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Fall upon   /fɔl əpˈɑn/   Listen
Fall upon

verb
1.
Find unexpectedly.  Synonyms: attain, chance on, chance upon, come across, come upon, discover, happen upon, light upon, strike.  "She struck a goldmine" , "The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fall upon" Quotes from Famous Books



... that if any one of the great whirlpools, forming incessantly in the bosom of the hurricane, should catch them in its whirls, it would hurl the riders to the ground and disperse the camels, and if it should break and fall upon them then in the twinkling of an eye an immense sandy mound would cover them in which they would remain until the next hurricane, blowing away the sand, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... himself of the crime, the place where, and the time when [committed], the strength [of the criminal, his] age, calling, and means, shall cause punishment to fall upon the guilty.[42] ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... at Rome caused great tumults, Henry contriving that all the odium should fall upon the Pope. Then, since Pascal could not fulfil the part of the agreement which he had made on behalf of the Church, Henry forced him, the successor of Gregory, to acquiesce in the exercise by the German King of the right of investiture with ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... and shade, because you see both the side towards the sun and the side away from it; and if you look towards the coming of the sun all objects will show you their shaded side, because on that side the sun cannot fall upon them. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... esteem I profess for the cultivation of hair, and to my persecution of the clippers of it. And in this kingdom is no one that beareth such a crop as I, saving one, a clothier, an accursed one!—and may a blight fall upon him for his vanity and his affectation of solemn priestliness, and his lolling in his shop-front to be admired and marvelled at by the people. So this fellow I would disgrace and bring to scorn,—this Shagpat! for he is mine enemy, and the eye of the King my master ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... cavernosum under the skin as far as the glans penis. It was easily reduced, and at a subsequent autopsy it was found that it had not been separated from the cord. Gluiteras a cites a parallel case of dislocation of the testicle into the penis. It was the result of traumatism—a fall upon the wheel of a cart. It was reduced under anesthesia, after two incisions had been made, the adhesions broken up, and the shrunken sac enlarged ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... to remember how many little matters of importance were to be attended to. The Bishop sighed, and looked at the three young faces around him. Perhaps the same thought was in every heart, though no one liked to utter it. A kind of chill, the natural reaction of extreme enthusiasm was about to fall upon them. Phyllis rose. "Let us say 'good-night,' now," she said; "it is so easy to put it off until we are too tired to say ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... Keyes' corps, of two divisions, was across the Chickahominy. Believing that the bad state of the roads and the swollen condition of the Chickahominy, would effectually prevent reinforcements reaching this corps before he could fall upon it and crush it, he had determined to bring an overwhelming force against it. Accordingly, the divisions of Longstreet, Hill, Smith and Huger, were placed in position to make a sudden and destructive assault upon the front and flanks of Casey's exposed division, in the confident ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... which are going from Mindanao consisted of forty large caracoas and twenty carangailes and bireyes, with one caracoa and two bireyes from Sanbuangan and Tagima. All these had agreed that, if the Spaniards were in Jolo, they should fall upon them; and that, if they were not there, they should go to plunder in Pintados, Cebu and Oton. This ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... were—the man of whom you ask was one—which I missed, and from that time to this I have never seen. 'Where, then, are they?' I asked myself, 'since neither earth, hell, nor heaven knows them more? Has God some fearful fate in store for sinners, which may one day fall upon me as it has already fallen upon them?' And so I set myself to discover what had become of these missing faces, and you shall hear ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... mouth of that river, sent to the king a messenger, to inform him, that the fleet, in his port, belonging to the publick enemies of the commonwealth of England, he demanded leave to fall upon it. This being refused, though the refusal was in very soft terms, and accompanied with declarations of esteem, and a present of provisions, so exasperated the admiral, that, without any hesitation, he fell upon the Portuguese fleet, then returning from Brasil, of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable!... 0 lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee, tameless, and swift, and proud. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is; What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... a single county would have three or four cities, each hostile to the others, like the cities of Thebes, Plataea, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, in Boeotia; standing ready, like fierce dogs each in its separate kennel, to fall upon one another with teeth and claws. It may further be said that of the population of these counties five out of every six were slaves, and that these slaves were white men, most of them of Greek descent. The general custom in those days was either to slay prisoners in cold blood, ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... and piquancy had given place to a gentle shyness. Clay let the burden of conversation fall upon her. He knew that he had come to his hour of hours and his soul was wrapped ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... thought than this, that the simple word—the utterance of the pure will of God conquers all opposition, and tells at once in the sphere of material things? He speaks, and it is done. At the sound of that thunder-voice, hushed stillness and a pause of dread fall upon all the wide earth, deeper and more awe-struck than the silence of the woods with their huddling leaves, when the feebler peals roll through the sky. 'The depths are congealed in the heart of the sea'—as if you were to lay hold of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... twenty-seven generals of the republican armies have been disgraced or accused; of whom, five destroyed themselves, three perished on the scaffold, and fourteen deserted to the enemy. 30. Motion to imprison the wives and children of emigrants. Motion of Danton to cause the expence of the war to fall upon merchants and the wealthy. Sept. 3. Declaration of war by the King of Naples against the French republic. Poland is obliged to yield to the treaty of partition proposed by Prussia. Decreed, that every administrator of public accounts, and every national ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz

... she said it, for she fully intended to go all the time; but having said it she was bound to stick to it for a little while; and, with such a husband as hers, the hard necessity was sure to fall upon her of having to find a reason for her saying. There it ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... marquis, pale as death; "his blood will not fall upon me, but upon the devil who led me to do ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... it was difficult to ascertain what principles he was inculcating. He was speaking at the moment of some wonderful dream with which he had been favoured by Heaven. He was warning the people of the dreadful calamities which he knew, in consequence of what he had seen in his vision, were about to fall upon the land. He seemed, however, to be dealing out tolerably even-handed justice towards all other denominations. He had nothing in its favour to say of Protestant Episcopacy, and as little of Romanism. He was hurling abuse at Presbyterianism, and warning the Independents that their day of grace ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... for example, a plant in a flower-pot in my room. It seems to be perishing for the lack of something. It may be that the elements in the air do not properly feed it: it may be that it is hungry for light. At any rate, I try it: I take it out into the sunshine, I let the air breathe upon it, the dews fall upon it, the rains touch it and revive it and the plant brightens up, grows, blossoms, becomes beautiful and fragrant. Have I changed natural laws any? Not to one parunticle. I have changed the relation of my plant and the air; and I have produced a result of ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... came in. I noticed an instant change in the landlord's countenance. He looked startled; almost frightened. The man drew a small package from his pocket, and after selecting a paper therefrom, presented it to Slade, who received it with a nervous reluctance, opened, and let his eye fall upon the writing within. I was observing him closely at the time, and saw his countenance flush deeply. In a moment or two it became pale again—paler even ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... carefully reduced. For the true music of a sentence, belonging as it does to the essence of the thought itself, is the herald which goes before to prepare the mind for the following thought, calming the surface of the intellect to a mirror-like reflection of the image about to fall upon it. But syllables that hang heavy on the tongue and grate harsh upon the ear are the trumpet of discord rousing to unconscious opposition ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... demoralised him, so brutalised him, that for drink he would commit the crime of sacrilege? There are no signs of his having sunk so low as that. But suppose the crime were committed, what then? Do I really believe that the curse of my father and of the Psalmist would fall upon Winifred's pure and innocent head? Certainly not. I do not believe in the effect of curses at all. I do not belief in any supernatural interference with the natural ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... There are a few things left in the Plymouth of to-day which were in the Plymouth of three hundred years ago. If our man and maid should turn into Pilgrim Hall their eyes would fall upon some of the selfsame objects which were familiar sights to them in 1621. Those sturdy oaken chairs of Governor Carver, Elder Brewster, and Edward Winslow; the square, hooded wooden cradle brought over by Dr. Samuel ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... match the skill of their enemy in naval tactics, the Romans had provided each of their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which species of encounter the former were unequalled. The result was a complete ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... florins in earnest of good faith and the promise of pay, thereafter, at the rate of twenty gold florins a month for as long as he should need his services and Ercole, who in all his free-lancing days had never earned the tenth of such a sum, was ready to fall upon this most noble gentleman's neck, and weep for very ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... on his succession to the unlimited prerogatives of the sovereign; the Tories insisted, on the other hand, that Parliament alone had a right to confer the regency and to assign its powers, though they admitted that the choice, in the present instance, ought to fall upon the Prince of Wales. A question of this importance naturally brought out all the ability on both sides. Pitt and the solicitor-general took the lead on the side of limitation, and the prince ultimately accepted the regency on their terms. It became unnecessary, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... of speed and of manageability. They could dart about, turn, reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness and ease of a fish in the water. Mr. Edison calculated that even if mysterious bolts should fall upon our ships we could diminish their power to cause injury by ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... already disappeared behind the western cliff, but a fierce ray from its sinking orb, struck upon a storm-cloud that hung over us, and thence was reflected in a glow of angry light of which the focus or centre seemed to fall upon the summit of this strange ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... woods to some hidden bower by the brook; there as I look up into your eyes, the pebbly streamlet flashing a glint of wayward sunshine, the wooing songbirds and the reposeful harmonies of Nature soothe me like your tender glances when they fall upon me alone. Aye, quite alone I would have them fall, to produce that magic sensation of a dream's delight. Then when I awake in the morning and realize that you are far, far away, and read your latest ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... by their young men. Blount told them plainly that he had the utmost difficulty in restraining the whites from taking vengeance for the numerous murders committed on the settlers, and warned them that if they wished to avert a war which would fall upon both the innocent and the guilty they must themselves keep the peace. The chiefs answered, with seeming earnestness, that they were most desirous of being at peace, and would certainly restrain their men; and they begged for the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... suffered harm was of more serious nature. She was subject to fits of hysteria, preceded and followed by the most painful collapse of that buoyant courage which was her supreme charm and the source of her influence. Without warning, an inexplicable terror would fall upon her; like the weakest child, she craved protection from a dread inspired solely by her imagination, and solace for an anguish of wretchedness to which she could give no form in words. Happily this illness afflicted her only at long intervals, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... at the culprit as if he expected to see the heavens fall upon him; but Lady Adela observed, with ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... trav'lling dreams, and these My soul adores—my words condemn— Oh, I would fall upon my knees To kiss their golden garments' hem, Yet words do lie in wait to seize ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson

... she had caused comment also. But when the bottles were well distributed the grumbling turned to ribald banter which made me shudder that it should fall upon Jetta's ears. De Boer had kept his men away from her, shoving them aside when they crowded to see her. She was in a little tent now, not far from the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... tribulation, and end of the world. The palm-bearing multitude, which come out of this great tribulation, cannot be innumerable out of all nations, unless they be made so by the preaching of the Gospel before it comes. There must be a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, before it can fall upon the toes of the Image, and become a great mountain and fill the earth. An Angel must fly thro' the midst of heaven with the everlasting Gospel to preach to all nations, before Babylon falls, and the Son of man reaps his harvest. The two Prophets must ascend ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton

... erstwhile contesting twain. Mrs. Milo's look seemed to fall upon them like a blow. "Oh! Oh!" ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates

... flight of a bird, as sudden as a lightning flash. The little Pilgrim followed him with her eager ears, wondering if he would leap thus into the country of light and take heaven by storm, or whether he would fall upon the heavenly hills, and lie prostrate in weariness and exhaustion, like him to whom she had ministered. She followed him with her ears, for the sound of his progress was with crashing of rocks and a swift movement in the air; but she was called back ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... If you will consult the Universal's register for the day, you will find my name in it under hers. You will understand why I shrank from confessing to this fact before. I held her in such honor—I was and am so anxious that no shadow should fall upon her innocence from my poor story of secret and unrecognized devotion. She knew nothing of what led me to follow every step she took. I was a witness of her fate, but that is all the connection between us. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... 6th of February of that year a council of war was convened at Hartford, consisting of the Governor, most of the Council, and many of the chief military officers of the colony. Suspicions were entertained that the attack would fall upon western Connecticut, and that the Indians in this vicinity intended to join the French and Indians. The Council of War determined that the then western frontier towns, Danbury, Woodbury, Waterbury and Simsbury, ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport

... came off that same day at evening tea. Pavel Petrovitch came into the drawing-room, all ready for the fray, irritable and determined. He was only waiting for an excuse to fall upon the enemy; but for a long while an excuse did not present itself. As a rule, Bazarov said little in the presence of the 'old Kirsanovs' (that was how he spoke of the brothers), and that evening he felt out of humour, and drank off cup after cup of tea without ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... her haughtiness gone, knelt beside the young man, and took her sister from his arms. "Joel, my poor, dear friend," she said, "I am sorry that the last, worst mischief we have done must fall upon you." ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... and his serious maltreatment, even if undefeated, a certainty. The strategic problem before our navy was, however, not quite so easy as this might make it seem. The enemy's concentration might be attempted either towards Brest or towards Toulon. In the latter case, a superior force might fall upon our Mediterranean fleet before our watching ships in the Atlantic could discover the escape of the enemy's ships from the Atlantic port or could follow and come up with them. Against the probability of this was to be set the reluctance of Napoleon to carry out an eccentric ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... larger amount of their own food supplies, particularly meat and vegetables, and they have produced more milk, butter, and eggs. It will be seen that Booker Washington's voice when he reiterated over and over again, "The man who owns the land will own much else besides," did not fall upon deaf ears. ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... followers, and the smaller party moved away from Arabia, and eventually crossed Africa. They took away with them, in their exile, a valuable relic of their old faith in the shape of a large piece of the black stone of Mecca. The stone was a meteoric one, as you may have heard, and in its fall upon the earth it broke into two pieces. One of these pieces is still at Mecca. The larger piece was carried away to Barbary, where a skilful worker modelled it into the fashion which you saw to-day. These men are the descendants of the original seceders from ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... where there formerly stood an old wall enclosing part of the college, which I remember bulged out in a threatening manner, and of which there was a common tradition similar to that concerning Bacon's study at Oxford, that it would fall upon some very learned man[110]. It had some time before this been taken down, that the street might be widened, and a more convenient wall built. Dr. Johnson, glad of an opportunity to have a pleasant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... selected from the families of the most influential nobles. On these cogent considerations, it was solemnly determined that this terrific experiment should be made in the next year of the tiger, which happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771. With respect to the month, there was, unhappily for the Kalmucks, even less latitude allowed to their choice than with respect to the year. It was absolutely necessary, or it was thought so, that the different divisions of the nation, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... which was indeed more indicative of a mercurial and capricious temperament than of a sincere desire to make amends for their conduct: the real reason of these sudden demonstrations must be sought in the fears that were aroused in the minds of the better citizens, of the punishment sure to fall upon them, when the news of their actions should ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... for the wrath of Heaven to fall upon them. Nothing happened, then they told others. ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... Harry said, "simply on the impulse of humanity, and hold it mean and cowardly for a number of men to fall upon one." ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... political science and legislation? I hold them to be subject to laws as fixed as matter itself, and to be as fit a subject for the application of the highest intellectual power. Denunciation may, indeed fall upon the philosophical inquirer into these first principles, as it did upon Galileo and Bacon, when they first unfolded the great discoveries which have immortalized their names; but the time will come when truth will prevail in spite of prejudice ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... often brought to the verge of starvation. In those days, remember, there was not the same attention paid to the poor of all classes, nor loving provision made for their wants, as there is now. So the noble son—for truly noble he was—submitted cheerfully to every trouble and shame that could fall upon himself, in order to get food from time to time for his almost famishing parents. They were too respectable to beg, and would have never allowed their boy to beg for them; and yet so destitute were they that they were even ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... of the legislature, it was made obligatory upon every planter to support all the superannuated, infirm, or diseased on the estate, who were such at this time of emancipation. Those who have become so since 1834, fall upon the hands of their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Scarecrow was quite dazed by his apparent good fortune. Surely they had called him Emperor, but how could that be? He turned to address the Grand Chew Chew; then as he saw out of the corner of his eye that the assemblage were making ready to fall upon their faces, he ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... of West Africa grows anywhere and everywhere it chances to fall upon the ground. Very little attention is given to cultivation, yet it could be made an export which would yield the farmer a most valuable income. Corn grows as prolifically in Africa as in the bottoms of Georgia and Alabama. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... objection. Tom was a very stupid, very good-natured boy. I had got to know him a little at the Nestors. He was slow and heavy and rather fat. I tried to make granny laugh by saying he would be a good buffer to fall upon. I saw she was looking grave, and I felt a little cross at her not wanting me to skate, and ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... as he wove and unwove his ungainly legs before her, in a manner appalling to witness. She had only a common palm-leaf fan, I remarked,—worth, probably, about two cents. But Young New York, as he waited patiently for the deadly ocean-malady to fall upon Raw Material, who was unquestionably a subject for it, and was drinking, besides, drew tightly up his tan-colored gloves, and, twirling with finger and thumb the air just about where it must some day be displaced by the future tendrils of the coming moustache, affirmed upon oath ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... was so admirable an example. The beginning is an effusion of spiritual joy and charity with which he was transported at the happiness of their conversion to God, and their fervor in divine love. His extreme abhorrence of heresy makes him immediately fall upon that of the Docaetae, against which he arms the faithful, by clearly demonstrating that Christ was truly made man, died, and rose again: in which his terms admirably express his most humble and affectionate devotion to our divine Redeemer, under ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... that last night and turning its hopeful climax to bitterness. Small wonder that Barker, walking by his side, had his quick sympathies aroused, and as he saw that shadow, which they were all familiar with, but had never sought to penetrate, fall upon his companion's handsome face, even his youthful spirits yielded to it. They were both relieved when the clatter of hoofs behind them, as they reached the valley, announced the approach of Stacy. "I started with the second mule and the last load soon after you left," he explained, "and have just ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... twenty-two, then he went to his father and mother and told them that he loved me and wished to marry me. Both Mr. and Mrs. Putnam flew into a great rage at this. The idea of a brother marrying his sister! They said it was a crime and a sacrilege, and the vengeance of God would surely fall upon us both. Jones told them he had written to a lawyer in Boston, and he had replied that there was no law prohibiting such a marriage. 'But the law of God shines before you like a flaming sword,' said ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... marrow. This was hate indeed, a hate before which the strong man quailed; the hate of which Mademoiselle had spoken when she said that the babes crossed themselves at her passing, and the houses tottered to fall upon her! ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... them, and also removed one of the sheets of perforated zinc from the tops of the bee-frames) by dislodging the bees from the straw-hive in which they had been previously collected, or shaken from the boughs of the tree, where they may have settled, so as to fall upon the tops of the frames within the box; when the bees have all congregated within the bee-frames by crawling through the open spaces at the top, the perforated sheet of zinc is placed over them; the bees can then only escape through the long slip or entrance ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn

... come in is a notorious thief, and I am on his track, waiting to arrest him. Do you watch for the moment when he falls asleep, and let me know. Should he escape, the blame will fall upon you." ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... wholesome respect for the minutemen of the Old North State, wished to sail to the Chesapeake; while Lord Campbell, the royal governor of South Carolina, who was now an officer of the fleet, begged that the first hard blow should fall upon Charleston. He declared that, as soon as the city was captured, the loyalists would be strong enough to restore the king's power. Campbell, it seems, had his way at last, and it was decided to sail south, ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... King, "I have no objection that leeches should wrap their words in mist, and pretend to derive knowledge from the stars; but when you bid Richard Plantagenet fear that a danger will fall upon HIM from some idle omen, or omitted ceremonial, you speak to no ignorant Saxon, or doting old woman, who foregoes her purpose because a hare crosses the path, a raven croaks, or ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... things. All at once came the sound of heavy blows against the wall of the hut and the grandmother gave such a start of alarm that she nearly upset the spinning-wheel, and cried in a trembling voice, "Ah, my God, now it is coming, the house is going to fall upon us!" But Heidi caught her by the arm, and said soothingly, "No, no, grandmother, do not be frightened, it is only grandfather with his hammer; he is mending up everything, so that you shan't have such fear ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... opened the door, and slowly left the room. He would have said more had he known what to say. But her words came more fluently than his, and he was dumbfounded by her volubility; yet he was as much convinced as ever that it was his duty to save her from the ill repute which would fall upon her from further intimacy with this Captain. He could, of course, take her into the country to-morrow, if he chose to do so; but he could not hinder her from writing to the Dean; he could not debar her from pen and ink and the ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... one that tosseth up a ball. And what is a ball the better, if the motion of it be upwards; or the worse if it be downwards; or if it chance to fall upon the ground? So for the bubble; if it continue, what it the better? and if it dissolve, what is it the worse And so is it of a candle too. And so must thou reason with thyself, both in matter of fame, and in matter of death. For as for the body itself, (the subject ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... terrible blow was not the only one which was to fall upon poor Johannes. An inconsiderate maid-servant burst with a frantic cry of distress into her mistress' room, who was only partly convalescent from a distracting nervous disorder, and was in great uneasiness and anxiety about the fire, the dark-red reflection of which was ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... principal shipping points and no boat could leave without their consent. The port of Mobile was in our hands and the lower waters were patrolled by gunboats. Cotton might, indeed, be dumped down a "slide" by night at some private landing and fall upon the deck of a steamer idling innocently below. It might even arrive at Mobile, but secretly to transfer it to a deep-water vessel and get it out of the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... friends landed in Bergen it was past midnight. Their admiration of the scenery had induced them to neglect supper and to defy sleep, so that when they landed they felt more than half inclined to fall upon their boatman and eat him up alive, and then to fall down on the stone pier and go off ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... have lived simple lives and left their fellows better for having lived. I do not know how God measures the deeds of men, or with what degrees of reward he fixes their place in Paradise; but I feel that I stand on holy ground as my eyes wander here and fall upon these graves where the Burtons sleep. I know that once this was a land of want and misery; a country of abandoned farms. Today I look about me, and, under skies that seem to sing, I see a land redeemed. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... hour Mrs. Gwynne tried to draw her visitor out to talk about his family, but here she failed. Indeed a restraint appeared to fall upon him that nothing could dispel. Immediately after tea Mrs. Gwynne placed the Bible and Book of Prayers on the table, saying, "We follow the custom of reading prayers every evening after tea, Mr. Sleighter. We shall be glad ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... autumn leaves are due to the combination of oxygen with their juices. It enters into all plans and operations with a helping hand; animals and plants owe their lives to it; but when the shadow of death begins to fall upon them, it is as ready to aid in their destruction. Like calumny, which blackens whatsoever is suspected, oxygen pounces upon the failing and completes their ruin. The processes of fermentation and putrefaction cannot commence in any substance, until ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... this hole would be planted upright a number of sharp bamboo sticks, and then the top would be covered over with slender bamboo sticks and loose grass or palm leaves. If one or more persons stepped upon the top sticks, they would break at once, and the unfortunates would fall upon the sharp points below, which were certain to inflict more or less ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... Troneg spake: "Stand by the sides of the hall. Let not the firebrands fall upon your helmet bands, but stamp them with your feet down deeper in the blood. Forsooth it is an evil feast which the queen ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... if the steeple itself should fall? And this thought (it may for aught I know) when I stood and looked on, did continually so shake my mind, that I durst not stand at the steeple-door any longer, but was forced to flee, for fear the steeple should fall upon my head. ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... muskets of Frank's guard, and his pistol had completed their confusion. The reports of the guns called up other troops, and these came rushing in on all sides. Scarcely did Frank and his followers fall upon the conspirators than they took to their heels and fled ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... to the right of the Grapevine Bridge. They, too, are exhausted, their horses jaded, their ammunition spent. We could gather a little artillery—Poague's battery is here. They are crushed together, in great masses. If we could fall upon them, cause a great panic there at the water, much ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... and no more, and I warn you, unless I have great luck, I shall have to fall upon you at the New Year like a hundredweight of bricks. Doctor, rent, chemist, are all threatening; sickness has bitterly delayed my work; and unless, as I say, I have the mischief's luck, I shall completely break down. VERBUM SAPIENTIBUS. I do not live cheaply, and I question ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the man was torn away by the intercession of the horse, the wolf regained its feet and rushed upon him; but Dan had landed from his fall upon his feet, with catlike agility, and now he dodged the rush of the wolf and the arrowy spring of the creature, and sprang in his ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... entered, attended by the Kazi and his Assessors; whereupon Ahmad Kamakim went straight to the depressed floor of the saloon and came to the slab, under which he had buried the stolen goods and let the rod fall upon it with such violence that the marble broke in sunder and behold something glittered underneath. Then said he, "Bismillah; in the name of Allah! Mashallah; whatso Allah willeth! By the blessing of our coming a hoard hath been hit upon, wait while we go down into this hiding-place and see what ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... are illustrated in Fig. 2, where MM, NN, are the two branches of an hyperbola; C the center; AB the major axis; F and F' the foci. If now a tangent TT be drawn at any point as P of either branch, and a perpendicular let fall upon it from the nearer focus F be produced to cut at G a line drawn from P to the farther focus F', then this perpendicular will cut the tangent at a point I upon the circumference of a circle described ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... from the hold, and came back again with the light of battle in his eye. It was only after several moments that he succumbed, this time to the insidious "grapevine." He fell so sharply that Franklin had difficulty in breaking free in order not to fall upon him. The cowboy lay prone for a moment, then got up and dusted off ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... American character will have to be born again before there is any change in the social law. It is one of those terrible facts of life that rise isolated above the so-called problems. If Harriet lives through this, she will fall upon other miseries incidental to her breed, as sure as there is life about us, for she has the seeds of many crops within her. So it is true that all my concern is for you. In a way I helped to bring this ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... have not been able to accumulate enough knowledge." Well! If every one refrained from expressing an opinion on a subject until he was well informed the pulp mills would go out of business and a great silence would fall upon ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... of light enter the eye they are bent out of their course. By the action of the crystalline lens, aided by the refractive media, the rays of light that are parallel when they fall upon the normal eye are brought to a focus on ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... lonely round, I thank thee for that warning sound— The clarion cock and the baying hound Not less their dreary vigils keep; Still hearkening, I will love you all, While in each silent interval I can hear those dear breasts rise and fall Upon ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... in being," he declared, "it will be a crippled and defeated fleet, but, for the sake of your point of view, I will assume that it exists. Even then there will be nothing to prevent the German fleet from steaming in what waters it pleases. If our shells fall upon New York on the day when your warships are sighted off the Californian coast, do you suppose that America could resist? With her seaboard, her fleet is contemptible. For her wealth, her army is a farce. She has neglected for a great many years to pay her national insurance. She ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... if, when the Saguntines were besieged, and implored our protection, we had assisted them with vigour, as our fathers did the Mamertines, we should have averted the whole weight of the war upon Spain; which, by our dilatory proceedings, we suffered to our extreme loss to fall upon Italy? Nor does it admit a doubt, that we confined this same Philip in Macedonia, (after he had entered into an engagement with Hannibal by ambassadors and letters, to cross over into Italy,) by sending Laevinus with a fleet to ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... of the kindred of old days; and after we had been here but a little while, the young men, yea and the old also, and even some of the women, would steal through passes that we, and we only, knew of, and would fall upon the Aliens in Silver-dale as occasion served, and lift their goods both live and dead; and this became both a craft and a pastime amongst us. Nor may I hide that we sometimes went lifting otherwhere; ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... They had won over the guard by small presents, and were permitted to go in and out with fruit and other little luxuries for the galley-slaves. They now abstained from going near the place, in order that no suspicion might fall upon them after his escape of having had any communication ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... the people in employment. But its virtue lies in its progression. The modest increase of to-day leads to the fuller increase of to-morrow. Properly applied, the capitalist and the employer of labor need have nothing to fear from it. Its ultimate effect will not fall upon them, but will serve merely to alter the ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... Tennessee Lands. She did not by any means share all the delusion of the family; but her brain was not seldom busy with schemes about it. Washington seemed to her only to dream of it and to be willing to wait for its riches to fall upon him in a golden shower; but she was impatient, and wished she were a man to take ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... and far more: why, your exhibition is nothing. He hath spent that, and since hath borrowed; protested with oaths, alleged kindred to wring money from me,—by the love I bore his father, by the fortunes might fall upon himself, to furnish his wants: that done, I have had since his bond, his friend and friend's bond. Although I know that he spends is yours; yet it grieves me to see the unbridled wildness ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... Naya. "Let not his voice again fall upon our ears. Let him die now, before our eyes, and let his carcase be given as offal to the dogs. Let one hundred of his guards die also. Others who would thwart ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... belied the Lord, and said, It is not he, neither shall evil come upon us.' 'Go and proclaim these words, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God; and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... a great rocky chasm (the Wild Gorge), where the hills are veritably rent asunder, passing through which one involuntarily shudders, and dreams of being in the land of some Titanic race, whose rocky thunder-bolts are ready to fall upon and crush the small, fragile creatures who have ventured to their ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... Either to await the arrival of Logan, who was now undoubtedly on his march to join them; or, if it was determined to attack without delay, that one-half of their number should march up the river, which there bends in an elliptical form, cross at the rapids, and fall upon the rear of the enemy, while the other division attacked them in front. At any rate, he strongly urged the necessity of reconnoitering the ground carefully before the main body crossed ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... At present, they hardly knew whether they were satisfied, or not. Two hundred and fifty dollars was, to them, an enormous sum; but the risk was great. It was not that they feared that any suspicion would fall upon them, on their return. They had often smuggled tobacco from Gibraltar, and had no high opinion of the acuteness of the authorities. What really alarmed them was the fear of being sunk, either by the Spanish or British guns. However, they saw that, for the present at any rate, they had no option ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... inequitable, (a) because a much greater amount is levied from the people than is required for the needs of Government; (b) because it is either class taxation pure and simple, or by the selection of the subjects, though nominally universal, it is made to fall upon our shoulders; and (c) because the necessaries of life ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... sunshine has just liberated, fasting and impatient, will make a determined effort to partake of the first likely repast which presents itself. Single newly-thawed specimens have been known to lie in ambush by frequented paths and fall upon lonely wayfarers with the desperate courage of starvation. I am credibly informed that, if duty necessitates an unescorted journey at this season, it is a wise precaution to provide oneself with several joints of reindeer flesh, which, in the event of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various

... and women alike; and in return for the payment of this tax the property of both men and women is made secure against unlawful injury. In order to make it secure, the state lays, upon men alone, a service tax, and with that tax goes representation, or the vote. This service tax does not fall upon woman, and it cannot be demanded of her; so it is not true that "Man has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it." He has, in return for the ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... Sandwich's chamber, where I find him very melancholy and not well satisfied, I perceive, with my carriage to Sir G. Carteret, but I did satisfy him and made him confess to me, that I have a very hard game to play; and told me he was sorry to see it, and the inconveniences which likely may fall upon me with him; but, for all that, I am not much afeard, if I can but keepe out of harm's way in not being found too much concerned in my Lord's or Sir G. Carteret's matters, and that I will not be if I can helpe it. He hath got over his business of the prizes, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... left behind? sticking out of the ceiling right above her head. At the sight of this Clever Alice began to cry, saying, "Oh! if I marry Hans, and we have a child, and he grows up, and we send him into the cellar to draw beer, the hatchet will fall upon his head and kill him," and so she sat there weeping with all her ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... you but to open the door and usher him out with the most humble apologies. The only means of securing conviction is to surprise the miscreant by a rapidity against which it is impossible he can be on his guard. Fall upon him like a thunder-clap, arrest him as he wakes, drag him hither while yet pale with astonishment, and interrogate him at once. Ah! I wish ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... to her. Abishai returned it in such a manner that she never afterwards required a distaff. This little incident was witnessed by Ishbi, who, resolving to rid himself of one of his enemies forthwith, took David from beneath the wine-press, and threw him high into the air, expecting that he would fall upon his spear, which he had previously fixed into the ground. But Abishai pronounced the Great Name (often referred to in the Talmud), and David, in consequence, remained suspended between earth and sky. In the sequel they both unite ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... so expensive. They did secure a few rabbits and sage-hens and one small antelope, but all the signs of the times grew blacker and blacker, and it was about as well to kill and eat the remaining ponies as to let them die of starvation. A sort of apathy seemed to fall upon everybody, old and young, and the warriors hardly felt like doing any more hunting. Now at last they sat down to starve, without a dog or pony left, and with no prospect that game of any kind would come into ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... evening, in the midst of the Yellow Sea, my eyes chance to fall upon the lotus brought from Diou-djen-dji;—they had lasted for two or three days; but now they have faded, and pitifully strew my carpet with their pale ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... experience help others to attain to it so that the process may be hastened and made easier? Must those who have been enlightened wait for those who are dear to them to be awfully humiliated by sin, or terribly crushed by sorrow, before the light can fall upon their pathway? Is there no way by which a soul may be brought to the knowledge of God except ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... that no one can see what is going on, or by any possibility guess what will happen. You may set out for Koenigsberg, but you will never get there; you will meet with an accident on the way—either your carriage will be overset and you fatally injured, or robbers fall upon you in the woods and murder you. However it may be, only as a dead man will you arrive at Koenigsberg, and the Elector will have nothing further to do than to decree ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... most vilely, so that she seemed like to have been shaken in pieces, and from a dozen places between the gunnel and the covering canvas, the water spurted in upon us. And here one other thing I would make mention of: During that minute, the boat had ceased to rise and fall upon the great swell, and whether this was because the sea was flattened by the first rush of the wind, or that the excess of the storm held her steady, I am unable to tell; and can put down only that ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... were bleeding, and her torn dress revealed her in a state of semi-nudity, with the scratches on her breasts. She was sublime so. Her head, eager and maddened, exhaled the odor of blood. Her panting mouth was open, and her nostrils were not sufficient for her breath. There are certain animals who fall upon their enemy in their rage, do it to death, and seem in the tranquillity of victory to have forgotten it. There are others who prowl around their victim, who guard it in fear lest it should be taken away from them, and who, like the Achilles ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... and, falling back into the chair from which he had arisen, covered his white face with both hands. He had allowed his burning cigar to fall upon the carpet, and, a faint odor of acrid smoke reaching my nostrils, I looked for it, found it, and threw it into the empty grate. This trivial action seemed as important at the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... 3d.—The stupor, or whatever it is, in which that dreadful night has left me, is on me still. I have no more sense or feeling than a stone. I kneel down before God and do not say a word. I take up a book and read, but get hold of nothing. At church I felt afraid I should fall upon the people and tear them. I could wish no one to pity me or even know that I am smitten. It does seem to me that those who can sit down and cry, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... and the savage? There are more enjoyments and more privations in the one than in the other; but if, in the latter case, the enjoyments, though fewer, be more keenly felt,—if the privations, though apparently sharper, fall upon duller sensibilities and hardier frames,—your gauge of proportion loses all its value. Nay, in civilization there is for the multitude an evil that exists not in the savage state. The poor man sees daily and hourly all the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the confidence she has placed in him, I myself shall pray, that vengeance may fall upon his head—Raro—I quite forget all my Latin; but I think it is, Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede paean claudo: where vice goes before, vengeance (sooner or later) will follow. But why do I translate these ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson



Words linked to "Fall upon" :   find, regain



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