; before ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... of Sorrow, forgetting to weep, Long dimly she follow'd the vanishing sail, Till it melted away where clouds mantle the deep; Then thus o'er the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... lives of one part of their fellow-citizens, that the rest might be amused with pictures and statues.—"That's not our affair (says Monsieur de ————). Soldiers do not reason. And if the Convention should have a fancy to pillage the Emperor of China's palace, I see no remedy but to set sail with the first fair wind,"—"I wish, (said his sister, who was the only person present,) instead of being under such orders, you had escaped from the service." "Yes, (returned the General quickly,) and wander about Europe like Dumouriez, suspected ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... bluebird's back," to which Thoreau likened the paler fringed gentian. Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year; nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil. Gray thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only in sunshine, but added that, although it is proterandrous, i.e. it matures and sheds ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... independence—of getting away from advice and restraint, and of earning money for herself. In London more than in the country, girls go off and engage themselves as servants or in some other capacity, and so start alone in the world like little boats putting out on a stormy sea without sail or oar, rudder or compass. And many, many are wrecked on the first rock; and many go through wild tempests and suffer terrible hardships. A few battle through the winds and waves and reach a ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison

... precedent he did not intend to follow. Columbus did not know where he was going when he set sail, he did not know where he was when he arrived at the end of his voyage, and he didn't know where he'd been when he got back. Cochrane expected to improve on the achievement of the earlier ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... harpoons many, which were immediately cut up, and in the frying-pans for breakfast. But very soon they had "other fish to fry;" for one of the Indiamen, the Royal George, made the signal that there were four strange sail in ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... they were to sail, Phoebe sat alone, in her black dress, tired with work, and asking herself, sick at heart, could she ever really leave England, when the door opened softly, and Reginald Falcon, shabbily dressed, came in, and threw ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... "I have brought you a new lad. He will sail with you, tomorrow. I have a very good account of him, and I think you will find him ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... calm and awful by. I watched for another; they were three. And after a little while one crept up slower than the rest methought. And I with my foot thrust myself in good time somewhat out from the wall, and crying aloud 'Margaret!' did grip with all my soul the wood-work of the sail, and that moment was ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... great crocus-coloured robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where, the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail of purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the curious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... noted, is open to new interpretations. It specifies maidservants, but does not prevent one's employing as many married women as he pleases. It also says nothing about the various kinds of labor-saving machinery which we have now taught to work for us—sail-boats, naptha launches, yachts, automobiles, and private cars—all of which may be busily occupied during the seventh day of the week. The men who run these machines—the guides, boatmen, stokers, pilots, chauffeurs, and engineers—would all indignantly resent being regarded as-"servants", ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... flag is dark blue with a narrow red border on all four sides; centered is a red-bordered, pointed, vertical ellipse containing a beach scene, outrigger canoe with sail, and a palm tree with the word GUAM superimposed in bold red letters; US flag is ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... have affected him. But at the Officers' School he had indulged in hard study rather than in hard riding, had overworked, had brought back his Cuban fever, and was in poor shape to face the tropics. So, for two months before the transport was to sail, they ordered him to Cape Cod to fill his lungs with the bracing air ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... blithe and gay As a young cricket, teasing all the rest With her sharp wit; often she dropped her work— The threading of bright flowers into wreaths— To look across the waves, and suddenly She called, "A sail, a little sail," and all Followed her pointing fingers. Far away, Tossed like a feather, black against the sky, Hovered a tiny craft, its unknown lines Marked it as stranger, and the maidens all Curiously watched its ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... no human will that bore The boat so fleetly to the shore Without a sail spread or ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... store caught fire and burned, and almost all of Newburyport was burned up, too, it was a good time for George to strike for pastures new. He walked down to Boston, and spent all his money for a passage on a coaster that was about to sail for Washington, in the District of Columbia. This was in the latter part of the year Eighteen ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... not the moments which are limited! The favouring gale, which swells our parting sail, Must to Olympus waft our perfect joy. Quick counsel and resolve ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... task for which they were but ill-suited. The work was very hard, the provisions were nearly gone, and the crews were almost worn out by hunger and fatigue. On the 24th they entered the mouth of the Cumberland. The Adventure, the heaviest of all the craft, got much help from a small square-sail that ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... I said. "They could sail from Tyre and Sidon, keeping within sight of land all the way along the Mediterranean, through the Straits of Gibraltar, and then up the coasts of Spain and France, and across to our country; but they couldn't ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... wealth, better education for his boys, a competent old age. But he, too, had something to give in exchange. He must make himself ready against the great day when he should travel down the long way of the Piraeus, for the last time, and set sail for America. ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... birthday, Major John Decies had Damocles over to his bungalow for the day, gave him a box of lead soldiers and a schooner-rigged ship, helped him to embark them and sail them in the bath to foreign parts, trapped a squirrel and let it go again, allowed him to make havoc of his possessions, fired at bottles with his revolver for the boy's delectation, shot a crow or two with a rook-rifle, played an improvised game of fives with ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... is surprised by the tempest described in the beginning of the first book; and there it is that the scene of the poem opens, and where the action must commence. He is driven by this storm on the coasts of Africa; he stays at Carthage all that summer, and almost all the winter following; sets sail again for Italy just before the beginning of the spring; meets with contrary winds, and makes Sicily the second time. This part of the action completes the year. Then he celebrates the anniversary of his ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... for joy yet, for you are not sure of success. But when you have got the goddess, then rejoice, shout and laugh; thenceforward you will be able to sail or stay at home, to make love or sleep, to attend festivals and processions, to play at cottabos,[287] live like true Sybarites and to shout, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... energy than evidences of senility; and until the blinds were down over her soul, she had looked into and across the world with a pair of eyes that seemed to reflect the very blue and white of a June sky. No doubt she had thought to breast the hills and sail the seas again in some renaissance of vigour. No doubt her "retreat," like a Roman Catholic's, was designed to be merely temporary. She aped the hermit for the sake of a sojourn in the hermitage. She came to her island of Avalon to ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... me that you are not at all well, and how he has given you something which he hopes and believes will bring you round. It is not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence, or to tell you how anxious I am that you should come up with a wet sheet and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are not sick), that I write. It is simply to say what follows, which I hope may save you some mental uneasiness. For I was stricken ill when I was doing "Bleak House," and I shall ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... between which we went lay like great sheep, with green wool, basking in the blissful heat. The gleam from the waters came up the pass; the grand castle crowned the left-hand steep, seeming to warm its old bones, like the ruins of some awful megatherium in the lighted air; one white sail sped like a glad thought across the spandrel of the sea; the shadows of the rocks lay over our path, like transient, cool, benignant deaths, through which we had to pass again and again to yet higher glory beyond; and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... whose promise had not yet been fulfilled, bade Paris procure a ship and go in search of his destined bride. The prince said nothing of this quest, but urged his kindred to let him go; and giving out a rumor that he was to find his father's lost sister Hesione, he set sail for Greece, and finally landed ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... a far different place, here lived none but sailors, watermen, lightermen, and all those who had to do with ships and shipping, with the wants and the pleasures of the sailors. Boat builders had their yards along the bank; mastmakers, sail-makers, rope-makers, block-makers; there were repairing docks dotted about all down the river, each able to hold one ship at a time, like one or two still remaining at Rotherhithe, there were ship-building yards of considerable importance; all these places ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... Italian way, he left me, and I never saw him again. So I followed the way which the cook pointed out, and in two days reached a seaport called Chiviter Vik, terribly foot-foundered, and there I met a sailor who spoke Irish, and who belonged to a vessel just ready to sail for France; and the sailor took me on board his vessel, and said I was his brother, and the captain gave me a passage to a place in France called Marseilles; and when I got there, the captain and sailor got a little money for me and a passport, and I travelled across the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... no more roam, On the loud hoar foam, To the melancholy home At the limit of the brine, The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day's decline. We'll lift no more the shattered oar, No more unfurl the straining sail; With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale We will abide in the golden vale Of the Lotos-land, till the Lotos fail; We will not wander more. Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat On the solitary steeps, And the merry lizard leaps, And the ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... from the conversation, but I hardly think they are on board. I take it that the others are to meet this party at Skagway, which proves to me that the plans of our friends, the four Gold Diggers, were learned by the plotters some time before the former set sail for the north country. Oh, it is a fine game of grab they are planning! But I believe that, if Mr. Darwood be warned in time, he will be perfectly able to take care of himself. I am quite sure I shouldn't care to be ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin

... where many a weary sail Has seen, above the illimitable plain, 385 Morning on night and night on morning rise, Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread Its shadowy mountains on the sunbright sea, Where the loud roarings ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... water forced upward by the centrifugal action of the screw will, by impinging on the overhanging stern, press the vessel forward in the water, just in the same way as is done by the wind when acting on an oblique sail. I believe, the two revolving vanes without any twist or obliquity on them at all, would propel a vessel if set well forward in the dead wood or beneath the bottom, merely by the ascent of the water up the inclined plane ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all through their ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... criticism. The brethren present heard the voice, but no one saw the speaker. This was the sole ground for the belief that it was not a human utterance. Again, there is the arching of the fire round the martyr like a sail swelled by the wind (Sec. 15). But this may be explained as a strictly natural occurrence, and similar phenomena have been witnessed more than once on like occasions, notably at the martyrdoms of Savonarola and of Hooper. Again, there is the sweet scent, as of incense, ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... smoothly round and the wedding night drew nigh[3]. A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. The bride was dressed, the bridegroom had come. On the great back piazza, which had been inclosed with sail-cloth and lighted with lanterns, was Palmyre, full of a new and deep design and playing her deceit to the last, robed in costly garments to whose beauty was added the charm of their having been worn once, and once only, by ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... approach of autumn the return trip began. La Salle, however, did not accompany his valuable cargo, having a mind to spend the winter in. explorations along the Illinois. In September, with many misgivings, he watched the Griffin set sail in charge of a pilot. Then, with the rest of his followers he started southward along the Wisconsin shore. Reaching the mouth of the St. Joseph, he struck into the interior to the upper Kankakee. This stream the voyageurs, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... Powers. Suddenly the action of the Congress was interrupted by the most startling intelligence. On the night of March 6th Metternich was roused from sleep to receive a despatch informing him that Napoleon had quitted Elba. The news had taken eight days to reach Vienna. Napoleon had set sail on the 26th of February. In the silence of his exile he had watched the progress of events in France: he had convinced himself of the strength of the popular reaction against the priests and emigrants; and the latest intelligence which he had received from ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... helmsman, because he was a star-gazer and knew the points of the compass. Lynceus, on account of his sharp sight, was stationed as a lookout in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail ahead, but was rather apt to overlook things that lay directly under his nose. If the sea only happened to be deep enough, however, Lynceus could tell you exactly what kind of rocks or sands were at the bottom of it; and he often cried out to his companions ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora, With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed dreams lure the ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... they may turn their thoughts elsewhere. Already they are harrying the northern coasts of France, but there are richer prizes on the Mediterranean shores, and it may be that when England is no longer worth plundering they may sail away to Spain and Italy. We have acted foolishly in the way we have fought them. When they first began to arrive upon our coasts we should have laboured hard to build great fleets, so that we could go forth and ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... pardon for this sally, and will, if I can, continue the rest of my account in plain prose. The second day after we set sail, we passed Gallipolis, a fair city, situated in the bay of Chersonesus, and much respected by the Turks, being the first town they took in Europe. At five the next morning, we anchored in the Hellespont, between the castles of Sestos and Abydos, now called the Dardanelli. ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... remember; we left Portsmouth Harbor the 12th of August, 1357. It seemed a gruelling hard thing to us to sail just on the opening of the shooting season, but the wuzzies were ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... "When I sail again you won't come with me," said the captain, grimly. "I suppose you want an excuse for a soak ashore ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... only to be found on the coast of Maine, who are at once fishermen, farmers and navigators; a much more intelligent and cultivated class than the agricultural people of the interior. It is a beautiful sail among the islands from Rockland to Mount Desert, and the pleasantest part of it, to me at least, is the sight of the well kept farms with their handsome cattle and clean-shaven hay-fields, which line the coast. Our ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... three days after this conversation with Mr Chucks, the captain ran the frigate in shore, and when within five miles we discovered two vessels under the land. We made all sail in chase, and cut them off from escaping round a sandy point which they attempted to weather. Finding that they could not effect their purpose, they ran on shore under a small battery of two guns, which commenced firing upon us. The first shot which whizzed between the masts had to ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore, Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more, Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast. O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... I send out the little craft on the wide sea strewn with so many wrecks. But thinking it must be safer from adverse winds because it carries so low a sail, and will cruise along so close to the shore and not try to sail out in ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... the earth's circumference. The remaining two-thirds, he thought, was covered by the sea. And with what seems a prophecy he remarked that, if it was not for the vast extent of the Atlantic Ocean, one might almost sail from Spain to India along ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... carrying and "spy" carrying, along the Potomac and Chesapeake, was carried on in such a cute manner as to necessitate a peculiar service to meet and stop it. Gunboats nor troops could baffle it; it was done in skiffs, canoes (called cunnas), small sail boats with dirty sails hardly to be seen in broad day light. These little "creepers" would run right up under the bows of gunboats unnoticed; as soon as shore was touched, if a plug was pulled out of the bottom of ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... day that Alyrus, growing more confidential, told Lycias of the vessel lying in the River Tiber, ready to set sail as soon as he ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark

... set sail when the unfitness of the emigrants for their work began to discover itself. Lying weather-bound within sight of home, "some few, little better than atheists, of the greatest rank among them," were busying themselves with ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... was induced to take in his sail as he made way with his own dramatic attempts. He displayed the greatest boldness in an offensive publication of his youth, in which he wished to overturn the entire dramatic system of the French; he was less daring in the dialogues which accompany the Fils Naturel, and he showed ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... they are. I have always dressed with the most perfect intelligence. I follow all the fashions, and they must be French. La, here comes Richard. He is going to ask you to take a sail on the river; and I shall lend you my new green parasol. I do believe it is the only one ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... which I must turn. How imperceptibly and surely spread out these meadows where the rare flowers bloom! There is no end to these threads which place themselves in our hand, and which lead every man of the world his different way. So we sail on through the blue ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... and chandlers' shops and a faint show of shipping and an air of marine capacity which no apparent result justifies. It sits upon the shore like an antiquated sea-captain, grave and silent, in tarpaulin and duck trousers, idly watching the ocean upon which he will never sail again. ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... as though we're in to stay," said Joyce finally. "At least until our Zeudian hosts, whatever kind of creatures they may be, come and take us out. What'll we do then? Sail in and die fighting? Or go peaceably along with them—assuming we aren't killed at once—on the chance that we ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... to the United States Government a note to the effect that from February 1 sea traffic would be stopped with every available weapon and without further notice in certain specified zones. The decree applied to both enemy and neutral vessels, although the United States was to be permitted to sail one steamship a week in each direction, using Falmouth as the port of arrival and departure. On February 3 President Wilson appeared before Congress and announced that he had severed diplomatic relations with Germany on the ground that ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... shoulder of the Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in a country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his flushed and rustic visage; or as a fisher racing seaward, with the tiller under his elbow, and the sail sounding in the wind, would fling you a salutation from between Anst'er ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... than when a friendly sail is lost in the mist, Old Hundred's bulky land-wherry passed from view, and the soldier again turned to his companion. But she was now intent on some part in a play which she was quietly studying and he contented ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... concluded to take in all the sails that had been set. I thought that a steamer without smoke coming from her funnel, and no sails set, would be more likely to attract attention from distant vessels than if she appeared to be under sail. ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... a flood here some years ago, during which several blocks of buildings sailed out of town and had never been heard from since. A Chinaman concluded to leave in a wash tub, and actually set sail in one of those fragile barks. A drowning man hailed him piteously, thus: "Throw me a rope, oh throw me a rope!" To which the Chinaman excitedly cried, "No have got—how can do?" and went on, on with the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... maternal pride and fondness where Cherry was concerned. Today she had been house-cleaning, and had brought some treasures downstairs. She had showed Peter Cherry's old exercise books: "Look, Peter, how she put faces in the naughts and turned the sevens into little sail- boats! And see the straggling letters—'Charity Strickland!' I've always hated to destroy them. She was such a lazy, cunning ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... popular mind with regard to strange peoples. Broadly speaking, it is no doubt correct to say that, Japan has adopted Western inventions and scientific appliances with avidity; that she has shown a desire for change which is abnormal, and a disposition to destroy her charts and sail away into unsurveyed seas, while China remains pretty much where she always was. She is now, with some exceptions, what she was twenty, two hundred, perhaps two thousand years ago, while a new Japan has been created in fifteen years. All this, we say, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... good opinion for ever. She comforted her young master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would have a household of their own; of which, in whatever service she might be in the meantime, she should be sure to form part. Almost the last action Frank Wilson did, before setting sail, was going with Alice to see Norah once more at her mother's house. And ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... Prometheus mould men out of the mud, and call on the winds of heaven to breathe life into them. Then Prometheus loved the beings he had made, and taught them to build houses, and tame the animals, and row and sail on the sea, and study the stars. But Zeus was afraid they would be too mighty, and would not give them fire. Then Prometheus climbed the skies, and brought fire down for them in ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... John went to the captain and told him to set sail as soon as the Princess went down into the cabin. And when she came there he began telling her a long story, how that his master the King had sent him to visit all the kingdoms of the earth, and that this dressing-table was intended for the most beautiful princess whom he should ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... The wind had dropped, and we could, without danger, trust ourselves on the sea, upon which we had to sail for some hours, from the principal arm of the Ribon to that on which Redutkale was situated. There was indeed a canal leading from the one to the other, but it can only be passed at very high water, as it is much ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... half hour, and relating many a little story which I had picked up for the occasion, and was carrying my audience along under full sail, with almost a full string counted up for the Republican party, the old lawyer who sat behind me, pulled my coat-tail, and began to laugh slightly. I noticed also a few intelligent-looking gentlemen looking suspiciously at ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... More than a thousand sail of well-found trawlers are constantly engaged in sweeping the seas around our coast in this way, and it is to them that we owe a very large proportion of our supply of fish. The difficulty of trawling, like that of dredging, rapidly increases with the depth at which the operation is performed; ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... the sick maiden's limbs, and she sank down gently on her bed, as a sail falls when the cords are loosed and the wind ceases; and thus she lay for a long time ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... his assistance, and in March of 1617 he set sail for El Dorado with a well-manned and well-equipped fleet of fourteen ships, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke standing ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... prayer that Miss Vesta had offered every evening for thirty years. As often as she repeated it, the sea before her eyes changed, and she saw a stretch of black tossing water, with foam-crests that the lightning turned to pale fire; a sail drove across her window, dipped, and disappeared. ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... six weeks. I'm just going to be married, and we sail directly afterwards," said Miss Meredith. "You saw Mr. Joyce, I think, when we came up ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... also. The waiter showed us upstairs into a large room, whose window opened to our view a fine prospect of the river Thames, which here, they say, forms one of the most beautiful meanders. It was within an hour of high water, and such a number of ships coming in under sail quite astonished as well as delighted me, insomuch that I could not help breaking out into such-like expressions, "My dear, what a fine sight this is; I never saw the like before! Pray will they get to London this tide?" ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... captain was invited to dine with the Grand Master, which hindered our departure. In the mean time wee have severall of the Malteese com to visit us, all extreamly courteous. And now wee are preparing to sail for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... decided to attack Venice at home while the best of her ships were absent with Carlo Zeno. She sent a strong fleet into the Adriatic under Luciano Doria. Pisani had been reinforced early in the spring of 1378, but when he was sighted by the Genoese fleet of 25 sail off Pola in Istria on the 7th of May, he was slightly outnumbered, and his crews were still weak. The Venetian admiral would have preferred to avoid battle, and to check an attack on Venice itself, by threatening the Genoese fleet from his base on the Istrian coast. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... us thitherward, with high hopes (and appreciating eyes) to enjoy the storied scenery of its shores. Touch, if you will, at Gibraltar; see how the tide flows through the straits! We go in with a flowing sail, and now we are at Corsica, Napoleon's home. Let us stop at Sardinia, with its wealth of tropical fruits; and we will even down to Sicily,—for this mimic ocean teems with subjects to delight the eye even of the most casual observer, with its majestic boundary of Alps and Apennines, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... his heart-strings were severed as he tore himself away from the land where all remained that he coveted upon earth. And Katerina, she too felt as if her existence was a blank; and as the vessel sailed from the port, she breathed short; and when not even her white and lofty topgallant sail could be discovered as a speck, she threw herself on her couch and wept. And M'Clise as he sailed away, remained for hours leaning his cheek on his hand, thinking of, over and over again, every lineament and feature ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... subservient to thee in all that thou sendest to me about; for when by my subjects I have cut down many and large trees of cedar and cypress wood, I will send them to sea, and will order my subjects to make floats of them, and to sail to what place soever of thy country thou shalt desire, and leave them there, after which thy subjects may carry them to Jerusalem. But do thou take care to procure us corn for this timber, which we stand in need of, because ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... earl of Warwick's sister. But as that nobleman refused all concurrence with them, and as Lord Montague also remained quiet in Yorkshire, they were obliged to disband their army, and to fly into Devonshire, where they embarked and made sail towards Calais.[***] ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... Sail up the river Koksoak. Transactions in that region. Dangerous eddy. Meet Esquimaux. Address to them. Their joy and eagerness to have Missionaries, resident among them. Find a suitable situation for a settlement. ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch

... among the four principal examples of Turner's later water-colour drawing, perhaps the most neglected is that of fishing-boats and fish at sunset. It is one of his most wonderful works, though unfinished. If you examine the larger white fishing-boat sail, you will find it has a little spark of pure white in its right-hand upper corner, about as large as a minute pin's head, and that all the surface of the sail is gradated to that focus. Try to copy this sail ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin



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