Bottom

“ This is the bottom of this great river of water of life, and of its proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb: it is that we might be saved; it is that we might live. What a good bottom is here! what a sound bottom is here! But few deep rivers have a good bottom. Mud is at the bottom of most waters in the world; even the sea itself, when it worketh, casts up mire and dirt, and so do the hearts of sinners; but the bottom of this grace of God, and of the Spirit and Word thereof, is that we might be saved, consequently a very good bottom. ”

“ It is only when one looks out from the bottom of this vast chasm at the huge walls on every side that he begins to realize its awfulness. We are mere specks in the bottom of a gigantic mould wherein some great mountain range might have been cast. There are great mountains all about us and yet we are not on a mountain but in a vast hole. The surface of the earth is above us. ”

“ He goes to the top, every time and everywhere, sooner or later. And it is largely because he has been to the bottom first, and mastered the rudiments, one and all, and then risen to the heights, not by a single bound, but “climbing the ladder, round by round.” ”

“ At length, as I stretched my hand upward, I found somewhat that seemed like a recession in the wall: it was possible that this was the top of the cavity, and this might be the avenue to liberty. My heart leaped with joy, and I proceeded to climb the wall. No undertaking could be conceived more arduous than this: the space between this verge and the floor was nearly smooth; the verge was higher from the bottom than my head; the only means of ascending that were offered me were by my hands, with which I could draw myself upward, so as at length to maintain my hold with my feet. ”

“ it shall be called Bottom’s Dream, because it hath no bottom; ”

“ He speaks his mind without regard to your sensibilities. At bottom, an expression which a clever French writer has shrewdly remarked always means exceptionally, he is surely amiable, a thoroughly good sort—at bottom. ”

“ It is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing at the bottom but dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass for wondrous deep, on no wiser a reason, than because it is wondrous dark, ibid. ”

“ BOTTOM. Peter Quince!
QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby
that
will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill
himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all
is
done.
BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me
a
prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm
with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed ”

“ for they tell me that truth lies somewhere at the bottom of a well, and at virtually the door of our home is a most notable if long dried well. Our location is thus quite favorable, if we but keep patience. ”

“ When you are at the bottom, on the rock in the middle, mind you don’t slip, for that is the most dangerous of all; if you fall in the water I will pull the rope, for sure, but I don’t answer for anything. ”

“ On the bottom is his place, and he seems always at peace, but when he moves his actions are instantaneous and as swift as possible to a creature who lives in the water. On the bottom, among the stones, the female casts her spawn. ”

“ The bottom of a lake we cannot see, because its surface is covered with ripples. It is only possible for us to catch a glimpse of the bottom, when the ripples have subsided, and the water is calm. ”

“ Bott′omry, a contract by which money is borrowed on the security of a ship or bottom.—Bottomless pit—hell.—At bottom, in reality.—From the bottom of the heart, from the very heart.—To be at the bottom of, to be the real origin of; To stand on one's own bottom, to be independent of ”

“ You think sometimes you are near the top, and, when you get there, you find another top higher still, and then another, till you get quite tired of tops. And coming down is hard work too. The mountains are covered with great loose stones, so that by the time you are at the bottom you are glad enough of a resting-place. ”

“ Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe! ”

“ In this unwonted posture, which places its head at the bottom at a time when the near approach of the transformation demands that it should be at the top, the unfortunate creature for a long time kicks about and struggles, striving to turn over and to seize with its fore-claws either the thread by which it hangs or one of its own hind-legs. ”

“ Any offence given to the eye is not to be got rid of by explanation. Thus Bottom’s head in the play is a fantastic illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass’s head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. ”

“ The inclination of the bottom is very irregular: there are jumps up at two or three places, and it contains a deposit of filth averaging 9 inches in depth, the sickening smell from which escapes into the houses and yards that drain into it. ”

“ Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up,
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!” ”

“ and Presumption said, Every tub must stand upon its own bottom. ”

“ This should always leave the inner margin the narrowest, the top somewhat wider, the outside (fore-edge) wider still, and the bottom widest of all. This rule is never departed from in mediæval books, written or printed. ”

“ She hinted that we ought to come again, and have the boys in, for she said the gentlemen, that is ourselves, would find an immense additional pleasure in letting the boys penetrate their bottoms while they were into their ladies in both apertures. ”

“ The word bottom, however, is frequent in Shakespeare in the sense of ‘valley’; hence ‘bottom glade’ might be interpreted ‘glade in the valley.’
533. monstrous rout; see note on the stage-direction after l. 92. Comp. ‘the bottom of the monstrous world,’ Lyc. 158. In Aen. vii. 15, we read that when Aeneas sailed past Circe’s island he heard “the growling noise of lions in wrath, ... and shapes of huge wolves fiercely howling.”
534. stabled wolves, wolves in their dens. Stable (= a standing-place) is used by Milton in the general sense of abode, e.g. ”

“ While men believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless. ”

“ Easy to see the marks; the floor is deep in dust, and the walls are thick with it. On floor, mark of several feet—confused in struggle, may articulate separately later on—one woman's—also trailing of long skirt. On walls marks of hands, fingers outspread, as if trying to grasp. Some of the long marks down the wall others across. ”

“ Given a fair chance, just a fine, long string and a smooth sidewalk—why, a top will play with a child all day long. It will twirl and whirl, never stopping to rest for long, and singing all the time its quaint little humming song to keep tune and time with its spinning. ”

“ If you had any idea what it is to live in a flat this size, with five small children tumbling over each other all day long, laughing and quarrelling and getting into mischief on every conceivable occasion, behaving like perfect little fiends one hour and angels straight from heaven the next—well, you would realise that there isn’t much time left over to sit down and nurse a private woe! ”

“ We spin our tops as in an enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,—as how should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to be tired of life, saith the preacher. ”

“ In all my life I never heard so frightful a commotion. The being that occasioned it all now began to mount the ladder towards our loft, on which the lad in the bed next the ladder sprung from his couch, crying out: "The L—d A—y preserve us! What can it be?" With that he sped across the loft and by my bed, praying lustily all the way; and, throwing himself from the other end of the loft into a manger, he darted, naked as he was, through among the furious horses, and, making the door that stood open, in a moment he vanished and left me in the lurch. ”

“ Dear Sir,—I went this morning to the Mansion-house and had an interview with the porter, but that porter was very different to what I expected to have found. Instead of a very fat lazy fellow, fatted by indolence, I found a short active little man, about five feet high, not fat, nor lean, but a comfortable size, dressed in black, powdered hair, and top boots, pleasing and easy in his manners, and such a one that every one would suppose would get an inferior person to do his dirty work. ”

“ Even the shoes of lovers waiting under the bed weep and snivel all night. But why sit naked on the floor, stark, idiotically naked on the floor with legs thrust out like a surprised illustration in La Vie Parisienne and toes curling philosophically toward a shoe?... ”

“ FLAT. In a general sense, any honest man, or square cove, in opposition to a sharp or cross-cove; when used particularly, it means the person whom you have a design to rob or defraud, who is termed the flat, or the flatty-gory. A man who does any foolish or imprudent act, is called a flat; any person who is found an easy dupe to the designs of the family, is said to be a prime flat. It’s a good flat that’s never down, is a proverb among flash people; meaning, that though a man may be repeatedly duped or taken in, he must in the end have his eyes opened to his folly. ”

“ Flat, according to its derivation from the Anglo-Saxon flet, a floor, applies to a surface only, and, in the first and most usual sense, to a surface that is horizontal or level in all directions; a line may be level, a floor is flat; flat is also applied in a derived sense to any plane surface without irregularities or elevations, as a picture may be painted on the flat surface of a perpendicular wall. Plane applies only to a surface, and is used with more mathematical exactness than flat. ”

“ You stretch yourself, and endeavor to rise. Which is you, and which the board floor? You rather think this must be you that has just got up, because it aches so down the grain, and its knots or eyes—yes, they are eyes—are so full of sand. ”

“ Nor is it necessarily indecent to show the Leg, as some ladies do upon the stage, without in the least shocking our propriety. But the Leg, an excellent thing in itself, becomes insufferable if obtruded into every concern of life, so that instead of humanity we see a demon resembling the Manx coat-of-arms, cutting capers without a body or a head. The Leg, as a disease, is subtle, secret, diabolical. It relies not merely on its own intrinsic attractions, but on its atrocious suggestions. It becomes a spectre, a portent, a mania. Turn your eyes to the English stage. ”

“ No, indeed," cried the Princess. "The People of the Depths are very strong, but they are very heavy. They cannot rise up and come to us from the water above. Before they can get in they must scale the wall." ”

“ Through the trap-door which opens into the loft, reek up puffs of a rank, sour, penetrating odor. From time to time are heard sonorous growls and deep breathings, followed by a dull sound, as of great bodies stretching themselves heavily along the floor. ”

“ No sooner were we in this vast place than we saw a strange and startling thing—a man, sitting or crouching on the floor, his hands before him, the wrists tied together, his body bound with thongs of raw hide to a big post which stood in the centre of the floor and supported the beam of the loft above. ”

“ The Hole in My Curtain
It is because of the hole in my curtain.
I have stared through the torn space
Into Life's tortured face
As she leaned low and treadled her loom,
Watching, watching for the inevitable doom. ”

“ Once, at the dusk of the evening, we saw a figure all in white, apparently of more than human stature, flourishing about the road, now throwing up its arms, now leaping to an astonishing height in the air, then turning round several times successively, then raising itself to its full height and gesticulating violently. ”

“ Suppose somebody outside had found that slab in the wall and had fooled with the bar! Then, there is another thing. Suppose, while they were living here, he or the boy had found that bar before he found the dome, and had pulled out the concern to see what it was! Bless me! in that case we should all be as poor as rats! ”

“ Now to a pure heart and a hungry heart this is always what a mountain view effects. 'A hill-top,' says a recent writer, 'is a moral as well as a physical elevation.' He is right, or men would not have worshipped on hill-tops, nor high places have become synonymous with sacred ones. ”

“ No recourse is had to such artifice as distant lands seen in perspective, nor angles of rooms, but all is flat, brought frankly into intimate association with the room that is lived in, so that these people of other days seem really to enter into our very presence, to thrust vitally their quaint selves into our company. This feature of simple flatness is in so great contrast to later methods of drawing that one becomes keenly conscious of it, and deeply satisfied with its beauty. ”

“ Friction makes the gyrostats fall, what is it that causes a top to rise? Rapid rising to the upright position is the invariable sign of rapid rotation in a top, and I recollect that when quite vertical we used to say, "She sleeps!" ”