"Ripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mass of granite, was in plain view, cut out in clear outline against the blue sky; the whole horizon was lurid with the bonfires of rail-ties, and groups of men all night were carrying the heated rails to the nearest trees, and bending them around the trunks. Colonel Poe had provided tools for ripping up the rails and twisting them when hot; but the best and easiest way is the one I have described, of heating the middle of the iron-rails on bonfires made of the cross-ties, and then winding them around a telegraph-pole or the trunk of some convenient sapling. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... you," he said. He cracked an instrument case and took out a delicate knife with a near-microscopic edge. He bent it in half and threw the crumpled wreckage away. Wildly he destroyed everything he could, raging from one end of the room to the other, ripping down furnishings, smashing, destroying, while Dr. Goldring stood at the door ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... Throckmorton quite savagely ripping open the letters, glancing at their contents and flinging them from him with humorous shudders. He seemed to be asking why these foolish creatures couldn't let an artist alone. Yet he was kindly, in this half-humorous, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... by the British workman of all adjectives but one is due to the same imaginative poverty which makes the adjective "nice" supreme in refined circles, and which limits the schoolgirl to "ripping" and her more self-conscious brother to the tempered "decent." But dozens of useful adjectives, now either obsolete or banished to rustic dialect, are found among our surnames. The tendency to accompany every noun by an adjective seems to belong to some deep-rooted ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the east, and the lake of red coals under them began to heave fiercely in answer. On either side the lightning leaped upward and forward, striking straight and low, sometimes, as though it were ripping up the horizon to let into the conflict the host of dropping stars. Then the artillery of the thunder crashed in earnest through the shaking heavens, and the mists below pitched like smoke belched from gigantic unseen cannon. The coming sun answered with upleaping swords of ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet June morning, when the river and bay are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after me like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam still shining for many a long road behind me. To lie still, over the Flats, where the waters are shallow, and ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... drank heavily during this time, but right here I wish to forestall misunderstanding. The drinking was not the cause of the sickness, nor of the abandonment of the voyage. I was strong as a bull, and for many months I fought the sun sickness that was ripping and tearing my surface and nervous tissues to pieces. All through the New Hebrides and the Solomons and up among the atolls on the Line, during this period under a tropic sun, rotten with malaria, and suffering from a few minor afflictions such as Biblical leprosy ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... they drank the ripping coffee, smoked the topping cigarette, and if they happened to be men of stomach ventured on a clinking cigar. Moreover, they were made welcome. Agar was like a vain woman who loved to see a full saloon. And he paid for his pleasure in more honourable coin ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... any evening you want to see me you'll find me in here," he remarked. "Beer's ripping. Now you'd better go and see my ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... out again. Hadn't they heard? Why, there had been great doings up on the Mogollon. Old Gray Fox himself had taken the field and was out with all the horsemen from Whipple and Sandy, and Stannard had joined them, and they were ripping up the Tonto country in a way that bade fair to wind up the war. How had he heard? Why, runners—Apache-Mohaves—'Tonio's people. Kwonahelka and some of his ilk had managed to keep going between them, slipping ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... where he was, watched him across the tiny dinner-table and, against his reason, felt very sorry. How humiliating this ripping up of old dishonor was to the proud old man, rogue though he was, he understood well enough. From nobody in the world but him, he knew, would Surface ever have suffered it to proceed as far as this, and this knowledge made him want to handle ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... fire was dead. At the one little window, the curtain was drawn tight and pinned at the sides to the sash. There was a bed—and the form of some one beneath the covers. Houston called again, but still there came no answer. He turned to the window, and ripping the shade from its fastenings, once more sought the bed, to bend over and to stare in dazed, bewildered fashion, as though in a dream. He was looking into the drawn, haggard features of an unconscious woman, ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the top of the bag is a wooden valve opening inwards, which can be drawn down by a rope passing up to it through the neck whenever the aeronaut wishes to let gas escape for a descent. He is able to cause a very rapid escape by pulling another cord depending from a "ripping piece" near the top of the bag. In case of emergency this is torn away bodily, leaving a large hole. The ballast (usually sand) carried enables him to maintain a state of equilibrium between the upward pull of the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... was tremendously agitated. It surged back and forth in the throes of a struggle. There was a loud grating and clanging of metal. The man's voice leaped to a higher pitch and was sharp with imperativeness. A large body plunged and panted. There was a snapping and ripping and rending, and amid a shower of falling leaves a horse burst through the screen. On its back was a pack, and from this trailed broken vines and torn creepers. The animal gazed with astonished eyes at the scene into which it had been precipitated, then dropped its head to the grass and began ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... bronze-coloured, red, black, kneeling, sitting, squatting, heaped together, opening trunks, forcing locks, trying on bracelets, clasping necklaces about their necks, donning coats or dresses, breaking, ripping, tearing. Two blacks were trying to get into the same coat; each had got an arm on, and they were belabouring each other with their disengaged fists. It was the second stage of a sacked town. Robbery and joy had succeeded rage. In a few corners some were still engaged ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... much longer, by ripping out the sleeves, when thin, and changing the arms, and also the breadths of the skirt. Tumbled black silk, which is old and rusty, should be dipped in water, then be drained for a few minutes, without squeezing or pressing, and then ironed. Cold tea is better than ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... ripping last summer. She's always singing when she's happy. When she sings out on the terrace, suddenly, without giving any one warning, her voice is wonderful. No audience ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... Half a dozen times he broke ground, or slipped to one side or the other. It was unavailing. Blows were coming at him now from all angles, ripping, tearing, crashing blows that seemed to increase in force as the fight went on. One of them caught Masten just below the ear on the right side. He reeled and went to his haunches, and dizzy, nauseated, ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... proposed to make a sail of some frocks and trowsers, but they had got neither needles nor sewing twine, one of the people however, had a needle in his knife, and another several fishing lines in his pockets, which were unlaid by some, and others were employed in ripping the frocks and trowsers. By sunset they had provided a tolerable lug-sail; having split one of the boat's thwarts, (which was of yellow deal,) with a very large knife, which one of the crew had in his pocket, they made a yard and lashed it together by the strands of the fore-top-gallant-halyards, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the order was given for the whole army to advance, and to attack immediately. We were supporting an Alabama brigade. The fire opened—bang, bang, bang, a rattle de bang, bang, bang, a boom, de bang, bang, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, whirr-siz-siz-siz—a ripping, roaring boom, bang! The air was full of balls and deadly missiles. The litter corps was carrying off the dying and wounded. We could hear the shout of the charge and the incessant roar of the guns, the rattle of the musketry, and knew that the contending forces were engaged in a breast to ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... air in the hope of turning them, but the boys had evidently got into their saddles, to judge by the volley of shots that rang out and were answered. Simpson alone rode ahead of the herd that tore after him, ripping up the earth as it came, bellowing in its blind fury. His horse, a thoroughly seasoned cow-pony, sniffed the bedlam and responded to the goading spur. She had been in cattle stampedes before, and, though every fibre ached with fatigue, she flattened out her lean body and covered ground to the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... be going to New York. He was going down from New Haven, after the Thanksgiving game. He called on Miss Beers and found her, as he that night telegraphed Brisbane, a "ripping beauty, no mistake." He took her and her aunt and her uninteresting friend to the theater and to the opera, and he asked them to lunch with him at the Waldorf. He took no little pains in arranging the luncheon with the head waiter. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... for it the lioness leaped for him. Like a monkey he pulled himself up and to one side. A great forepaw caught him a glancing blow at the hips—just grazing him. One curved talon hooked itself into the waist band of his pajama trousers, ripping them from him as the lioness sped by. Half-naked the lad drew himself to safety as the beast turned and leaped for ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... out?" he left this and continued: "He's like that American Johnny in London that drives his own coach to Brighton, yes? Ripping idea! Gentleman driver. But I say, you know, I'll sit on the box with him. Pull up a ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... sentries all round there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy, in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and punctually shaking them out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance, you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other sound.' About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston sleeping more silently even ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... will. My official duty is to look out for society. If something in the machine breaks loose and goes to ripping things to pieces, the engineer has to stop the damage, even if he has to smash the rod that's causing ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... the later giants, Tennyson had a sense of magnificence, a childlike self-absorption. He said once in the same breath that the desire of the public to know the details of the artist's life was the most degrading and debasing curiosity,—it was ripping people up like pigs,—and added with a sigh that he thought that there was a congestion in the world about his own fame; he had received no complimentary letters for ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... meditatively at Violet. Violet looked smilingly at James. The morning was just as ripping as it had been a moment before. James was still twenty-two. And the editor's letter had not ceased ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... it,—and here grown to twice its height, thank heaven! am I. Then again, some ten years after, a youth is seen careering on a chestnut horse in Parliament Street, when a runaway butcher's cart cannoned against his shying steed, the wheel ripping up a saddle-flap, just as the rider had instantaneously shifted his right leg close to the horse's neck! But for that providence, death or a ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... this respect he was no match for his quarry. Refusing to relinquish his hold, he was borne out into deep water; and there the colossus, becoming all at once agile and swift, succeeded in rolling over upon him. Forced thus to loose his grip, he gave one long, ripping lunge with his horn, deep into the victim's flank, and then writhed himself from under. The breath quite crushed out of him, he was forced to rise to the surface for air. There he rested, recovering his self-possession, reluctant to give up the combat, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on to say, "and a ripping good one at that. You know the perils of the deep, as the parsons say. It wouldn't be hard for you to tell when the Croonah was running into a tight place like yesterday. All you have to do is to wire home one word to me. My telegraphic address is 'Simple, London.' Say you wire home 'Milksop.' ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Retreating to the willows was as perilous a task as had ever confronted Duane, and when he had accomplished it, right under what seemed a hundred blazing rifles, he felt that he had indeed been favored by Providence. This time men followed him a goodly ways into the brake, and the ripping of lead through the willows sounded on all sides ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... impregnable steel barrier between them, it is hard to say which would have triumphed in the end, the ponderous weight and fury of Last Bull, or the ripping prongs and swift wrath of the moose. The buffalo charged down the knoll at a thundering gallop; but just before reaching the fence he checked himself violently. More than once or twice before had those elastic ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... "Ripping! Done splendid war work and all that. But the older generation, now that things have begun again, are jolly well up a tree—how to fit the new to the old. I have some elderly relations at Oxbridge—a nice old professor ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know anything about that," Sissie replied seriously. "What I do know is that now I can find a hundred pounds, I have a ripping chance of taking over a studio—at least part of one; and it's got quite a big connection already,—in fact pupils are ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... a terrific discharge from the fort, the whole eastern front of which seemed to break out into flame and smoke, while a perfect storm of shot, shell, and small-arm missiles swept the ship, striking down men, ripping up planking and bulwarks, cutting rigging, and generally doing ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... and the deck chair became the centre of a struggling mob. Shortly afterwards a noise of ripping canvas announced that it had acted as deck chairs have acted before when five people sit on ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... by the National League and American Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs. Warranted to last a full game without ripping or ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... talk to you," he said, turning back to Brion. "Privately," he added, bending over and ripping out the communicator with a sweep ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... succeeded in rallying a half dozen horsemen and at points on the road made such a determined stand that the wagons were enabled to escape. At one point Emil Scheutz was standing by the side of Cummins, when some Indians that had worked around to the side fired a volley, one of the bullets ripping a trench in Scheutz's breast that one could lay his arm into. Scheutz staggered and told Cummins he was shot. The latter helped him to mount his horse and amid a rain of bullets fled for life. That was the last stand. But only for the fact that Bernard had followed the Indians closely, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... or outlaws, who in the time of Oliver Cromwell were armed with short weapons, called in Irish RAPIERS, used for ripping persons up. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... teeth gnashing, Solomon charged back and forth in his enclosure. Then he reared up on his hind legs and clawed at the pine planks which shut him in. He had not long continued this performance when his claws caught in the crack of a loosened board. There was a ripping creak and a crash, and down came the board. Another followed, and Solomon, ceasing his violent threats for the instant, peered through a wide gap into another domain. His hesitation was brief; he scrambled through, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Hastings, kneeling behind a bunch of juniper, fired a high-velocity bullet into the tree behind which Quintana stood; but before he could fire again Quintana's shot in reply came ripping through the juniper and tore a ghastly hole in the calf of his left leg, striking a blow that knocked young Hastings flat and ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... of Carr's coming off in all his trials, to the disgrace of my Lord Gerard to that degree, and the ripping up of so many notorious rogueries and cheats of my Lord's, that my Lord, it is thought, will be ruined: and above all do show the madness of the House of Commons, who rejected the petition of this poor man by a combination of a few in the House; and, much more, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... investigate the secrets of no man's land, but he knew well enough of the huddled figures lying in clusters in that green scrub, which hid much. But in parts the scrub had been worn from the earth by the constant ripping of the bullets. There, partly shielded by withering branches lay withering bodies, mostly in strange postures, sometimes one above the other with rusting rifles, discarded equipment, and odd bits of wire. Often scraps of ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... soul—oh dear, no!" La Faloise blurted out. "I'm all for the Englishman. It will be ripping if the Englishman gains! The French ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... it—staggering. Nappy came at him fast and the left jab Frankie sent out to put him off balance didn't even slow the fury a bit. Frankie took to the ropes to make Nappy shorten his punches. It helped some, but not enough. No man could take the jolting effect of those ripping punches and keep his feet under him. Frankie didn't—he was down when the bell ...
— Vital Ingredient • Gerald Vance
... as mean as that!" cried the Duchess. "I vow that all the heroes I've ever known had a ripping time. Julie"—she kissed her friend impulsively—"Julie, don't like him too much. I don't think he's ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Republican breastworks. As the Republican candidate in an effort to win the West was heaping maledictions upon Dr. E. Lester Jones, the head of the Geodetic Survey, a Wilson appointee, the President calmly moved on, ripping to pieces and tearing to shreds the poor front behind which the Republican managers were ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the non-rigid have the very great advantage of being easily deflated and packed up. In addition to the valves, these ships have a ripping panel incorporated in the envelope which can easily be torn away and allows the gas to escape with considerable rapidity. Innumerable instances have occurred of ships being compelled to land in out-of-the-way places owing to engine failure or other reasons; they have been ripped and deflated and ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... father; at that age you had already fought one of the proudest lords of the country. I have not forgotten that our arms are a unicorn ripping up a lion, and our motto. Onward! I do not wish the Kervers to blush for their ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... considered himself a veteran of battle, but he could not see it near without feeling excitement. A long line of fire had extended across the valley. White puffs of smoke arose like innumerable jets of steam. The crackle of the rifles was incessant and at the distance sounded like the ripping of heavy cloth. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in—thick planks being used. Between the floor and the sand was a space of about eighteen inches vertical, and a dozen men could have sprawled therein—lying at full length—but to escape would have required the connivance of one or more of the sentries surrounding the building and the ripping off of one or more of the planks. In his keen anxiety Canker accompanied the Board on its tour of investigation—a thing the Board did not at all like—and presently, as was his wont, began running things his own way. It had been found useless to question the soldiers ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... boss,—he'll pull through. I think he'll stick this time. You'd ought to have seen him wading into them d—d Fee-neens, swinging his sledge, and singing 'Onward, Christian soldiers.' Then, with me to chip in a cuss word now and again when things got hot, he pulled through the day without ripping an oath. I tell you, it was a sight. He bowled 'em over like nine-pins. You ought ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... appendages. Their absence is unaccompanied by any inconvenience to the individuals in whom they are wanting; and as regards the few who possess them, the only operations in which I am aware of their tusks being employed in relation to the oeconomy of the animal, is to assist in ripping open the stem of the jaggery palms and young palmyras to extract the farinaceous core; and in splitting the juicy shaft of the plantain. Whilst the tuskless elephant crushes the latter under foot, thereby soiling it and wasting its moisture; the other, by opening it with the point of his tusk, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Sir George Staunton's feelings in ripping up this miserable history, and listening to the tragical fate of the unhappy girl whom he had ruined, he had so much of his ancient wilfulness of disposition left, as to shut his eyes on everything, save the prospect which seemed ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the letter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something pinned on: ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and shrinking, like that withered leaf that hung upon the barbed wire of the fence, all ready to drop and be hurled down into the abyss of death by that light breath of wind. Then again it seemed to her that she was ripping to pieces, like that spider web that tangled itself about the grass and floated in glistening filaments through the air; that she was unwinding into such gossamer strands, into ever finer and finer filaments, until she had vanished away into infinity ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... the river rose weird and mournful and incessant, with few breaks, and these were marked by strange ripping and splashing sounds made as the bulges of water broke on the surface. Twenty feet out the boat floated, turning a little as it drifted. It seemed loath to leave. It held on the shore eddy. Hungrily, spitefully the little, heavy waves lapped it. Bostil watched it with dilating eyes. There! ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... word he made another fiercely desperate effort from his new position. There was a ripping, searing pain along the length of his foot which he disregarded in that supreme attempt and suddenly he seemed to slide forward while back of him came a crunching, grinding noise as the disturbed rock which had pinioned him settled down into place. He crawled desperately forward. A light ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... press can not, even when the doors of committee rooms stand open, report the proceedings of fifty bodies; the eye of the nation can not follow and mark what goes on within them; while the subsequent proceedings in the House are too hurried to permit a ripping up there of suspicious bargains struck in the purlieus of the Capital, and fulfilled by ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... city of Abomey. It was attacked by Tacudona the chief of the Fois. It resisted bravely, and Tacudona made a vow that if he took it he would sacrifice the king to the gods. When he captured the town he carried out his vow by ripping open the king, and then called the place Daomi. Gradually the conquerors extended their power until the kingdom reached to the very foot of the Atlas range, obtaining a port by the conquest of Whydah. The King ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... veteran plainly thought there was no duty higher than that owed to the schwarzer Adler, the black eagle of Prussia. Then came an account of the French horse before Rossbach; how they rode out from Weimar, the troopers, before they went, ripping open the beds on which they had slept and scattering the feathers to the wind to plague the housewives,—a piece of ruthlessness that came home thoroughly to the young housekeepers; then how der alte Fritz, lying in wait behind Janus Hill, with General Seydlitz and Field-marshal Keith, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... reasonable clarity in her mind at once, and that was that unless she was saved from drowning by an unmarried man, in which case the ceremony is unavoidable, or totally destitute of under-clothing, and so driven to get a trousseau, in which hardship a trousseau would certainly be "ripping," marriage was an experience to ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... pleased with the barn. He asked the size of it and did calculations. He could "stick twenty-five men into it—easy." It would go far to solve his problems. He could manage without coming into the house at all. It was a ripping place. "No end." ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Swede's example Philip ran to Celie. Half way a bullet almost got him, flipping the collar of his shirt. He dropped beside her and gathered her up completely in his arms, with his own body between her and the fire. A moment later he thanked God for the protection of the bunk. He heard the ripping of a bullet through the saplings and caught distinctly the thud of it as the spent lead dropped to the floor. Celie's head was close on his breast, her eyes were on his face, her soft lips so near he could feel their breath. He kissed her, unbelieving even then that the end was near ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... severely, Mr. Morrison (consul, a son of the celebrated missionary) and two servants slightly. Of the Tycoon's guard two were killed and fourteen wounded. On the part of the assailants three were killed on the spot, two, who were captured, committed suicide by ripping themselves up, and several of those ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... got home for Christmas—except yours truly, and he only for a couple of hours. What have the blessed old folks done to us that we treat them like this? I was invited to the Sewalls' for the day, and went, of course—you know why. We had a ripping time, but along toward evening I began to feel worried. I really thought Ralph was home—he wrote me that he might swing round that way by the holidays—but I knew the rest of you were all wrapped up in your own Christmas trees and weren't going to ...
— On Christmas Day in the Morning • Grace S. Richmond
... fair." By this is meant a little notched wheel, with a piece of wood fastened on it, like a miniature watchman's rattle. The "fun" consists in drawing them down the back of any one you pass, when they make a sound precisely like that of ripping cloth. The women take great delight in this, and as it is only deemed politeness to return the compliment, we soon had enough to do. Nobody seemed to take the diversion amiss, but it was so irresistibly droll to see a large crowd engaged in ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... pair of yellow gloves on his large, hairy hands, slightly ripping the two thumbs and most of the fingers in the operation, took a seat in the double sleigh, and proclaimed himself ready ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... feel life. It isn't coloured for you by others. You get its form, its hardness or softness, its fragrance or the reverse, but you fix your own colour. That's why you'd be such a ripping critic. Will you let me read some ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... through the barricades, boring a ragged hole six or eight inches in diameter. Two or three times this might always be accomplished with everything on the Chinese side silent as death. The cunning enemy! Then suddenly, as the gun was shifted a bit to continue the work of ripping up that barricade, attention would be distracted, and before you could explain it the ragged holes would be no more. Unseen hands had repaired the damage by pushing up dozens of bricks and sandbags, and before the game could be opened again, unseen rifles were rolling ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... horse saddled, we came up to him with drawn swords, and told him we were to search all that went in and out there: but as he looked like an honest man, we would only search his saddle, and so dismiss him. The saddle was ungirt; we carried it into the stall where we had been drinking and ripping open one of the skirts, we there found the letter we wanted. Having thus got it into our hands, we delivered the man (whom we had left with our sentinel) his saddle, told him he was an honest fellow, and bid him go about his business; which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... quietly, and gripped the lad's arm with his hand. As he dragged him into the light, his companion came up, staring with astonishment. A moment he was speechless, then began ripping out oath after oath under his breath. "How," he asked at length, "did the blarsted whelp come here?" The smaller man, who had been looking keenly into Jeremy's face, suddenly addressed him: "Here you, speak up! Do you live here?" he cried. "Ay," said the boy, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... men of my mettle, the men who would 'stablish my fame Unto its ultimate issue, winning me honor, not shame; Searching my uttermost valleys, fighting each step as they go, Shooting the wrath of my rapids, scaling my ramparts of snow; Ripping the guts of my mountains, looting the beds of my creeks, Them will I take to my bosom, and speak as a mother speaks. I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods; Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods. Long ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... Condent, who with great courage leapt into the hold and shot the Indian, but not before the latter had fired at him and broken his arm. The crew, to show the relief they felt at being saved from a sudden death, hacked to pieces the body of the Indian, while the gunner, ripping open the dead man's belly, tore out his heart, which ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... home, ripping through the lungs, tearing the great arteries about the heart, shivering even a portion of the heart itself. And yet the grizzly sprang like a demon through the deep ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... breakfast, and the ladies got downstairs before the meal was over. The Douglas-Frazier train couldn't pull out until three thirty this afternoon. So, after they'd gone to so much trouble to see me, and had put up such a ripping time for me, of course I had to stay in town to see ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... and handle our Spark. In all the previous centuries he had been roaming gaily about the world in perfect freedom; sometimes gliding silently to and fro like an angel of light; sometimes leaping forth with frightful energy in the midst of raging tempest, like a destructive demon—ripping, rending, shattering all that attempted to arrest his course. Men have feared and shunned him since the beginning of time, and with good reason, for he has killed many of ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... get drunk, you risk your master's head, who has so much confidence in your fidelity, and who answers for you. But remember, also, that if by your fault any evil happens to d'Artagnan, I will find you, wherever you may be, for the purpose of ripping ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... image of the Prince of Peace, the maddened people surged, fighting like demons, raining blows with clubs, fists, and machetes, stabbing with their long, wicked knives, hurling sharp stones, gouging, ripping, yelling, shrieking, calling upon Saints and Virgin to curse their enemies and bless their blows. Over the heads of them all towered the mighty frame of Rosendo. Back before his murderous machete fell ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... prisoner's blouse was visible. Billy caught hold of it and gave a strong jerk. There was a sound of ripping and tearing and the older boy fell sprawling on his back with a goodly portion of the younger child's ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... Why, you were telling me how little there was to do in the winter, with everything frozen up! I thought that when you were not having a ripping time with sleighing parties and tobogganing, you just sat by the fire ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... we reached the end. Gangs of men were everywhere, ripping and tearing at the mountain side. There was a roar of blasting, and rocks hurtled down on us. Bunkhouses of raw lumber sweated in the sun. Everywhere was the feverish activity of a ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... my sister had a ripping writing case sent to her, and I gave her a rotten old book in exchange, and she jolly well ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... her. They've only sprung the door-ports a crack, releasing the internal pressure." He told himself this was true; he would not admit for an instant the possible truth of the vision that flashed through his mind—a ripping of doors—a thrusting snout that writhed in where a ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... and delight, and had also a morbid pride, of the nature of vanity, which caused him to resent the smallest criticism of his works from the humblest reader. There are many stories of this, how he declaimed against the lust of gossip, which he called with rough appositeness "ripping up a man like a pig," and thanked God with all his heart and soul that he knew nothing of Shakespeare's private life; and in the same breath went on to say that he thought that his own fame was suffering from a sort of congestion, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... gallop round the ring, receiving from each horseman as he passes a prick from a lance, which enrages him still more—when, meditating vengeance, he rushes on his adversaries, and scatters both horsemen and bandarilleros, by his onset, ripping up and casting the horses on the ground, and causing the bandarilleros to leap over the railing among the spectators—or when, after a defeated effort or a successful attack, he stands majestically in the middle of the area, scraping up the sand with his hoof, foaming at the mouth, and quivering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... I shall be invalided out of the Army and get a small wound pension. And I've a project which will make lots of money—up in Rhodesia—a tip I've had from a man in the know. I'm going to take up some land near Salisbury. Ripping country and climate and all that. It would suit you down to the ground. You could put all that Warren business behind you, forget it all, drop the name, start a new career as Mrs. Frank Gardner, and find an eternally devoted husband in the man ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... side, distracted the big leopard. He struck at the weapon with his paw, and, when it was poked into him again, flung himself upon it, biting the naked iron with his teeth. With a second fling he was against the cage bars, with a single slash of paw ripping down the forearm of the man who had poked him. The crowbar was dropped as the man leaped away. Alphonso flung back on Jack, a sorry antagonist by this time, who could only pant and quiver where he lay in the welter of what was ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... interrupted. "Arguments bore me. Have you heard that little song before that I was singing? It's a ripping little ditty. Chain Aunt Emily to the drawing-room sofa and I'll sing it all through to you; but if she were to hear it she might faint, and that is ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... a captain. One of those sudden moral cataclysms that sometimes sweep the city had hurled him from a high and profitable position in the Police Department, ripping off his badge and buttons and washing into the hands of his lawyers the solid pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... Miss Spragg? (By George, Ralph, she's ripping to-night!) Wait a minute—I know his face. Saw him in old Harmon Driscoll's office the day of the Eubaw Mine meeting. This chap's his secretary, or something. Driscoll called him in to give some facts to the directors, and he seemed a ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... air be gittin' the right scent on it," said Solomon, as he was ripping the hide off the other steer. "I reckon it'll start the sap in their mouths. You roll out the rum bar'l an' stave it in. Mis' Bones knows how to shoot. Put her in the shed with yer mother an' the guns, an' take her young ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... came a jolt, a ripping sound, and Cora's big, four- cylindered machine banged into the Streak, for, in spite of all Cora and Walter could do, the Whirlwind could ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... "milk-sick" because it attacked the cattle. The stricken uncle and aunt died, early in October, within a few days of each other. While his wife was ill with the same dread disease, Thomas Lincoln was at work, cutting down trees and ripping boards out of the logs with a long whipsaw with a handle at each end, which little Abe had to help him use. It was a sorrowful task for the young lad, for Abe must have known that he would soon be helping his father make his mother's coffin. They buried the Sparrows under the trees "without ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... on the floor in front of her. Again she stood erect, though she did not raise the pistol. Evidently she was regaining her composure, though Calumet observed that her free hand came up and grasped the dress over her bosom so tightly that the fabric was in danger of ripping. Her face, in the flickering light from the candle on the floor, was slightly in in the shadow, but Calumet could see that the color was coming back to her cheeks, and he took note of her, watching her with ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Lieutenant Marbury were beside a gun, and were about to fire it, when suddenly, from the stern of the ship, came a ripping, tearing sound, and, at the same time, confused shouts came from ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... p. 109):—'In answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim:—"Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! ... Alas! Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one."' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Clowes. "Go on. This is ripping. I always knew you were pretty mad, but this sounds as if it were going to ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... in order to alter the position of the ship, and to avoid being raked by the French frigates, who, nimble in their movements, again and again attempted to cross her bows and stern. Frequently they succeeded, and their shot came tearing along her decks, and ripping them up fore and aft, wounding the beams and knocking some completely away. Still the British would not give in. Had there been more men on board the Hector, the slaughter would have been much greater. As it was, numbers ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, these three-dimensional wall pictures were made out of glaseine, and when he tried setting fire to it he nearly burned down the house. Upon feeding it to the old-fashioned fireplace nothing grew hot except his temper. Ripping the picture to shreds would have been the next step, but ...
— Spacemen Never Die! • Morris Hershman
... that a rhinoceros can kill an elephant, by ripping him up with his horn, and that the lion and all wild beasts are afraid of him. I am not at all surprised that this is the case, for I have examined the skin of a rhinoceros which I saw in a menagerie, and it was so thick and heavy that scarcely ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... what you would call the pick of the bunch, if you were one of us. They went there to live because they were tired of being moss-backs. Why don't you follow their example and go the whole hog? They—and their girls—have a ripping time." ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... ahead to give the nags a spell. Joe slid outen his saddle, with a chuckle deep down in his throat, An' he walked back to me, as gay as could be, and pulled the kid's note from his coat. Says he, "Listen, lad, for a kid it ain't bad—it's her birthday—she's five to-night— It's a ripping note this—she sends you a kiss—" and Joe, poor old pal, struck a light. He held up the kiddie's letter—we were laughin' a bit at the scrawl, All warm inside with a feeling—well, you know what I mean, damn it all! When along come a German bullet, and Joe, he wavered a mite, Then without a ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... Dick remarked. "How ripping the almond blossom looks in the sunshine. We've got an almond tree in our backyard, and once there ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... instant the torch was handed to him, and ripping the space gloves off his hands, the big cadet began cutting into the tough ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... its minute particulars, commenting specially on the fact that most of the telling improvements on it were due to the fertile brain and inventive genius of Tim Lumpy. He also explained the different kinds of saws—the ripping saw, and the cross-cut saw, and the circular saw, and the eccentric saw—just as if his mother were an embryo mill-wright, for he felt that she took a deep interest in it all, and Mrs Frog listened with the profound attention ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... with tearing off the dresses that were fitted on her, one day Silvia slipped upstairs to her wardrobe and tore down all her old dresses and made havoc with them, not sparing her wedding dress either, but tearing and ripping them all up so that there was hardly a shred or rag left big enough to dress a doll in. On this, Mr. Tebrick, who had let the old woman have most of her management to see what she could make of her, took her back ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... thick coverts that I could rarely describe, much less imitate, the sound, or even tell the direction whence it had come. Under the dusk of the lake shore I would sometimes come upon a pair of the huge animals, the cow restless, wary, impatient, the bull now silent as a shadow, now ripping and rasping the torn velvet from his great antlers among the alders, and now threatening and browbeating every living thing that crossed his trail, and even the unoffending ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... a comedy-tragedy, entitled "Looking Glass of London," in three rambling acts, and while Burbage was disposed to take the play and pay for it, he desired that Shakspere should give it such ripping corrections ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... trying to change the cartoon to Benson's satisfaction, with a growing hatred of the work and a disgust with himself that now and then almost drove him to mad destruction. He felt like splashing the piece with India ink, or ripping it with his knife. But he worked on, and submitted it again. He had failed, of course; failed to express in it that hatred of a class which Benson unconsciously disguised as a hatred of Clayton, a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... we were passed by Marshall, Chilvers, Carter, and Boyd. How I envied them! We stood and silently watched while each made ripping long drives. There is nothing which contributes more to a man's good opinion of himself than to line a ball straight out two hundred yards when a bevy of pretty ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... into the gentleman who turned out the man who voted for Arthur—the Radical miller—Martover gent—who's coming to see me at three this afternoon, to ask what the deuce I mean by spreading reports about him. Shall have a ripping time with him!" ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Far worse than the men who went were three portable steam sawmills which came in their place. At three separate points these mills were set up—and straightway the long, intolerable shriek of the circulars was ripping the air. In spite of himself, the amazed cat screeched in unison when that sound first smote his ears. He slunk away and hid for hours in his remotest lair, wondering if it would follow him. When, in the course ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... opened, and the bull, which has been goaded into fury by the affixing to his shoulder of an iron pin with streamers of the colours of his breeder attached, enters the ring. Then begins the suerte de picar, or division of lancing. The bull at once attacks the mounted picadores, ripping up and wounding the horses, often to the point of complete disembowelment. As the bull attacks the horse, the picador, who is armed with a short-pointed, stout pike (garrocha), thrusts this into the bull's back with all his force, with the usual result that the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... hasty pudding, placed one before Jack, and began eating the other himself. Determined to be revenged on the Giant somehow, Jack unbuttoned his leather provision bag inside his coat, and slyly filling it with hasty pudding, said, "I'll do what you can't." So saying, he took up a large knife, and ripping up the bag, let out the hasty pudding. The Giant, determined not to be outdone, seized hold of the knife, and saying, "I can do that," instantly ripped up his belly, and fell down ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... impression, and Louis fell flat on the ground. This was so far fortunate for the Monarch, because the animal, owing to the King's fall, missed his blow in his turn, and in passing only rent with his tusk the King's short hunting cloak, instead of ripping up his thigh. But when, after running a little ahead in the fury of his course, the boar turned to repeat his attack on the King at the moment when he was rising, the life of Louis was in imminent danger. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... a sort of low growling, as of a dog which worries its prey, and I caught a sound as of ripping cloth. ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... without its being perceived. Then, telling the giant he would show him a trick, taking a knife, Jack ripped open the bag, and out came all the hasty pudding. Whereupon, saying, "Odds splutters hur nails, hur can do that trick hurself," the monster took the knife, and ripping open his belly, ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... and some plain soda water, please," Sarah replied, taking off the long motoring coat which concealed her evening clothes. "I have been fined for everything except disorderly driving—daren't risk that. Thanks!" she went on. "What ripping sandwiches! And quite a ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disappeared. We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy cloth. Strickland took a lamp with him, while I tried to make clear the danger of hunting roof snakes between a ceiling cloth and a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused by ripping ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... present busily occupied in frying a mess of small trout which he had just caught in the pond. His stove consisted of a circle of red stones, with a fire kindled in it, and his culinary utensils were an old tin can, hammered out flat, and a fork with only one tine left. Nevertheless, ripping good meals had before ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hit the building and set it rocking. Buck and Pete flung themselves with arms outspread against the ballooning blanket, and it held. Again the wind crashed against the sides of the hut. Some one flung himself to the two men's assistance. Then came a ripping and tearing, and the thatch hissed away on the breath of the storm like straw caught in a whirlwind. The men gazed stupidly up at the blackened heavens, which were now like night. There was nothing to be done. What could they do? They were helpless. And not even a voice could ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the teeth of verisimilitude, I think extremely well of it," he answered firmly. "I admire it immensely. I think it's an altogether ripping little book. I think it's one of the nicest little books I've read ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... "It needs some hair and a beard. Wonder what I can make it of." She glanced all around the room for a suggestion, and then closed her eyes to think. Finally she went over to her bed, and, turning the covers back from one corner, began ripping a seam in the mattress. When the opening was wide enough she put in her thumb and finger and pulled out a handful of the curled hair. "I can easily put it back when I have used it, and sew up the hole ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... There was a ripping, tearing sound as he sprang into the air with a yell of mingled terror and exultation. His prompt action and the fierce impetus had saved him. He was free. But in the awful hand that seized him he had left behind the end feathers of his right wing. A few inches more and ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... there," explained the journalist, "—the jam and the break, and all this magnificent struggle afterwards. It makes a great yarn. I feel tempted sometimes to help it out a little—artistically, you know—but of course that wouldn't do. She'd make a ripping yarn, though, if I could get up some motive outside mere trade rivalry for the blowing up of those dams. That would just ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... attempted to run his car around the corner but was held up at once, and discreetly took himself out of the way, leaving the car in the hands of the mob who swarmed into it and over it, ruthlessly disfiguring it in their wrath. There was the loud report of exploding tires, the ripping of costly leather cushions, the groaning of fine machinery put to torture as the fury of the mob took vengeance on the car to show what they would like to do to ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... sounds too," said Stuart, "and I reckon that anyone—even a German—ought to be able to sing when in a comfortable room, probably with a nice blazing fire. A nice fire, Henri—a nice fire. George! wouldn't that be ripping!" ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Billy," Jim said; "he's available, and he'll drive whichever he's told, and that's a comfort. That's five. And we'll rouse out old Lee Wing, and Hogg, that's a ripping idea, 'cause they hate each other so. Seven. Who's eight? Oh, I know! We'll ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... some very remote portion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... up to a stake, and make him tell who sent him here to stick a knife through our shell, ripping her wide ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... axe and buckets. The prudent Hod would have brought a veil had Jess not laughed him out of it—for Jess, secure within himself, would have the fun go as far as it could be stretched. An hour later the black-gum tree came ripping, crashing ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... been here when I was put through," went on Mr. Slater. "I don't see how any one but a professional actor, or a person with your dramatic gifts, can do that part at all—it's so sort of ripping and—and intense, you know. I look forward to your rendition of it with a good deal ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... slitting sound was clear as they burst into the hall. On the fur rug by the couch lay the writing-desk. Its lid was thrown back and by it crouched Satan industriously ripping the remnants of lining from its interior. As Rupert came up, the cat drew back, his ears flattened ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton |
