"Tread on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit, in which both mind and heart find full expression. We ought to rise day by day with a certain zest, a clear intention, a design to make the most out of every hour; not to let the busy hours shoulder each other, tread on each other's heels, but to force every action to give up its strength and sweetness. There is work to be done, and there are empty hours to be filled as well. It is happiest of all, for man and woman, if those hours can be filled, not as a ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... everywhere! How many dances can you give me? I've kept my programme as free as I could till I found you. I thought the pixies must have spirited you away! What did you say? I ought to ask Gwen? It isn't necessary in the least. You know I'm a duffer at it, and I should probably tread on her toes and she'd hate me for evermore. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... he has been twice round the circus," said Uncle Ben. "You stand aside, missy, or Greased Lightning may tread on you." ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... Arch of Titus we found ourselves in the Forum, now the Campo Vaccino: so that cattle now low where statesmen and orators harangued, and lazy priests in procession tread on the sacred ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... ascended the steep hill among the trees. The silence was broken only by the deep, distant, low roar of the Shawenegan Falls. Mr. Trenton sat in his place, while the half-breeds held the canoe steady. Miss Sommerton rose and stepped with firm, self-reliant tread on the landing. Without looking backward she proceeded up the steep hill, and disappeared among the dense foliage. Then Trenton leisurely got out ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... kept in its place by a wire fastened to one end and passing down to a spring concealed in the ground inside the cage. As soon as the lion entered sufficiently far into the trap, he would be bound to tread on the spring; his weight on this would release the wire, and in an instant down would come the door behind him; and he could not push it out in any way, as it fell into a groove between two rails firmly ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... common elevated platform from which one surveys the age and its problems, and considers how to bring the world at large up to one's own level. You cannot discuss anything with a person who has ever been publicly imperfect—at any point you may tread on his corns. Has he been bankrupt? The slightest reference to honesty, finance, or business may seem an insult. Has he figured in the Divorce Court? How are you to talk about the last new play without seeming personal? This explains why exposed persons are cut: they have made conversation impossible ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Perizzite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite? and are not these men justly to be compared to the five kings, who took shelter in the cave of Makedah, who were delivered into the hands of Joshua the son of Nun? and he caused his captains and his soldiers to come near and tread on their necks—and then he smote them, and he slew them, and then he hanged them on five trees, even till evening—And thou, Gilbert Pearson by name, be not withheld from the duty which is appointed to thee, but ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... every now and then to see, and would sit watching this little half-starved girl with kindly and screwed-up eyes. About his personality there was all the evidence of that saying current among those who knew him: "Hilary would walk a mile sooner than tread on an ant." The little model, from the moment when he poured liqueur between her teeth, seemed to feel he had a claim on her, for she reserved her small, matter-of-fact confessions for his ears. She made them in the garden, coming ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at that piece of flint. It is narrow, thin, sharp-edged: quite different in shape from any bit of flint which you or I ever saw among the hundreds of thousands of broken bits of gravel which we tread on here all day long; and here are some more bits like it, which came from the same place—all very much the same shape, like rough knives or razor blades; and here is a core of flint, the remaining part ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... the Shining Light, cross-legged on the table, in the midst of the order she had accomplished, her hands neatly folded in her lap, Judith sat serene. She had heard my clatter on the gang-plank, my shuffle and heavy tread on the deck. 'Twas I, she knew: there was no mistaking, God help me! the fall of my feet on road or deck. It may be that her heart for a moment fluttered to know that the lad that was I came at last. She has not told me: I ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... said he; "you know I wasn't going to touch you but you had to dodge. Your mind had nothing to do with it, just your instinct. That was how I was. When he landed his blow I went for my knife by instinct. If you tread on a snake he lets out at you just the same way. He doesn't think. He's wound up ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... Conanchet. His quicker and more practised vision soon caught a glimpse of the warrior who was approaching, occasionally concealed by the trunks of trees, and whose tread on the dried leaves had first betrayed his proximity. Folding his arms on his naked bosom, the Narragansett chief awaited the coming of the other, in an attitude of calmness and dignity. Neither did he speak nor suffer a muscle to play, until a hand was placed on one of his arms, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... go into the porch and sit by the door, so that you can hear and see what's goin' on. Don't be afraid of the one-eyed fair one who guards the portals. She's not as bad as she looks; only take care that you don't tread on her toes; ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Great Britain to an opposition based on peaceful rivalry in human progress, Germany would find the path of success hers to tread on more than equal terms, and many fields of expansion now closed would readily open to German enterprise without that people incurring and inflicting the loss and injury that an attempted invasion of the great self-governing ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... Bellegarde, "that no man was poor; but your formula strikes me as an improvement. As a general thing, I confess, I don't like successful people, and I find clever men who have made great fortunes very offensive. They tread on my toes; they make me uncomfortable. But as soon as I saw you, I said to myself. 'Ah, there is a man with whom I shall get on. He has the good-nature of success and none of the morgue; he has not our confoundedly irritable ...
— The American • Henry James
... smote him so fairly in the face that he shrank back, and pressed his hand to a swelling cheek. "I said I hated and despised you. What I despise, though, is beneath my hate. I would tread on you as on a viper or a desert asp, as a noxious creature that is not fit to live. I have played my game; and though it was not I who won, but Agias who won for me, I am well content. Drusus lives! Lives to see you miserably dead! ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... say paternosters to the moon, to pat the cat and pat the dog, to salute the friends, to flatter the gout, or the cold of the aunt, to say to her at opportune moments "You have good looks, and will yet write the epitaph of the human race." To please all the relations, to tread on no one's corns, to break no glasses, to waste no breath, to talk nonsense, to hold ice in his hand, to say, "This is good!" or, "Really, madam, you are very beautiful so." And to vary that in a hundred different ways. To keep himself cool, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... in a quiet way were fast becoming a mighty force in the country. They addressed each other as brother and sister; they are said to have had their own translations of the Bible; they claimed a descent from the Apostles; and they are even held by some (though here we tread on very thin ice) to have possessed their own ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... had to saddle up and clear off at once. I had to go off sans cafe (which is breakfast), and worse still in my hurry sans pipe. Oh, how that worried me, my pipe which I have kept and smoked through all till now. Somebody might tread on it and break it, or find it and not return it. On the kopje a friend lent me his emergency pipe, over which a lot of quinine powder had been upset, so I had a few smokes, in which the flavour of quinine prevailed unpleasantly. Still, I ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... at the head," the servant tells me; "never tread on the tail.... This is a small one: the big fellows can make you afraid if you do not know ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... from others. A foot, for instance, I will allow it is natural should be clean. But if you take it as a foot, and as a thing which does not stand by itself, it will beseem it (if need be) to walk in the mud, to tread on thorns, and sometimes even to be cut off, for the benefit of the whole body; else it is no longer a foot. In some such way we should conceive of ourselves also. What art thou?—A man.—Looked at as standing ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... be true, the matter of weight regarding the seat of my affections, on this particular morning, was not a trivial one. With an inflamed and spiteful wilfulness, I stamped my feet with a louder and heavier tread on each step, as I ascended to answer ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... finally be led down to feed at a long table where the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room will tread on your toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not the soft touch on the door— He heard not the tread on the carpeted floor— So still was her coming, he thought him alone, Till she spake in a sweet and silvery tone: "Thou knowest not yet how much thou shalt win— How fast the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... Dhritarashtra's son, thou wilt attain to proportional happiness after having killed thy foes, O great king. O lord of men, the ways of the world are known to thee. Therefore, O my son, thou art never guided by avarice in any of thy dealings. O descendant of Bharata, do thou tread on the foot-prints of ancient saintly kings. My son, Yudhishthira, be steady in the path of liberality, and self-abnegation, and truth. And, O royal Yudhishthira, mercy and self control, and truth and universal sympathy, and everything wonderful in this world, are to be found ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his immediate audience for the sake of being attractive to a much larger number of people later on. He cannot gain this later audience unless he has been fearless and thorough-going, and if he is this he is sure to have to tread on the corns of a great many of those who live at the same time with him, however little he may wish to do so. He must not expect these people to help him on, nor wonder if, for a time, they succeed in snuffing him out. It is part of the swim that it should ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... till night, from night till startled Morn[84] Peeps blushing on the Revel's laughing crew, The Song is heard, the rosy Garland worn; Devices quaint, and Frolics ever new, Tread on each other's kibes.[85] A long adieu He bids to sober joy that here sojourns: Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu[cy] Of true devotion monkish incense burns, And Love and Prayer unite, or rule the hour ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... that my son dwelt with the Gods, now clearly know it. O children, now indeed you shall be free from toils, and free from Eurystheus, who shall perish miserably; and ye shall see the city of your sire, and you shall tread on your inheritance of land; and ye shall sacrifice to your ancestral gods, debarred from whom ye have had, as strangers, a wandering miserable life. But devising what clever thing has Iolaus spared Eurystheus, so as not to slay him, tell me; for in my ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... white-faced seneschal, Tread on my heels with all his retinue, I am most glad I loved thee—think of all The suns that go to make one ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... Flores, Flores, were not I assured Both of thy noblenesse, thy birth and merite, Yet my affection vow'd with friendships toong, In spite of all base changes of the world That tread on noblest head once stoopt by fortune Should love and grace thee to my utmost power. Cornelia is my wife: what sayes my love? Cannot thy father's friend entreat ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... hear, thou beauteous maid, Could I thy troth obtain, Then thou shouldst tread on silk outspread, And ne'er on the ...
— The Return of the Dead - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... to learn the true meaning of neighborliness, that kindliness of spirit which is stifled by stress in the crowded places, and stimulated by like stress amid surroundings where life is noncomplex, direct, where cause and effect tread on each other's heels. Every day, if she failed to drop into their cabin, came one of her neighbors to see if all were well with her. Quite as a matter of course Jake kept steadily replenished for her ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of a blundering progress rose from the path behind them, the breaking of branches and the slipping of a heavy tread on the water-soaked ground. John Woolfolk, with an oath, realized that it was Nicholas, still animated by his fixed, murderous idea. Millie Stope recognized the sound, too, for she trembled violently on his arm. He knew that she could support no more violence, and ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... available channel makes her of no use to general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper. But her organization is too closely allied to ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... it plumed itself for a peaceful flight might be again obscured. To us of a remote posterity the momentary division of epochs seems hardly discernible. So rapidly did that fight of Demons which we call the Thirty Years' War tread on the heels of the forty years' struggle for Dutch Independence which had just been suspended that we are accustomed to think and speak of the Eighty Years' War as one ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light glimmered up in the rooms behind me. It gives one a very odd sensation to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive, whether it is a man or a woman. I had that sensation in ascending a stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage. The individual made no movement, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Kleindorf by the evening diligence, and among the passengers was that same priest who had been their companion on the day of Godfrey's arrival. As usual he was prepared to be bellicose, and figuratively, trailed the tails of his coat before his ancient enemy. But the Pasteur would not tread on them. Indeed, so mild and conciliatory were his answers that at last the priest, who was a good soul at bottom, grew anxious and ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... 1776, occurred an event of importance in the hoisting of the flag with the thirteen stripes. Previously the colonies had used different devices, in the South a rattlesnake flag with the motto, "Don't tread on me," and for the Connecticut troops the colony arms and the motto Qui transtulit sustinet, "which we construe thus: 'God, who transplanted us hither, will support us.'"[142] Massachusetts had used the pinetree flag and the motto "Appeal to Heaven," and the little navy had a sign ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... my ravished eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise; Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground.[10] ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... forgotten," said he, "to tell you what I was most anxious to say. If I had seen no other prospect for you, I should be the last man to make you discontented with your profession. My only request is, that when you once more tread on English ground, you will seriously consider whether you will continue in the army. If know you at all, I think that you would not be altogether satisfied with wearing your epaulettes at reviews and parades. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... relished impaling him upon the shafts of her ridicule. Her sport was interrupted by the arrival of Spawn. He had left me at the mine and come directly back home. Jetta heard his heavy tread on the garden ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... it scares me. I feel—see—something awful coming. In the universal German hate, the national boundary stops any flow outward of sympathy, good faith, equity. All peoples outside are human insects whom it is proper for the Teuton to tread on if he can, crush the life out of, because they are in his ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... 'thorough good do-out,' if two or three troublesome children have to be housed and fed during the critical days after an operation on father or mother, do I look for assistance from 'the cleanest woman in the street?' Alas, no; whether she be wife, widow, or spinster, I pass her by, careful not to tread on her pavement, much less her doorstep, and seek the happy-go-lucky person whose own premises would be better for more water and less grease, but from whose presence neither husband nor ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... him to," broke in Clark; "couldn't you guess that? He spoke to me about it. But understand that neither the bishop nor any one else must know it. I told them all except Ryan, and I didn't like to tread on his religious toes." ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... noticed that the waiter was a young man who evidently had not been always thus. He had the air of one who yearns to have some one tread on the tail of his coat. Meekness, with me, is one of my characteristics. It is almost a passion. It is the result of personal injuries received in former years at the hands of parties who excelled me in brute force and who succeeded in drawing me out ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... behind the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my knees, slipped off my boots an' tuk a general hould av all the pink linin' av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out like a woman's dhriss whin you tread on ut at a sergeants' ball, an' a bottle came with ut. I tuk the bottle an' the next minut I was out av the dhark av the pillar, the pink linin' wrapped round me most graceful, the music, thunderin' like kettledrums, an' a could ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... his angels; also against so many tyrants and factions; yea, against our own flesh and blood. The fact that the gospel remains and improves the human heart,—this is indeed to cast out the devil, and tread on serpents, and speak with tongues; for those visible miracles were merely signs for the ignorant, unbelieving crowd, and for those who were yet to be brought in; but for us, who know and believe, what need is there of them? For the heathen, indeed, Christ must needs ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... and wants everything, but you've had the best, and more you needn't want, though there'll be many a man who'll be in love with you. Ay, indeed, there's fair and dark as will feel the favor of your beautiful eyes, but little good will it do them, and barons and lords as would kiss the ground you tread on; and no wonder, either, for you have the charm which nobody can tell what it is. But it will do 'em ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... her proud speech silencing my tongue from further expostulation, even had I believed De Noyan deserved a defender. He had deliberately chosen his path, now let him follow it; any man who would thus lightly tread on the heart of such a woman was clearly outside the radius of human sympathy, deserving to be. Certainly I felt no call to stand ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... to convey the desperate urgency and fervor of her low voice. Phillida uttered an exclamation of fear. Vere wheeled about and left the room. The front door closed behind him. The gravel crunched under his tread on the path to the garage, and the rate at which the light he carried moved through the fog showed that he was running. He obviously accepted the warning exactly as it was given. After the briefest indecision, Phillida hurried out into ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... colleges. And now may ye be struck blind before ye get your education and dumb if it makes a fool of ye." And so slapping the boy on the back, Jake Dolan went down the street winding in and out among the brick piles and lumber and mortar boxes, whistling "Tread on the Tail of ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools, and the learned clan; For ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... exclaimed, clenching her little hand, and stamping her foot on the floor in a passion I could not understand. 'That is you! That is M. de Marsac all over. You say nothing, and men think nothing of you. You go with your hat in your hand, and they tread on you. They speak, and you are silent! Why, if I could use a sword as you can, I would keep silence before no man, nor let any man save the King of France cock his hat in my presence! But you! There! go, leave me. Here is your coin. Take it and go. Send me that lad ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... protected from harm? Will not the Lord, in His glorious presence, hover over them as a cloud by day and as a flaming fire by night? Hath He not said, "Upon all the glory shall be a defence?" Shall the cruel persecutor then have power to tread on that sacred threshold? May the ruthless slayer enter this little sanctuary, where God and His children dwell together in mutual and unquenchable love? Will the wicked be permitted to draw the sword, and quench the coals on the hearth, and the fire on the altar, with the ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... folks likes buttermilk bread best; some do," said the Widow Buzzell. "My husband always said, give him buttermilk bread to work on. He used to say my riz bread was so light he'd hev to tread on it to keep it anywheres; but when you'd eat buttermilk bread he said you'd got somethin' that stayed by you; you knew where it was every time. ... For massy sake! there's the stage stoppin' at the Hobson's door. I wonder if Rube's first wife's mother has come from Moderation? If 't is, ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her size. English, no doubt. Well, we had better go down again, lad. I must report to the captain that this craft is cruising in these waters. It will be dark before we are back, and I don't want to be in the woods after dark; there's no saying what one might tread on. I thought that we would stretch ourselves out under the trees for to-night and go aboard in the morning, but I feel different now. Bless you, I should never close an eye. So I propose as we goes down so as not to be noticed by them chaps up ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... voices, the silent torpid river, basking in the light of the sun, and responding only to the fishes as they frisk near the surface? Or is it in the autumn, with its many shades, with its long avenues on which nature has lavished whole tubes of burnt sienna and vermilion; when you tread on gorgeous paths heavy with golden leaves? Oh, why are we not as lovely in our autumn of life as nature is in hers? Why, when she decks herself in the gayest coloring, do we don our soberest garb? We do not gain in splendor as we grow older. We lose our ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... at the last, knows nothing of that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die, lay upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread on, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this can mean ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... hesitated, then, as if driven to do it in spite of himself, plunged downward through the narrow doorway of the tower into the darkness. Domini waited for a moment, listening to the heavy sound of his tread on the wooden stairs. She frowned till her thick eyebrows nearly met and the corners of her lips turned down. Then she followed slowly. When she was on the stairs and the footsteps died away below her she fully realised ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Adrian. Rome's thunderbolts Wake little terror now, and reason shakes The bonds that thou fain would'st were everlasting. ... Christ calls to her As of old to the sick man, "Rise and walk." She 'll tread on you if you go not before. The world has other truth besides the altar's. It will not have a temple that hides heaven. Thou wast a shepherd: be a father. The race Of man is weary of being called ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... I'm working for. Mac was with me at the time. He had to come in here and report it, for it happened in his district, and the major raked him over the coals in a way that was hard to stand. You know MacRae, Lyn; it's mighty poor business for any man to tread on his toes, much less go walking rough-shod all over him. Lessard went the length of accusing him of being in with these hold-up men, because he did a little investigating on his own account before coming in to report. Mac took that pretty hard, and came mighty near ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... war, which ravaged our country from 1861 to 1865—an event involving a conflict of passion, of prejudice, and of arms, that has developed results which, for better or worse, have left their mark on the world's history—I feel that I tread on delicate ground. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... And why, at this time, should you refer to that old sinner? But let me go on. While I was there the doctor came, and shortly afterward we heard a heavy tread on the flapping boards of the passageway that divides the two sections of the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... animals, is inexplicable on any of the principles that regulate our philosophy, and can only be referred to the contrivance and disposition of infinite wisdom: yet the vehicle in which these stupendous operations are conducted owns a material basis: even the confused mass that composes the earth we tread on possesses certain intrinsic properties. Every atom is subjected to definite regulation, and without exaggeration, may be considered endowed with instinctive tendency to coalesce or disunite under favourable opportunities, and the correct observation ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... talking in the kitchen, and then came his heavy tread on the loose and flapping boards of the passage-way. The door was cut so low that he had to duck his head. He came in with a stoop, but straightening himself in the majesty of conscious hospitality, he bowed and said: "Gentlemen, you will please ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Pickwick, looking about him for fear he should tread on some overgrown black beetle, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... before. A fortnight later they reached Kukawa, the capital of Bornu, once a great Mohammedan empire. "We were about to become acquainted with a people who had never seen or scarcely heard of a European," says Denham, "and to tread on ground, the knowledge and true situation of which had hitherto been wholly unknown. We advanced towards the town of Kuka in a most interesting state of uncertainty, whether we should find its chief at the head of thousands, or be received by him under a tree, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... 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 gold and shadow. For them, as for us, the flowers bloom ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... over herself if she would return to Ulm the same modest girl whom her aunt could acquit of all indiscretion. Her cheeks flamed, as she sat alone, with the very thought, and the next time she heard the well-known tread on the stair, she fled hastily into her own turret chamber, and shut the door. Her heart beat fast. She could hear Sir Eberhard moving about the room, and listened to his heavy sigh as he threw himself into the large chair. Presently ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... course, was not without its disadvantage. Vaguely he felt that in some subtle way he was gaining the disapproval of his fellows. Men were apt to look at him askance, half doubtful, half-indignant. They tread on his toes in the Elevated. His work, too, was going to pot; he could not stick to his figures. His chief, an old fragile-necked book-keeper, had spoken to ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... for any. Stokes was not a man to return favors in words; be brooded over his gratitude as if it were a grudge. "I'll get even with that young Jarvis yet," he muttered, as he nursed his leg over the fire. "I know he worships the ground that little Rolliffe girl treads on, though she don't tread on much at a time. She never trod on me nuther, though I've had her foot in my hand more'n once. She looked at the man that made her shoes as if she would like to make him happier. When a little tot, she used to say I could come ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... wild pig. And it would seem that he, or she, who came that way was a pig, only a precious little one. You know the ways of a pig? How you can hear him coming long before he comes; how he must snuffle, and grunt, and poke dead leaves, and snort, and tread on things, and snore. Very good. So it was here; and these things did this new-comer, who approached through the mist—only all in a dwarfed way, as if they were done by a tiny grown-up pig. Its gruntings were almost to itself; its snortings, snorings, and sniffings quite small; and its snorts ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Miriam! I cannot follow you!" repeated the sculptor. "Mortal man has no right to tread on the ground where you now set ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... value family. We even parade our pretensions so prominently as sometimes to tread on other people's prejudices of a like nature. Yet we scarcely seem to appreciate the inheritance. For with a logic which does us questionable credit, we are proud of our ancestors in direct proportion to their remoteness from ourselves, thus permitting Democracy to revenge its insignificance ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... it—into myself. As for walking, I can carry any sized bundle on my head, and grandmamma says she has nothing further to teach me in that respect, and that I have mastered the fact that a gentlewoman should give the impression that the ground is hardly good enough to tread on. She has also made me go through all kinds of exercises to insure suppleness, and to move from the hips. And the day she told me she was ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... Mademoiselle is going on to the stage, she would look better if she had hair like Madame," he said, bowing with respectful admiration to my mother, who certainly had the most beautiful hair imaginable. It was fair, and so long that when standing up she could tread on it and bend her head forward. It is only fair to say, though, that ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It well be a fearful ordeal, be not deceived in that, but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great. From this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Maymunah[FN98] bare * Whose sire in wisdom all the wits outstrippeth: Man may not tread on mud or dust or clay * Save by good sense, else trippeth he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... incalculable ages ago, when Gotama was a hermit called Sumedha. Seeing that the road over which Dipankara had to pass was dirty, he threw himself down in the mire in order that the Buddha might tread on him and not soil his feet. At the same time he made a resolution to become a Buddha and received from Dipankara the assurance that ages afterwards his wish would be fulfilled. This incident, called pranidhana or the vow to become ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... the palace gate, it was with the body somewhat bent forward, almost as though he could not be admitted. When he stood still, this would never happen in the middle of the gateway; nor when moving about would he ever tread on the threshold. When passing the throne, his look would change somewhat, he would turn aside and make a sort of obeisance, and the words he spoke seemed as though he were deficient ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... at last, Beloved Kate, the waves are past; I tread on earth securely now, And the green cedar's living bough Breathes more refreshment to my eyes Than could a Claude's divinest dyes. At length I touch the happy sphere To liberty and virtue dear, Where man looks up, and, proud to claim His rank within ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... enough, no doubt, so far as its inhabitants and traffic are concerned, but neither beautiful nor picturesque. The houses are high and flat, and, from a peculiarity of build about their tops, seem to leer at you with one eye. Softly over the pebbles! and mind you don't tread on the pigeons. They are the only creatures in Leipsic that enjoy uncontrolled freedom. They wriggle about the streets without fear of molestation; they sit in rows upon the tops of houses; they whirl in little clouds above our heads; they outnumber, at a moderate estimate, the whole human population ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... Mr. Came is awfully cross, Thirza, and can't bear anybody to tread on his crops or touch a tree or a bush that belongs to him. I'm kind of afraid, but come along and mind you step softly in between the rows and hold up your petticoat, so you can't possibly touch the turnip plants. I'll do ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... make her once more the active genius of the house. I may leave her now with her sheets and collars and napkins and fronts. Indeed, she probably orders me to go. A son is all very well, but suppose he were to tread on ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... of the lanterns I was seein' down by the forge. But it's black as the bowels of purgatory, your Honor, an' him a strong, wicked devil, cruel an' angry. God destroy him! If he'd tread on a poison snake! No night could be so black as ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... counting his steps and trying not to tread on anybody's toes!" thought Quenrede. "Ingred said his partners would have ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... immortals, in their seats above, To crown their labours still appointed love; Phoebus enjoyed the goddess of the sea, Alcides had Omphale, James has thee. O happy James! content thy mighty mind, Grudge not the world, for still thy queen is kind; To be but at whose feet more glory brings, Than 'tis to tread on sceptres and on kings. Secure of empire in that beauteous breast, Who would not give their crowns to be so blest? Was Helen half so fair, so formed for joy, Well chose the Trojan, and well burned was Troy. But ah! ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... a tent and going to bed always tried our tempers severely. Some of us would come in with muddy boots and tread on the blankets of the others. Those who went to bed early could stretch out their legs until their feet touched the tent-pole. Those who arrived later would have to wedge themselves in as best they could and remain with knees drawn up for the rest of the night—any attempt at ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... last, but first in worth and fame, Unfeared in fight, untired with hurt or wound, The noble squadron of adventurers came, Terrors to all that tread on Asian ground: Cease Orpheus of thy Minois, Arthur shame To boast of Lancelot, or thy table round: For these whom antique times with laurel drest, These far exceed them, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the large retailer and the small jobber is a delicate one on which to tread. It is rarely that a retailer will buy of his home jobbers. Every jobber will sell more or less at retail; will tread on the toes of his retail neighbor, and the latter has a special desire to buy as low as the jobber does. Much of his stock is bought at such prices; on a large part he is assured by the salesman that he is getting as good prices as the largest jobber in the land. If one is not direct from headquarters ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... no fancy for this sort of work," observed Dick, who was a thorough man-of-war's man. "The decks won't be fit to tread on for ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... help staring at the two men who had thus come face to face. Jacques Collin's behavior and the tone in which he spoke denoted a crisis, and he was curious to know the meaning of it. On being thus suddenly and miraculously recognized, Corentin drew himself up like a snake when you tread on its tail. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... flagg'd and powerless as the dead! With courts familiar from our birth, Is it fit subject for our mirth, That thus awakening from her theme, Where she through air and sea pursues, And all things governs, all subdues, (Like fetter'd captive in a dream,) Blindly to tread on unknown land, Without a guide or helping hand, No previous usage to befriend, (As well we might an infant lend Our eyes' experience, ear, or touch!) Can we in reason wonder much, Her steps are tottering and unsure Where we ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... it with disgust and fear. Then with garments held tightly round her, and feverishly grasping her parasol, she was persuaded to venture on a little journey over the slippery rocks. Sophia Jane and Susan, on either hand, advised the safest places to tread on, watched each footstep carefully, and made encouraging remarks as though to a child. Finally, after many perils and narrow escapes, she was conducted with much applause safely back to the dry land, and up again to the ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... saw The home of our use undated— Seasons of fruiting and seeding Withered, and hunger and thirst Dead, with all they fed on: Till at last, when Time was sated, Only you persisted, Ddal Numbers, sole and same, Invisible skeleton frame Of the peopled earth we tread on— Last, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... pleasing, that Jack soon forgot he was a sacrifice, and really, with a little instruction, he would become a most admirable flirt. He is coming to call upon me this afternoon, and then he will get his eyes opened. I shall tread on him as if he were ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... not, like the brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra; he quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily away into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried to run down, to tread on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild creature. One was a weasel, the other a stoat, running along at a hedge-side before me. In both instances, just as the front wheel was touching the tail, the little flat-headed rascal swerved quickly aside ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... solitude without being hurt by it. Our climate makes us capricious, and we must rub off our roughness and humours against one another. We have, too, an always increasing resource, which is, that though we go not to the young, they must come to us: younger usurpers tread on their heels, as they did on ours, and revenge us that have been deposed. They may retain their titles, like Queen Christina, Sir M * * * N * * *, and Lord Rivers; but they find they have no subjects. If we could but live long enough, we should hear Lord Carlisle, Mr. Storer, etc. complain ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... before I went over the top. As I lay in the trench, the darling old titan passed me, leveling the wire in front, and I had then an even keener realization of what it meant for Fritz to have these monsters piling over and smashing him under foot just about as a man would tread on a worm and mash it. And if there ever was one time during my entire three years of campaigning, when I felt an atom of sympathy for the gray-clad devils, ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... will not rise. Here will I kneel forever, Here will I lie enchanted at your feet, And grow to the dear ground you tread on? ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... we imagine that her conversation satisfied any of those wants to which he and all of us are subject. But nevertheless he liked Lady Rosina, and was never bored by her. She was natural, and she wanted nothing from him. When she talked about cork soles she meant cork soles. And then she did not tread on any of his numerous corns. As he walked on he determined that he would induce his wife to persuade Lady Rosina to stay a little longer at the Castle. In meditating upon this he made another turn in the grounds, and again came upon Major Pountney as ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... you don't tread on their corns. I always find them civil enough to me. But if we do get into trouble, what ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way up-town and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have her refuse ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp. I'm sure there'd be a frown on Dason's head this minute, if the sun hadn't scorched it stiff. My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your way with niceness over this common ship and tread on the genteel carpet they've spread for you on ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... mellow moonlight evening a cyclist was riding along a lonely road in the northern part of Mashonaland. As he rode, enjoying the somber beauty of the African evening, he suddenly became conscious of a soft, stealthy, heavy tread on the road behind him. It seemed like the jog trot of some heavy, cushion-footed animal following him. Turning round, he was scared very badly to find himself looking into the glaring eyes of a large lion. The puzzled animal acted very strangely, now ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... time to kick over the traces.... Dimitri came and gave us a hand with Chris. Three of us hung on to him while the other two connected up the sledge. We had a struggle for over twenty minutes, and he managed to tread on me, but no damage done.... Got Chris in by a dodge. Titus did away with his back strap, and nearly had him away unaided before he realized that the hated sledge was fast to him. Unfortunately he started off just too soon, and bolted with only one trace fast. This pivoted ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... an honour to get into a prison nowadays. (With a sudden burst of anger.) And if any of you doubt my word, hang me, I will have satisfaction! (Looking round for opponents.) Come now, who will tread on the tail ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... have the smooth verdure, gravel walks are ridiculous; and are only tolerable in common pathways, where continual treading would wear away the greensward. But I know what has given him such a love for the soft grass. Sir Alexander is gouty, and loves to tread on velvet. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... thorns are sharp, yet I can tread on them; This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet; My face is steadfast toward ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... the State, with its pillars, its sentinel, and its legend of "Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation." The design of the other was entirely new to Little Compton. It was a pine tree on a field of white, with a rattlesnake coiled at its roots, and the inscription, "DON'T TREAD ON ME!" A few hours later Uncle Abner Lazenberry made his appearance in front of Compton's store. He had just hitched his horse to the ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... Ourselves we felt as if the Log of Infinity carried us to ground higher than what we commonly care to tread on. ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... over in, with a spatter which made Ford Foster tread on two or three crabs in getting away from it. It was not the first time by many that Dick Lee had found himself bathing without time given ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... shield," he said. The woman looked around. "From what place does he speak?" she thought; therefore she looked around. Again he said to her, "You will tread on my shield. Stand further away." And the woman ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... out how unpleasant and jarring to our sense of what is appropriate, and therefore how offensive to good taste and common sense, it is to tread on a carpet of water-lilies swimming in blue pools, or on fruits and flowers heaped up and casting shadows probably towards the light.[107] Woollen lions and tigers, as large as life, basking before the fire in a wreath of roses, are ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... advantage to people to be educated in man-stealing as a principle, to be taught systematically to rob the laborer of his wages, and to tread on the necks of weaker races? Who among you would wish your sons to become slave-planters, slave-merchants, slave-dealers? And shall we leave our brethren to this fate? Better a generation should die on the battle-field, that their children may grow up in liberty and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... the sea, we meet, at about eight leagues from the principal mouth of the Missisippi, the first Pass; and a league lower down, the Otter Pass. These two passes or channels are only for pettyaugres. From this place there is no land fit to tread on, it being all a quagmire down to the sea. There also we find a point, which parts the mouths of the Missisippi: that to the right is called the South-Pass, or Channel; the west point of which runs two leagues farther into the sea than the point of the South-east Pass, which ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Charlie seemed to tread on air as he walked home. Flying up to Esther—his usual confidant—be related to her the whole affair, and gave at great length his ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... lightening of her anxiety caused by this Mehetabel fell asleep, for how long she was unable to guess. When she awoke it was not that she heard the cry of her child, but that she was aware of a tread on the floor that made ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... find myself walking in my night-gown about the gray streets. It is awkward at first, but somehow nobody makes any remark. I glide along over the ground with my naked feet. The mud does not wet them. The passers-by do not tread on them. I am wafted over the ground, down the stairs, through the doors. This sort of travelling, dear friends, I am sure you have all of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... American army from the magnificent regiments whose banners now bear the crowded records of Peninsular and Indian victory; who, within the recollection of living men, have stood as conquerors upon every hostile land, yet never once permitted a stranger to tread on England's sacred soil but as a prisoner, fugitive, or friend. In Cairo and Copenhagen; in Lisbon, Madrid, and Paris; in the ancient metropolis of China; in the capital of the young American republic, the British flag has been hailed as the symbol of a triumphant ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... him at all. Where does he come from? He is not one of us in soul. As though I'd leave him anything! I shan't leave a will at all, you may as well know. And I'll crush Mitya like a beetle. I squash black-beetles at night with my slipper; they squelch when you tread on them. And your Mitya will squelch too. Your Mitya, for you love him. Yes, you love him and I am not afraid of your loving him. But if Ivan loved him I should be afraid for myself at his loving ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... being, with huge chests and long arms. Had there been but one alone I should have felt very nervous lest he should attack me, but what would be my fate were both the creatures, aided by their infant progeny, to set upon me. I feared almost to breathe lest I should be discovered. Should I tread on a rotten branch, or brush by a bough too roughly, the noise might attract them, and they might come in chase of me. Before moving I examined my gun to see that it was ready for instant use. My hope was that I might kill ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... off Chestnut street wharf, Philadelphia, under a salute of thirteen guns, hoisted with his own hands the first American naval flag. This had thirteen stripes, but without the blue union, and bore across the field a rattlesnake with the motto "Don't tread on me." Appointed captain in October, 1776, he was soon afterward sent by Congress to France, to arrange certain naval matters with the American commissioners. Subsequently he carried terror along the coast of England, and on September 23, 1779, fought his famous action off ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the doors which opened on the landing. No answer was returned, but after a second application of the knuckles, accompanied by a touch of the toe, a growling voice was heard, then a sound of some one getting violently out of bed, a heavy tread on the floor, and the door ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... wonderful things of the Earth. They are immense in extent, and the trees which form them grow so close together that they tread on one another's toes. All are lashed, and bound, and relashed, into one huge magnificent tangled net, by the thickest underwood, and the most marvellous parasitic growths that nature has ever devised. No human being can force ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... There are things you won't be able to stand if you're a Tommy. For instance, having to pig it on the floor with all your brother Tommies. I slept for three months next to a beastly blighter who used to come in drunk and tread on my face and be ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... we come to our intrenchments upon the upper James and at Bermuda Hundred. Now they are very listless and half empty. The boys have gone off to tread on Lee's shanks. Only a few vessels stand at the landings, and the few remnants have laid down the rifle, and taken up the fishing-pole. One should come up this river to get a conception of our splendid navy. Sharp-pointed gunboats, with bullet-proof crows' nests and swivels that are the gentlest ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... To the sea it presents a steep front, broken up into innumerable ridges, bluffs, valleys, and sand pits, which rise to a height of several hundred feet. The surface is either a kind of bare and very soft yellow sandstone, which crumbles when you tread on it, or else it is covered with very thick shrubbery about ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... laughter and a noise like skylarking came from the rear of the house and the back yard. Then I suddenly heard Rutli's heavy tread on the veranda, but it was slow, deliberate, and so exaggerated in its weight that the whole house seemed to shake with it. Then from the window I beheld an extraordinary sight! It was Rutli, swaying from side to side, but steadily carrying with outstretched ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... contrary to nature? It is said as it might be said if we were separated from union (or society): for to the foot I shall say that it is according to nature for it to be clean; but if you take it as a foot and as a thing not detached (independent), it will befit it both to step into the mud and tread on thorns, and sometimes to be cut off for the good of the whole body; otherwise it is no longer a foot. We should think in some such way about ourselves also. What are you? A man. If you consider yourself as detached from other ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... his eyes prominent and injected with bile. There was something excessive, almost fanatical, in his devotion to his "white lord." He was inseparable from Jim like a morose shadow. On state occasions he would tread on his master's heels, one hand on the haft of his kriss, keeping the common people at a distance by his truculent brooding glances. Jim had made him the headman of his establishment, and all Patusan respected and courted him as a person of much influence. At the taking ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... short memory, Miller. I lay Jan Grimbal knaws the reason if you doan't. The worm that can sting does, if you tread on it. Gude-night to 'e." ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... he printed the heraldic device of a shield, on which is a rattlesnake coiled, with supporters, dexter, a bear collared and chained, sinister, a stag. The crest is a woman's head crowned and the motto: Don't tread on me. Adam Boyd (1738-1803), colonial printer and preacher, purchased the printing outfit of another Scot, Andrew Stuart, who had set up the first printing press in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1763. In 1769 (Oct. 13) Boyd ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black
... Philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and how straight it holds itself. It is my own child! On the whole it's quite pretty, if one looks at it rightly. Quack! quack! come with me, and I'll lead you out into the great world, and present you in the duckyard; but keep close to me, so that no one may tread on you, and take care of ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... with all his heart and paid off many a score against her by killing Spanish troops at Smerwick during an Irish campaign marked by ruthless slaughter on both sides. On his return to England he soon attracted the charmed attention of the queen. His spreading his cloak for her to tread on, lest she might wet her feet, is one of those stories which ought to be true if it's not. In any case he won the royal favor, was granted monopolies, promotion, and estates, and launched upon the full ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... Suakim on February 25th, 1874, and writing home, he records his impressions of Cairo and its officials. "I think the Khedive likes me, but no one else does; and I don't like them, I mean the swells, whose corns I tread on in all manner of ways. Duke of This wants steamer, say L600. Duke of That wants house, &c. All the time the poor people are ground down to get money for all this. 'Who art thou to be afraid of man?' If He wills, I will shake all this in some way not clear to me now. Do not think I am an ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... quiet—or she will hear our footsteps. She is sitting with her back to the parlor door—I can see her plainly. Tread on this grassy border." ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the sake of the whole party to try if he could walk. Thomas, assisted by the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, did try, with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it afterwards. At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a newly-lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the wrong, and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able to contend ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... own you just did manage to tread on my gouty toe; and I beg to assure you with most people I should simply have turned away and said no more. My cudgelling was therefore in the nature of a caress ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his chair, supporting his head vacantly on his hands, trying to think and fearing to think, de Spain heard Pardaloe's measured tread on the descending steps, and listened mechanically to the retreating echoes of his footsteps down the shaded street. Minute after minute passed. De Spain made no move. A step so light that it could only have been the step of a delicate girlhood, a step ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... O'Brien himself. "Bodagh, Bodagh, I say," here his voice rose to a frightful pitch, "I enthrate, I order, I command you to listen to me! Marry them—don't kill your daughter, an' don't, don't, dare to kill my son. If you do I'll curse you till the marks of your feet will scorch the ground you tread on. Oh," he exclaimed, his voice now sinking, and his reason awaking apparently from exhaustion, "what is come over me? what am I sayin'?—but it's all for my son, my son." He then rose, sat down, and for more than tweny minutes wept like an infant, and sobbed and ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... alive; and sometimes left out in the fields or forests for the wild beasts to devour them. In the South Sea Islands three-fourths of all the children born used to be killed. Sometimes they would strangle their babies. Sometimes they would leave them, where oxen and cattle would tread on them, and trample them to death; while, at other times, they would break all their joints, beginning with their fingers and toes, and then go on to their wrists, and elbows, and shoulders. How dreadful ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... enemies by bitter words; inveigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no man better, no man so well; thou hast a libertie to reproove all and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended—none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy too much ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... letter thus abruptly, probably realizing that he was beginning to tread on forbidden ground, but being unable to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... brains, are just the same, and no better than another man's. He has all the chances on his side in the way of training, and pretty near all the prizes; so it would be hard if he didn't do most things better than poor men. But give them the chance of training, and they will tread on his heels soon enough. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... well—why, this is blow for blow! Where are you? crown me, shadow me with laurels, Ye spirits which delight in just revenge! Let Europe and her pallid sons go weep; Let Afric and her hundred thrones rejoice: Oh, my dear countrymen, look down and see How I bestride your prostrate conqueror! I tread on haughty Spain, and all her kings. But this is mercy, this is my indulgence; 'Tis peace, 'tis refuge from my indignation. I must awake him into horrors. Hoa! Alonzo, hoa! the Moor is at the gate! Awake, invincible, omnipotent! Thou who dost ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... short grass beneath the forest trees moves, writhes, and creeps with microscopic life, until the brain grows dizzy at the sight. At night it is no less marvellous to hear the myriad denizens of the swamps and woods; and terrible when your tread on some soft, velvety substance reveals a sleeping snake, who, at the same moment, attacks you with his poisonous ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... little trades which stimulate the spirit of invention—will show the world what man's brain can accomplish without asking for help from without, but the motor force of the sun that gives light, the power of the wind that sweeps away impurities, and the silent life-forces at work in the earth we tread on. ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... their ten talents ruling over our cities. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth also, and their words unto the end of the world; and the poor beetle that we tread on, and the daisy and the lily in all its glory, and the sparrows that are going 'two for a farthing,' come in for their place also in this philosophy—the philosophy of science—the philosophy of the kinds, the philosophy of the nature that is one in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... me no thought, no feeling, no wish that is not devoted and subservient to you. And when I say that I will be your lord, I mean not thereby that I will not lie forever at your feet and bow my head in the dust, and say to you: Tread on it, if it seem good to you, for I am ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... nor {2} clay pits can be found; if we ask what sort of soil this is we are told it is a loam. A gravel soil will be known at once by its gravel pits, and a chalk soil by the white chalk quarries and old lime kilns, while a peat soil is black, sometimes marshy and nearly always spongey to tread on. ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... choaking, Till he no longer can abide. And so removes from th' fier side. Now all this while none calls to drink, Which makes the Coffee boy to think Much they his pots should so enclose, He cannot pass but tread on toes. With that as he the Nectar fills From pot to pot, some on't he spills Upon the Songster. Oh cries he. Pox, what dost do? thou'st burnt my knee; No says the boy, (to make a bald And blind excuse.) ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... left the room, carrying my shoes in one hand, the letter in the other, and the blanket under my arm. I draw myself up, set my teeth as I tread on the creaking steps, get happily down the stairs, and stand once more at the door. I put on my shoes, take my time with the laces, sit a while quietly after I'm ready, and stare vacantly before me, holding the letter in my hand. Then ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... O my Tigranes. Pardon me, tread on my neck, I freely offer it, and if thou beest so given take revenge, for ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the great Cat [i.e., Ra] himself, and therefore in his name which I bear, I can tread on all my enemies. O great Ra, who climbest the heavenly vaults and who sailest in thy boat across the firmament with undisputed authority, do thou save me from that austere god whose eyebrows are as menacing as the balance ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... all kinds of men; Gracing the mountain or hid in the fen; Never adorning the brow of the fair; Seldom deemed worthy some corner to share In the bouquets that are cast in the way Princely feet tread on reception's proud day; The glory of roses do not attain; Beautiful mosses, ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... batteries frowned Death in the air all round, And the black torpedoes beneath! And now, as we looked ahead, All for'ard, the long white deck Was growing a strange dull red; But soon, as once and agen Fore and aft we sped (The firing to guide or check,) You could hardly choose but tread On the ghastly human wreck, (Dreadful gobbet and shred That a minute ago ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... mind whose toes one may tread on is hardly in the style of St. Francis; and, after all, it is possible to be tremendously earnest about wrong things, and consumingly sincere in matters which are not perhaps definitely certain to advance the higher life ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... beautiful hand lay in his own, to know that she loved him as they floated together on the breast of the amorous Queen of Italian seas. But even in that moment of bliss, such as angels know, some one appeared in the garden walk. It was Chesnel! Alas! the sound of his tread on the gravel might have been the sound of the sands running from Death's hour-glass to be trodden under his unshod feet. The sound, the sight of a dreadful hopelessness in Chesnel's face, gave her that painful shock which follows a sudden recall of the senses when the soul ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... into any of those male hysterics of sacred horror, which are the usual refuge of ignorance and stupidity, terrified by what it cannot refute. And soon Tom began to lay aside the reserve which he usually assumed to clergymen, and to tread on ground which Headley would gladly have avoided. For, to tell the truth, ever since Tom had heard of Grace's intended dismissal, the curate's opinions had assumed a practical importance in his eyes; and he had vowed in secret that, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... rises to go away, there is always a Confusion in the Room, of which you may take Advantage. You may then creep close up to your Mistress, may perhaps palm her, and gently tread on her Toes. ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... the first time over an American man of war. The flag was very different from the modern stars and stripes; it was of yellow silk, in the center of which was a pine tree with a rattlesnake coiled at its roots, and the motto: "don't tread on me." ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... that he was aware of the fact but complained that he could not overcome his fault, try as he would. He suggested that had he but somebody beside him when he started to elaborate upon his tale, to tread on his foot, he was sure ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... when travelling by train that East and West are most liable to tread on each other's toes. Formerly first and second-class carriages were used almost exclusively by Europeans. Of late years the number of Indians travelling in these classes has greatly increased. This is partly because at one time all passengers were subject to ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... arrivee here much peoples aska me about hari-kari. One mans he aska me if that what Japanee mans eat. I laugh great deal, and tella him Japanee mans much prefer bird nest soup and shark fin. Then he laugh much great deal too. Why? The other day I tread on Professor mans foot. He old mans, much fat, with red nose and—how you call—gout. He swear one little swear, but no much loud, and look much 'fended. I say him, "No be 'fended," and proposee him hari-kari ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... venture to express dissent from MR. KEIGHTLEY'S ingenious suggestion of a change of meaning in the proverb "Tread on a worm and it will turn." I support my dissent, however, by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various |
