Here is my code:
        I actually put some effort forward this time. ignore everything from previous edit
the display property's inline-blocks is probably what you want to use.
Here is a thorough guide on how to use it
And here's a brief demo
li {
    width: 200px;
    display: inline-block;
}
Apply this:
.column { 
  width: 100px; 
  overflow:hidden;
} 
.column .inner {
  width:  20px; 
  float:left; 
  text-align:center;
}
check my simple codes below url. https://github.com/JJ81/column-count maybe you can have what you want.
Is even easier:
.inner:nth-child(4n+1) {
    clear: left;
}
.inner {
    float: left;
    margin: 5px;
}<div class="column">
    <div class="inner">1</div>
    <div class="inner">2</div>
    <div class="inner">3</div>
    <div class="inner">4</div>
    <div class="inner">5</div>
    <div class="inner">6</div>
    <div class="inner">7</div>
    <div class="inner">8</div>
    <div class="inner">9</div>
    <div class="inner">10</div>
    <div class="inner">11</div>
    <div class="inner">12</div>
</div>You can apply float: left and clear float: left every 4n+1 elements.
Ref:
:nth-child
Mansonry.js is the solution. Check this out http://masonry.desandro.com/ Also check out this demo. This is what you need i guess.. I am also trying to implement such thing :) http://tympanus.net/Development/GridLoadingEffects/index2.html
As far as I know there's no way to do this with CSS only which is sad