"On and off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She did not pass in and out of the holy place, or step on and off the highway of holiness. She dwelt there. That does not imply that never during those thirty years was she overcome by Satan. Once, into a deep sorrow was poured the bitterness of gall through the wickedness of another. The enemy came in like a flood, threatening to overwhelm and root up many ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... hoped to catch somebody doing something that would have served as an excuse for instant dismissal, but there was now no hope of that happening. What was to be done? He would like to get rid of Linden, who was now really too old to be of much use, but as the old man had worked for Rushton on and off for many years, Hunter felt that he could scarcely sack him off hand without some reasonable pretext. Still, the fellow was really not worth the money he was getting. Sevenpence an hour was an absurdly large wage for an old man like him. It was preposterous: ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the doctor is often one of even greater difficulty. Often enough there will be a combination of organic disturbance with functional trouble. For example, a girl of eighteen years old suffered from a pain in the left arm which has persisted on and off since the olecranon had been fractured when she was two years of age. She was the youngest of a large family, and had never been separated for a day from the care and apprehensions of her mother. The joint was stiff, and there was considerable deformity. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... companion—by means of the Morse code—by the simple process of tapping on his helmet. They also carried, attached to their belts, small but very powerful electric lanterns, the light of which they could switch on and off at will, to enable them to see what they were about. They had made all their arrangements during the previous day, and had exchanged a few brief last words just before screwing in the front glasses of their helmets. Each therefore knew exactly what ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... was a standard war game. The CIA man was well acquainted with it. He watched the general flip a switch, then sit back and fold his arms over his chest. A row of lights on the desk console began blinking on and off, one, two, three ... down to the end of the row, then back to the beginning again, on and ...
— The Next Logical Step • Benjamin William Bova
... to two men, by name Bridges and Hall, for their lives, after which it was bestowed in 1545 on Sir E. North. North's son sold it to the duke of Norfolk, who resided there, on and off, until decapitated in 1572. The duke was beheaded by Elizabeth for intriguing with Mary queen of Scots, and the papers proving his offence are said to have been found concealed beneath the roof of the stately mansion he had erected for himself at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... of metal foil and glass cloth. The thermal adjustors were already working at capacity, transmitting the light and heat that filtered through the mirror-tone hull into stored, useful energy. Batteries were already overcharged and the voltage regulators snapped on and off like a crackling ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... the priest's straw hat and held it about two inches over the head of his reverence during the whole of the service. The father, be it remembered, was standing in the shade. A few shoved their hats on and off uneasily, struggling between their disgust far the living and their respect for the dead. The hat had a conical crown and a brim sloping down all round like a sunshade, and the publican held it with his great red claw spread ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... your own, dearest—the words were only words and the playful feelings were play—while the fact has always been so irresistibly obvious as to make them break on and off it, fantastically like water turning to spray and spurts of foam on a great solid rock. Now you call the rock, a rock, but you must have known what chance you had of pushing it down when you sent all those light fancies and free-leaves, and refusals-to-hold-responsible, to do what they could. It ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... flowers and hot- house grapes at five or six shillings a pound; quaint Japanese knick- knacks; books and pictures, and photographs of celebrated men—great beetle-browed philosophers, and men of blood and thunder; also of women still more celebrated, on and off the stage. Mr. Starbrow would have nothing sent; the whole fun of the thing, he assured Fan, was in carrying all their purchases home themselves; and so, laden with innumerable small parcels, they would return chatting and laughing ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... put on and off the Blackfriars stage, through the hisses or cheers of the motley audience, the autocrats of the "pit" seeming to be the real umpires of the cessation or continuance of the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... of the kind," cry I, very angry, and yet laughing: the laughter caused by the antagonism of the epithet with the many recollected blows and honest sounding cuffs that I have, on and off, exchanged ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the difference between a mechanism which engages the attention and a mechanism from which it can be diverted. The primitive steam-engine, as Newcomen conceived it, required the presence of a person exclusively employed to turn on and off the taps, either to let the steam into the cylinder or to throw the cold spray into it in order to condense the steam. It is said that a boy employed on this work, and very tired of having to do it, got the idea of tying the handles of the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who had never ceased walking up and down, and had every moment swelled larger and larger, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... cannot be put on and off like a dress-coat; they are lasting qualities, the growth of years, the result of constant practice and self-denial or self-neglect. And, as I wish you success in life, allow me to conclude this lecture ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... for one of their females to have to resort to a life of prostitution to save herself or her children from starvation, as, unfortunately, is too often the case in Christian communities, where religion is put on and off with Sunday clothes. The temperance and sobriety, as well as the economy and industry of the father, are not without a good moral as well as a hereditary effect on the daughters, who are neither rendered brutal nor demoralized through the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... the scooter down next to the other one, and flicked the toggle for the air pumps, then put on the fishbowl and went about unattaching the suit from the ship. When the red light flashed on and off, I spun the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the rock, moving very cautiously. It isn't that I don't believe the magnets in the boot soles will work, it's just that I know for a fact that they won't work if I happen to raise both feet ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... door just a crack and looked out. The darkness above blossomed with blinding blotches of fire that flashed on and off. It seemed as though the sky were a canopy of black velvet perforated with hundreds of holes behind which dazzling lights passed back and forth, flashing momentary gleams of brilliance through the punctures. Again, this vision would pass as a luminous dripping mass would poise ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... continued the Poet, "most men hold Prospero to be a mere wonder-worker, a magician who puts his arts on and off with his robe; they do not know that he stands for the greatest force in the world. For the Imagination is not only the inspiring leader of men in their strange journey through life, but their nearest, most constant, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... own gaze fixed on them, she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at a sudden alteration and hardening of their expression. For his groping regard had fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a wedding ring may be put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it has been once worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothness of the third finger. The butterfly's gloves were not new, yet there showed not the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality. While ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... writings."—Barclay cor. "That single impulse is a forcing-out of almost all the breath." Or: "That single impulse forces out almost all the breath."—Hush cor. "Picini compares modulation to the turning-off from a road."—Gardiner cor. "So much has been written on and off almost every subject."—Sophist cor. "By the reading of books written by the best authors, his mind became highly improved." Or: "By the study of the most instructive books, his mind became highly improved."—L. Mur. cor. "For ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... they did. She had often seen them jumping on and off of street cars at the risk of their lives and without hindrance from the officials. Also, the lad's offer to share his breakfast with her was too tempting to be declined. As he hurried away toward his poor home, she ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... Sir,—When last we was in company I had run in under the batteries on cutting-out service, while you did stand on and off in the channel and wait signals. Having stopped to refit and to overhaul my prize, which proved to be in proper trim ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a lot of outlandish places, like Paris and Berlin; and finally, when things began to warm up some, and I knew by the calendar that the hokey-pokey men had come out on the Bowery, we lands in Monte Carlo. Say, I'd heard a lot about Monte Carlo on and off—there was a song about it once, you know—but if that's the best imitation of Phil Daly's they can put up over there, they'd better go out of business. Not that the scenery isn't bang-up and the police protection O. K., but the game—well, ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... Elisabeth!"—the irritation born of frayed nerves hardened Sara's voice so that it was almost unrecognizable—"you can't turn love on and off as you would a tap! I shall never marry anybody now. Tim understands that, and—you ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... had I been in these preparations that I neglected to watch the brigantine, which I discovered to be standing on and off in a very undecided manner, as though hesitating to attack. My spirits fell again at this, for with all my inexperience I knew her to be a better sailer than the Black Moll. Her master, as Griggs remarked, "was no d—d slouching ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... manners, not only to me, but to the poor old man who passed through the croft with his bundle of sticks. To you, Master Bennet, and to you, Miss Polly, I shall not give anything; because you showed, by your behaviour to the old man, that your good manners were all an outside garb, which you put on and off like your ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... and the linnet half an egg, because of her young ones. Then he stood and watched them washing their beaks and wings and splashing in the water, pecking at their troughs now full of seed and at their sugar and cheerfully hopping on and off their perches. Then, when they were all hung up again in their places on the wall, they all started whistling together till the kitchen rang with it. The baby screamed in its cradle. Trientje cried and mother stamped across the floor in her heavy ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... ponies starting off at full gallop, we soon reached an enclosure of stone dykes, within which the black tents were pitched. The dogs were of immense size, and ragged, like the yaks, from their winter coat hanging to their flanks in great masses; each was chained near a large stone, on and off which he leapt as he gave tongue; they are very savage, but great cowards, and not ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... the one case, having absolute freedom of action with regard to raisins, tarts, cream, candy-peel, jam, plum-puddings and cakes, making life one vast hamper, and in the other case, boundless opportunity in the matter of leaping on and off moving trains, carrying lighted bull's-eye lanterns, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... came, I saved him a good deal of trouble by swooning away the moment he touched my wound, and remained in that condition, on and off, till I heard the anchor running out at the bows, and understood from those who lay near that we were ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... to meet him this morning. I've known him slightly on and off for some years, and this morning I ran across him in the street. Staying at the Metropole, he told me." He turned to Julius. "Didn't he tell you he was coming up ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... soaked in into the bargain. The pipes are sometimes made of iron very neatly. I should imagine they smoked hot, but of this I have no knowledge. One of my Ajumba friends got himself one of these pipes when we were in Efoua, and that pipe was, on and off, a curse to the party. Its owner soon learnt not to hold it by the bowl, but by the wooden stem, when smoking it; the other lessons it had to teach he learnt more slowly. He tucked it, when he had done smoking, into the fold in ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... all his university training and American ruddiness, but have the noble spirit of his unlettered grandmother he remembered weeping so bitterly in the old synagogue on Yom Kippur, as though weeping for the sins of all humanity,—Rachel weeping for her children. No, it was not the religion put on and off with the phylacteries that distinguished his fathers; it was never the raiment, but the body. Even in the darkness of the Middle Ages it was the Malkuth Shaddai, the kingdom of righteousness, that the old Jew prayed for on his ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the action of the elastic walls of the arteries. Take a long glass or metal tube of small caliber. Fasten one end to the faucet of a water-pipe (one in a set bowl preferred) by a very short piece of rubber tube. Turn the water on and off alternately and rapidly, to imitate the intermittent discharge of the ventricles. The water will flow from the other end of the rubber pipe in jets, each jet ceasing the moment the water ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... influence upon us rather than of our living conditions. Nationality is an index to nothing significant in America, where all race and nationality differences melt into Americanisms, all responding in about the same way to American opportunity. No, our test must be something that cannot be put on and off, cannot be left at home, cannot be concealed or pretended, something inseparable from the child and beyond his control. This test it has been conclusively proved in Chicago, Boston, Brookline, Philadelphia, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... was from her mother, who wrote in her gayest style, describing all she was doing—the last party—the last fashion in dress—the craze of the moment—and the new dancer whose fascination both on and off the stage kept the gossips busy. She ended by asking Philippa for the address of a certain dressmaker in Paris whom she had previously employed. She had lost it, and would Philippa be an angel, underlined, and telegraph it to ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were "passees," and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I was all day ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Through ever trying to be and ever being— In the evolution of successive spheres— Before its actual sphere and place of life, Halfway into the next, which having reached, It shoots with corresponding foolery Halfway into the next still, on and off! As when a traveller, bound from North to South, Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France? In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain? In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers! Linen goes next, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... face starting off—until one got warmed up. We had to pull in wind blouses, as though one's body kept warm enough on the march the arms got numbed with the penetrating wind no matter how vigorously they were swung. Another thing is that one cannot stop the team on the march to get clothes on and off, so it is better to go the whole hog and be too hot than cause delays. We had the addition of a little pony meat for breakfast to celebrate the day. I am the cook of our tent ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... dreamed that I saw a young man stepping carelessly on and off a railway track, near a curve around which the express train might come thundering and screaming at any moment. Whether on the track or off it, the young man was indifferent to danger and wanton in his movements. But as I looked I saw in my dream, that there was nothing whatever above his ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... veranda of his house, though I was told he loved walking in his youth. In this and in some other things Longfellow was more European than American, more Latin than Saxon. He once said quaintly that one got a great deal of exercise in putting on and off one's overcoat ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... we expected, and it was eleven o'clock before we reached the N.W. or lee-side, where anchorage and landing seemed practicable. In order to obtain a knowledge of the former, I sent the master with a boat to sound, and, in the mean time, we stood on and off with the ship. At this time four or five people were seen on the reef, which lies round the isle, and about three times that number on the shore. As the boat advanced, those on the reef retired and joined the others; ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... diagram only two reversing switches are shown and the lights can be independently controlled from four distinct positions. Any number of reversing switches can be placed between the two-way switches A and D to increase the number of places from which the lights could be turned on and off. —Contributed by ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... her gently on and off, with a kind word that comforted her immensely, and gentle Ed would come and teach her new bits of music, while the other fellows were frolicking below. Ralph added his share to her amusement, for he asked leave to model her head in clay, and set up his work in a corner, coming ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... to wear a great many beautiful dresses, which will take on and off easily, and will be a very nice companion for the little women who live in apartments, and have not ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... "I can't go on forever, tripping on and off the stage like that!" He answered, laconically, "Well, you see people have paid much for their tickets, and they want their ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... continuous chattering and quarreling. After a minute or two he recognized the voice of old Rose Hobbett. Rose was cooking the Captain's breakfast, and she performed this function in a kind of solitary rage. She banged the vessels, slammed the stove-eyes on and off, flung the stove-wood about, and kept up a snarling animadversion upon every topic that drifted through her kinky head. She called the kitchen a rat-hole, stated the Captain must be as mean as the devil to live as long as he did, complained that no one ever ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... each side were the out-offices, storerooms, and stables, with a flat roof overhead, extending backwards as far as the bedroom doors, and forming a convenient platform for passengers' luggage as it was handed on and off the roof of the coach. The outside edge of the platform was sometimes ornamented with a low palisade, which gave the interior of the covered yard quite a pleasant ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... their lives in their hands, and want nothing between their grasp of the hemp, and the hemp itself.—Therefore, it is desirable, that whatever things they cover their hands with, should be capable of being slipped on and off in a moment. Nay, it is desirable, that they should be of such a nature, that in a dark night, when you are in a great hurry—say, going to the helm—they may be jumped into, indiscriminately; and not be like a pair of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Giulietta, the latter as Romeo. The Ricci is a thin young woman, with a long, pale face, black eyes and hair, long neck and arms, and large hands; extremely pretty, it is said, off the stage, but very ineffective on it; but both on and off with a very distinguished air. Her voice is extensive, but wanting cultivation, and decidedly pea-hennish; besides that, she is apt to go out of tune. Her style of dress was excessively unbecoming to her style of beauty. She wore a tight white gown, a tight blue satin-peaked body, with ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... impossible to carry anything with me, but what was upon my person. I had some provisions, and a single suit of clothes, about half worn. When the boat was discharging her cargo, and the passengers engaged carrying their baggage on and off shore, I improved the opportunity to convey myself with my little effects on land. Taking up a trunk, I went up the wharf, and was soon out of the crowd. I made directly for the woods, where I remained until night knowing well that I could not ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the contragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying its normal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraft lifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted to alter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... plans and procuring the dynamite to execute them. The quality of his nerve (as well as his foolhardiness) is shown by the fact that he once carried a dress-suit case full of the explosive around the city, jumping on and off street cars, and dodging vehicles. When the proper moment came and the dynamite had been placed in an uncompleted building on Twenty-second Street, Guthrie gave the signal and the police arrested the dynamiters—all of them, including ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... glowed on and off all evening, but only once had they called for action. At 10:34 two sharp readings of 92.2 and 94 even, had sent Blaney back to his dials and screen. He'd narrowed it down to a four-block area when the telephone rang to report a ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... foot this evening about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Koran's reader makes complaint Of Shitan dancing on and off it; The robber offers alms, the saint Drinks Tokay ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore, in a cloud, or a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder storm, or anywhere else where water was needed. "That's only a little priming, as they call it. It'll happen all night, on and off. I don't say it's nice, but it's the best we can do under ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... attention to the fact that he still so far clung to his conviction as to hold—though of what might be urged on the other side he was perfectly aware—that a representative should at least be as resident as possible. This gave Nick an opening for something that had been on and off ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... your power, you could torture him at your own sweet will. Every minute, every hour, you could delight in his anguish and drink his tears. You could go down into his cell and speak to him and bargain with him, laugh at his tortures, and discuss his ransom; you could live on and off him, through his slowly ebbing life and his plundered treasures. Your whole castle, from the top of the towers to the bottom of the trenches, weighed on him, crushing, and burying him; and thus family revenges were accomplished ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... were on a scale with the grandeur of the establishment goes without saying. Only long purses could stand the strain. It was a favorite headquarters for Westerners who had "struck it rich," wealthy bachelors, and successful actors and opera singers who loved the limelight on and off the stage. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... character, is centred in the individuality, when such a person may be said to have become a MAHATMA. At the time of his physical death, all the lower four principles perish without any suffering, for these are, in fact, to him like a piece of wearing apparel which he puts on and off at will. The real MAHATMA is then not his physical body but that higher Manas which is inseparably linked to the Atma and its vehicle (the sixth principle)—a union effected by him in a comparatively very ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... to see her first among living celebrities; her charm fascinated Sheridan, and overcame the prejudice of Lamb; even Peter Pindar wrote verse in her praise. From the age of eighteen she was wooed on and off the stage, where her slight stammer hindered her complete success; but no breath of scandal tarnished her name. Had John Kemble, the hero of 'A Simple Story', proposed to her, she probably would have married him. Mrs. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... service at the Eastern posts where his wife had attained a certain kind of social distinction in the army fast set. She was not especially enamoured of the prospect ahead of her in the Philippines; but the new colonel was a strict disciplinarian on and off the field. He expected to be a brigadier-general if fortune and favouritism supported him long enough. Mrs. Harbin could never be anything more than a private in the ranks, so far as his estimation of distinction was concerned. His ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... and takes his lessons from their work; sends his criticisms of them all marked upon the program to me for approval; keeps his ears and eyes open to all advancement in his art; has acquired a graceful and acceptable presence and personality on and off the stage. Musicians all like him; his managers praise him and give him work as an acknowledgment of his ability to entertain. I have still a circumstance to relate which makes his singing the more marvelous and marks ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... passed, Rose Stillwater continued to make herself more and more useful to her host and benefactor. She enlivened his table and his evenings at home by her cheerful conversation, her music and her games. She waited on him hand and foot, helped him on and off with his wraps when he went out or came in; warmed his slippers, filled his pipe, dried his newspapers, served him in innumerable little ways with a childlike eagerness and delight that was as the incense of frankincense and myrrh to ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... little past ten, Miss," Adeline said in a low voice that shook a little. "On and off, I have been trying to wake you since eight o'clock. And there is a gentleman to see you in the sitting-room as soon as you have time—two gentlemen, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... overwhelming effect her face had on him, took no account of outside things. Though he might never hope for a word from her; though he should learn in the coming moment that she was the other's promised wife; he could not for that reason banish her from his mind. His feelings were not to be put on and off, like clothes; he had no power over them. It was simply a case of accepting things as they were, and this ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... coquette, who can't say "No," And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow— Then sees your heart wrecked, with an inward scoffing. This works a world of sentimental woe,[lq] And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin; But yet is merely innocent flirtation, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... England. As the train stops you drowse if you have been waking, and wake if you have been in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or station master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... electric-light smile was being turned on and off in the box opposite with unmistakable intention, and, glancing across, Craven noticed that the young men had disappeared, no doubt to smoke cigarettes in the foyer. Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde were alone, and, seeing ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... somebody was continually blowing one out and blowing it in again. He observed this for about half an hour, when it began to look as if several gas-lights were in the room and some one was turning the gas on and off very rapidly. After this he went to bed, and was disturbed shortly before midnight by hearing that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... are the wildest of any people that I have yet come across in Luzon. But like all wild people, they are cordial and hospitable. I live in their houses and so have their presence day and night. I hunt, fish and hike with them, see them on and off their guard, observe them in all their varying moods—in short, I'm very close to them all the time. Some time I will tell you a thing or ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... movements of those white, soft hands like the hands of a queen—or an abbess; and in the general fresh effect of her person the brilliant eyes like two stars with the calm reposeful way they had of moving on and off one, as if nothing in the world had the right to veil itself before their once sovereign beauty. Captain Blunt with smiling formality introduced me by name, adding with a certain relaxation of the formal tone ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... was said that nearly a hundred thousand men were under arms for the occasion. I think there might have been quite seventy thousand. These mere reviews have little interest, the evolutions being limited to marching by regiments on and off the ground. In doing the latter, the troops defile before the king. Previously to this, the royal cortege passed along the several ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "On and off the stage, I mean. And that's knowledge," said Rickman. "Anybody can know them on; but it's not one man in a thousand knows ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the old nursery, which was now "the boys' room," a proceeding in which Growler and Pincher took great interest, jumping on and off the beds, and smelling everything as we set it out. Growler was Clement's dog, I found, and Pincher ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... use of coming here to have our hearts broken? I loved that man, I thought he loved me, and now I can only despise him. He deliberately tried to fasten suspicion upon me this afternoon, and I can never prove my innocence, for I was in the library, and alone for quite a long time, on and off. What can I do, or say, if ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... narrow brim and high crown, was the precursor of the modern 'chimney-pot': a wide turned-down collar is a healthier thing than a strangling stock, and a short cloak much more comfortable than a sleeved overcoat, even though the latter may have had 'three capes'; a cloak is easier to put on and off, lies lightly on the shoulder in summer, and wrapped round one in winter keeps one perfectly warm. A doublet, again, is simpler than a coat and waistcoat; instead of two garments one has one; by not being open also ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... continued his struggle against misfortune, and during that period he made hosts of friends who did much to help him in one way and another. Nevertheless, when he gave his last concerts in New York, in 1857, he was still so ill that he had to be helped on and off the stage. ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... undertake all work that can be done by mere strength of hand and back—for wages that will purchase him potatoes. He needs only salt for condiment, he lodges to his mind in any pig-hutch or dog-hutch, roosts in outhouses, and wears a suit of tatters, the getting on and off of which is said to be a difficult operation, transacted only in festivals and the high tides of the calendar. The Saxon-man, if he cannot work on these terms, finds no work. The uncivilised Irishman, not by his strength, but by the opposite of strength, drives the Saxon native out, takes ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... for I found scarcely any vital differences in passing from place to place. It is tragical and disheartening to see scores of fine lads and men, full of excellent faculties and latent goodness—and all under the spell of the dreary Circe of the Turf. I have been for a year, on and off, among a large circle of fellows whom I really liked; and what was their staple talk? Nothing but betting. The paralysis at once of intellect and of the sense of humour which attacks the man who begins flirting with the gambling Enchantress struck ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... under the shadow of the sword of Damocles for many months; on and off, for years—indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves; it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things—too keenly ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... profane. It isn't really God at all I'm talking about. It's what German Authority finds convenient to turn on and off, according as it suits what it wishes to obtain. It isn't ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... been speaking of this, on and off, for a long time in the establishment; but when the rumours so unexpectedly, immediately right after the death of Jennka, turned into realities, the misses could not for a long time come to themselves for amazement and fear. They knew well, having ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... It isn't something you can turn on and off, at will. We don't know enough yet for that. Aside from some believers and those individuals who do seem to attract psi forces, we don't know, yet, what to wrap around what. So, here's what you're to do: You're to keep a supply of these cylinders near you at all times. If any psi effects ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... the man who fumes and paces up and down for a few moments and then is called away; but the vast Existence behind, that knows what the play means and will not tell us, and that pushes the players on and off as He will. ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... people. Its leaders have not cared for the welfare of Ireland any more than the Protestant party, but they have always pretended that they did, being in this respect much wiser than their opponents. They have pulled the strings of a whole series of political movements, and made puppets dance on and off the stage as they chose. Also they have understood how to deal with England. Unlike the Protestant party, they have never been loyal, because they knew from the first that England gives most to those who bully or worry her. They have kept one object steadily in view, an object quite as selfish ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... it fooled everybody. Mrs. Barrie played the gipsy and danced most of the time, which she said was her conception of the part as it was in the book. Her husband explained that this was a play, not a book, but she did not care and danced on and off. She played my daughter, and I had a great scene in which I cursed her, which got rounds of applause. Lady Lewis's daughters in beautiful Paquin dresses played Scotch lassies, and giggled in all the sad parts, and one actress who had made a ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... it was also now as tender and gentle as it was possible to be. He folded Eleanor in his arms caressingly and waited for her words. "Not interest me! Do you know that from your riding-cap to the very gloves you pull on and off, there is nothing that touches you that does not interest me. And now I hear my wife—she is almost that, Eleanor,—tell Dr. Cairnes that she is not happy. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... one may turn off from the bed without arising combined with a light which may be turned on and off from a lying position, so one can see the time, is the device of H. E. Redmond, of Burlington, Wis. The alarm clock rests on ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the ion producing device. The symptoms returned. He turned it on and off. He took a step forward. He tested again. The cloud of ions from the innumerable jagged points was invisible, but somehow it refracted or reflected—in any case, neutralized—the weapon of the beings at Boulder Lake. He went on and presently he felt the ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... your cold coquette, who can't say 'No,' And won't say 'Yes,' and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow— Then sees your heart wreck'd, with an inward scoffing. This works a world of sentimental woe, And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin; But yet is merely innocent flirtation, Not quite ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... thrown on the "eyes" of a mechanical contrivance known as the "telelux," a brother of the "televox," and as the light was thrown on and off it performed mechanical function such ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... short cut through the woods," said the pig lady when they had alighted from the trolley car on which a nice toad gentleman was the conductor, because he could hop on and off so quickly, and not step on ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... Kinslow of Indianapolis, Indiana was on and off welfare. Today she's a dispatcher with a van company. She's saved enough money to move her family into a good neighborhood. And she's helping other welfare ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... very simple instrument. The key is nothing more or less than a switch which turns the current on and off alternately. ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... doesn't blow the paper about, or that it has not any holes; but as the hen-house is only a lean-to of the stable, the roof of which we have been very busily painting, it has been trodden upon a good deal in getting on and off the roof, and, in consequence, the paper is much like a sponge, letting any rain in, and drenching the poor sitting fowls; but with the shingles overlapping each other on the tar-paper, the roof, ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... his conception of the strong man that he must needs become as water at some woman's touch and go dancing and babbling like a sylvan brook. Women were the light of life—he was willing enough to admit it, but one must be able to switch the light on and off at will. All these were reasons for not falling in love—they were not reasons for not marrying. And so, Amber being determined to marry him, there was really less difficulty than if it had been necessary for him to fall in love ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... cries more or less musical. The sidewalks of Constantinople are ridiculously narrow, their only practical use being to keep vehicles from running into the merchandise of the shopkeepers, and to give pedestrians plenty of exercise in jostling each other, and hopping on and off the curbstone to avoid inconveniencing the ladies, who of course are not to be jostled either off the sidewalk or into a sidewalk stock of miscellaneous merchandise. The Constantinople sidewalk is anybody's territory; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... are divided into two watches. Of these the chief mate commands the larboard, and the second mate the starboard, being on and off duty, or on deck and below, every other four hours. The watch from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. is divided into two half, or dog, watches. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven instead of six, and thus shift the hours ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... now, as he looked back, it seemed to yawn between him and all that hitherto he had been. He did not care to look back, so he looked forward. He felt as if he were the central figure (when was he not a central figure?) in a new drama. He was fond of acting, on and off the stage, and now he seemed to be playing a new part, in which he was not yet thoroughly at ease, but which he rather suspected would become him exceedingly well. It amused him to see himself going to church—to church—to hear himself conversing on flowers and music with a ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Kitty it was a wonderful evening—those grand old Romans walking on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, and looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and present were all mingled like the waving shadows of ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, 'his life is quite broke up. He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know—what's afore him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of. I am sure you'll be a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... willing. By way of the usual caution we wrote to this good lady direct and asked her to be so kind as to elaborate her views to us in confidence. In reply she wrote that James had been with her for eleven years on and off, had left her only because she was leaving "The Cottage," would be welcomed back by her when she settled down again, and meanwhile was very honest, very sober and very willing. There was that about the handwriting and style of this letter which made us feel that the writer might not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... through the Straits of Ormuz now: we saw the coast of Persia on and off all to-day. We spent Thursday, by the bye, at Karachi, an awful hole it looks—treeless and waterless and very much the modern port. It reminds one strongly of Port Said, though not quite so repulsive: and there is a touch of Suez ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... plan, Dotty flashed her light on and off again. Dolly's light repeated this manoeuvre. Then Dotty did it again, and then Dolly did. The third time the flashes came and went, and then all ceremonies over, the two girls went to their new pretty, inviting beds, and were ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells |
