Limbo

“ And it amazes us to think how soon such incidents, though not actually forgotten, though they can be recalled—and recalled too vividly for health—at our will, are nevertheless thrust, as it were, out of the mind's sight as we cast into lumber-rooms the crutches and splints that remind us of a broken limb which has recovered its strength and tone. ”

“ Or, where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament, a slender foot and fairy limb, resting too heavily upon the frail support, may be thrust through, and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. ”

“ Each rib was formed of countless crystal plates like the plates of a paddle-wheel, and each tiny plate was incessantly vibrating up and down, carrying the restless little creature hither and thither as it pleased, and making it flash with their ceaseless movement like a balloon of sunbeams ”

“ As I toiled along, my useless limb causing me each day more trouble, I felt I should like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength. ”

“ Even the great alarm bell on the roof must have felt the force of the wind, for the rope rose and fell slightly, as though the bell were moved a little from time to time, and the limber rope fell on the oak floor with a hard and hollow sound. ”

“ Sometimes after cutting a large limb into the right length to be used in the construction of a dam, the animal, finding he does not need it immediately, floats it out into the middle of a stream and sinks it to the bottom. ”

“ The adaptation by which a limb, originally destined to grow free and bear foliage, has been converted into a living stick of timber, is a strange one, and affords a new illustration of the power of nature to fit itself to circumstances. ”

“ The stream of rubble seems in a living rage; it thrusts its way on, tearing down other masses with it—crowding, pouring, pouring, fills up a chasm in the valley—and stops. The last few boulders settle slowly into place, and then no more. ”

“ It is not pleasant to lie on one's back in a hole, whose roof is only a few inches above one's face, and have a block of Limestone rolled from end to end of one's frame, without allowance for projections in either. ”

“ The black cloud and the red flame fought, serpent against serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from the fire, and the sudden assaults of the sparks seemed to drive the snow-flakes before them. The ledge, blurred at first in outline, now stood out in bold relief,—a medley of rocks with peaks, crests, and vertebræ. ”

“ The whole face of the earth was perforated with holes ; shafts sunk and being sunk by these men in search of gold, down to the bed-rock. Windlasses stretched across these shafts where great buckets swung, in which men hoisted the earth to the light of the sun by sheer force of muscle. ”

“ We have a system of levers to do our walking with, and they act precisely as do all levers. One leg is a lever to pry the body over the other leg, and the latter becomes a pendulum and swings back by force of gravity. ”

“ In the west a tiny ribbon or azure is still to be seen, and towards that rift of blue he is rushing in headlong flight. His legs are caught in the long hairy cassock, he falls and writhes on the ground, bleeding and terrible to look upon, and rises and flees once more. ”

“ Gigantic apparitions arise across the world of water, wavering like shadows on the clouds. Steel-clad, clothed in skins, casqued in steel, their winged heads bend and nod and move against the clouds. And even they are changing as clouds change shape. I see steel limbs turn red and naked. ”

“ Each time that one of the man’s feet presses on the ground, the air contained in the cavity of the sole of the shoe is driven into the drum, which we have just mentioned, and the flexible membrane of this drum is elevated. ”

“ But no such limb was handy, and even had there been there would have been no time in which to prepare it for use, for the rapids were now in plain sight, the water boiling and foaming as it darted over one rock and another, in a descent of thirty feet in forty yards. ”

“ More than once I have looked out on a sea of maddened creatures ready to tear me limb from limb, almost succeeding in forcing an entrance into the house, even cutting a large hole in the door, but held back by the unseen Hand. ”

“ Every step is a labour: each leg is pulled out of one hole, even in the harder plots, and placed on the edge of another into which it slips down by aid of the lubricating mud upon the surface; and in many instances the poor animal rests upon its chest or its belly, the hole being too deep for its legs to fathom. ”

“ The skin of the drum being made of an ass's hide is one [Pg 381] more reason why the thundering cloud, being very naturally likened to a drum, the thunder should be also considered now as a flatus oris, now as a flatus ventris of the celestial ass, or of the foolish hero who accompanies him. ”

“ It is no small pile of rubbish that comes out of a shaft six feet wide, twenty-two feet long, and from 1,500 to 2,500 feet deep—to say nothing of the débris from innumerable drifts, crosscuts and winzes. ”

“ The mouth is round like that of a well, and half way down there is a ledge round the mouth; as when they make a well, the upper half is wider, and the lower half, being faced with masonry, is narrower, and ends upwards in a sort of ledge. At times the fire comes out with great fury, and sends forth many stones, that look like great fiery pieces of iron. ”

“ We say that the limb has budded, as if there were a germ of it which develops like the seed of a plant, or as if each transverse portion of the limb, each slice, so to speak, could re-form the slice that follows. ”

“ RIBBANDS, lisses, (from rib and bend) in naval architecture, long narrow flexible pieces of timber, nailed upon the outside of the ribs, from the stem the stern-post, so as to envelop the ship lengthways, and appear on her side and bottom like the meridians on the surface of the globe. ”

“ These animals cling to the rocks in the most wonderful way. Indeed, if you take hold of a big limpet between your fingers you will not be able to move it in the least, even if you pull at it and push at it as hard as you can. ”

“ Just so, when an iron lever is applied to a weight which a great many hands cannot move, with the fulcrum, which the Greeks call ὑπομὁχλιον, lying as a centre in a right line under the lever, and with the tongue of the lever placed under the weight, one man's strength, bearing down upon the head of it, heaves up the weight. ”

“ When she had done this, she laid the comb down beside the water. She had not long to wait, before the depths became troubled and stormy, and a great wave rose and rolled towards the shore, bearing the comb away with it as it retired. ”

“ The left slab represents a man richly habited, with collar, medallion, girdle, and greaves; the right slab a woman, to judge from her size, long plait of hair, and peculiar clothing. This female is borne on palms having the very well-preserved outline of human heads. Both the male and female seem to stand before the symbolic bird offering presents, the nature of which it is not easy to specify. ”

“ Here, therefore, we have evidence of an entire limb not having been washed in a fossil state out of an older alluvium, and then swept afterwards into a cave, so as to be mingled with flint implements, but having been introduced when clothed with its flesh, or at least when it had the separate bones bound together by their natural ligaments, and in that state buried in mud. ”

“ I looked aloft at the intricate ropes, at the steel masts rising and carrying huge yards of steel, rising higher and higher, until steel masts and yards gave way to slender spars of wood, while ropes and stays turned into a delicate tracery of spider-thread against the sky. ”

“ If, however, we cast a stone into a pond, and look very carefully at what takes place, we shall see that the circular expanding band of ripples has an ill-defined but visible inner and outer edge, and that wavelets or ripples which compose it are being continually brought into existence on its inner edge, and dying away on its outer edge. ”

“ Then the giant thought of a stratagem, and said, “I have got warm with fighting, and so hast thou. We will bathe in the river, and cool ourselves before we begin again.” The King’s son, who knew nothing of falsehood, went with him to the water, and pulled off with his clothes the ring also from his arm, and sprang into the river. The giant instantly snatched the ring, and ran away with it, but the lion, which had observed the theft, pursued the giant, tore the ring out of his hand, and brought it back to its master. ”

“ The extending of the arm, which was bent, removes the weight of the figure upon the foot which bears the weight of the whole body: as is observable in rope-dancers, who dance upon the rope with their arms open, without any pole. ”

“ In course of milleniums the ancient forces yielded to those of the new armies, and the once normal slope became reversed in a way which shocked the conservative lemurs of his day. It requires little imagina­tion to see how the lengthening thickening hairs on this limb-segment became changed in their direction by friction against the opposing surfaces of the thighs, by gravita­tion, and the frequent dripping of rain when they were held up to grasp a bough. ”

“ Not only so, but the surface, rough as it is, is frequently as polished as glass, and, whether wet or dry, is slippery to the tread. Walking over these jagged surfaces of limestone is destructive to any shoes. ”

“ Every limb shrinks sensibly in volume from this withdrawal of the blood, and the shrinkage of any one of them, say the right arm, is measured by the fall of water in a gauge that communicates with a long bottleful of water, through the neck of which the arm has been thrust, and in which it is softly but effectually plugged. ”

“ A single limb—not a thick, sturdy limb, but rather a weak, unstable sort of limb—hung directly above the fence at a most favorable point, immediately behind the grand stand.
Willie Trigger climbed the tree. ”

“ Through a hole at the top of the globe issues a wick which passes through a sort of reed of brass, drawing the nut-oil held in the globe through its own length coiled like a tape-worm in a surgeon's phial. ”

“ I have known men cut off very suddenly in a land like this. A slip would do it sometimes—a single slip, and down you go through a crack, and only a bubble on the green water to show where it was that you sank. ”

“ The rim is a high stone wall which was built to keep the water out. Everybody who lives there keeps a boat tied to their gate or door in order that they may have some means of escape if the wall should ever break. ”

“ By this power of adhesion, the Limpit is protected from the violence of the waves, and also from its numerous enemies, aquatic birds and animals, which have a relish for its flesh. Still vast numbers are used as food, both by man and the inferior creatures, so that the means of defence furnished to the Limpits of the rock, are not always sure. ”

“ At night-time Limulus is apt to leave the sand and progress by a series of short swimming hops, the respiratory appendages giving the necessary impetus, whilst between each two short flights the animal balances itself for a moment on the tip of its tail. ”

“ Sometimes a limb is chosen, sometimes an upright trunk, and the nest may be from two feet to one hundred [22] feet from the ground, though most frequently it will be found not less than ten nor more than thirty feet up. ”

“ Such buildings we discover in various parts of the world, varying in their details, but similar as respects their simple but massive and durable forms. Gigantic stature and strength of limb we consider to have been the essential requisites, in the infancy of art, for transporting and raising the ponderous materials; and these properties were characteristics of the races of which, and of their Herculean labours, we find everywhere corresponding traditions. ”

“ Sometimes the watermen quarrel, and one sticks his knife into another’s balsa, and as soon as he does so, the man whose balsa has been cut has to strike out for his life towards the shore, for the wind soon gets out of it. ”

“ They tumble into holes, whirl and toss and heave among loose boulders, or rocks in situ, down hill and up, trembling sometimes like a ship struck by mighty waves, but never springing a leak, or shivering a timber, or loosening a brace. ”

“ But the thickness of her yards, with the canvas rolled up on them, the thickness of the masts, too, the spread of the tops, the complicated gear of shroud, backstay, and running rigging—all offered resistance enough to the dark and living gale that was bellowing right over the stern to put something of the speed of an arrow into the keel of the fabric. ”