"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boat of Ludlow; but her eye ran over the whole distance of the bright and broad streak, between her and the cruiser, in vain. There was the slight ripple of the water in the glittering of the moon's rays, but no speck, like that the barge would make, was visible. The lantern still shone at the cruiser's peak. Once, indeed, she thought the sound of oars was again to be heard, and much nearer than before; and yet no effort of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... A solitary speck of life upon the great waste, with the consciousness of the precarious thread of chance upon which it hung! What wonder that, for all his daring, the traveller felt, as he deliberately regulated his pace to the most nonchalant ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly; the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top, grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds—a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... why ears grow on us, all crinkled like a shell, With lots of fancy carvings that make a feller yell Each time his Ma digs in them to get a speck of dirt, When plain ones would be easy to wash and wouldn't hurt. And I can't see the reason why every time Ma nears, She thinks she's got to send me to wash my ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... which Diana Paget sat looking down at the twinkling lights of the Kursaal. Valentine lighted a second cigar and smoked it out, still in silence. The clocks struck eleven as he threw the end of his cigar away; a tiny, luminous speck, which shot through the misty atmosphere below the balcony like a ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... first night he was awoke by a terrible invasion—such malodorous swarms of all sizes, from a tiny brown speck to a full-grown lentil, that they darkened his bed; and he slept on the tiled floor after making an island of himself by pouring cold water all round him as a kind of moat; and so he slept for a week of nights, until he had managed to poison off most ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... arrived at the little Highland station. As he stepped out of the carriage with jingling spurs he was greeted by Grey Bob, who stood impatiently pawing the platform. Flicking a speck of dust from his favourite's glossy neck, Ralph leaped lightly into the saddle and cantered out of the station towards ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... remarked, they devote themselves entirely to the "Minnedienst," and are to be reckoned among the few realisations of the Byronic ideal of a lover. Finally, amidst the lowest forms of animal life, the speck of gelatinous protoplasm, which constitutes the whole body, has no permanent digestive cavity or mouth, but takes in its food anywhere; and digests, so to speak, all over its body. But although Cuvier's leading diagnosis ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... it, a ribbon of river winds among poplars, and that ribbon is the boundary between Empire and Republic. On such a clear day as this the view from the hill is extraordinarily interesting. From its grassy top a little aeroplane cannon stares to heaven, watching the east for the danger speck; and the circumference of the hill is furrowed by a deep trench—a "bowel," rather—winding invisibly from one subterranean observation post to another. In each of these earthly warrens (ingeniously wattled, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... smoke arising from the two camps. The Indians perceived him at the same time; for a long howl, like that of a hundred panthers, arose, and the king of birds, terrified by the tumult, soon became only a black speck in the clouds. The outlaw fled rapidly in the opposite direction and the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... to bite me," urged Tubby, holding up one finger of his right hand, and on which a tiny speck of blood was visible. ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... In his profession, his trade, his family; amongst his friends, the companions of his sports, his neighbours, and his servants. She eyes him all round, she feels him all over, and, if he has a vulnerable point, if he has a speck, however small, she is ready with her stab. How many hundreds of men have been ruined by her without being hardly able to perceive, much less name, the cause; and how many thousands, seeing the fate of these hundreds, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... undistinguish'd quite, Save when she wheels direct from shade to light: The flutt'ring songstress a mere speck became, Like fancy's floating bubbles in a dream; He sees her yet, but yielding to repose, Unwittingly his jaded eyelids close. Delicious sleep! From sleep who could forbear, With no more guilt than Giles, and no more care? Peace o'er his slumbers waves her guardian wing, Nor ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... said Diana, as they watched it go up and up until it was a mere speck against the blue. "They are daring folk, these flying men—yet there are men more daring. If you could see Anthony's hands! Those strong, competent hands that work with instruments and surgeon's needles, and a slip may mean some one's life—it's such ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... Cuttyhunk. Gosnold was a prudent as well as an adventurous man, and he was resolved to take all possible precautions against being surprised by the Indians. On Cuttyhunk there was a large pond, and in the pond there was an islet; and Gosnold, with his score of followers, fixed upon this speck of rocky earth as the most suitable spot in the western hemisphere wherein to plant the roots of English civilization. They built a hut and made a boat, and gathered together their stores of furs and sassafras; ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... (pointing above) More footprints up there, stopping at that window, and under the window this key-ring, without a speck ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... happy," I answer. "There is a speck there on your shoulder; it is dust, perhaps, a speck of mud from the road; I must kiss that little spot. No—let me—I will. Everything about you stirs me so! I am half out of my senses. I did not sleep ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... to him. He would admire its flower-like beauty, but not linger over it. He had no special emotion for its helplessness. When he was attracted by a child it was through the evidence of something not only distinct from, but opposed to this. 'It is the soul' (I see) 'in that speck of a body,' he said, not many years ago, of a tiny boy—now too big for it to be desirable that I should mention his name, but whose mother, if she reads this, will know to whom I allude—who had delighted him by an act ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the poor; the prevalence of education, morality, and religion; its solemn Sabbaths and thronged sanctuaries; and above all, its rising institutions of liberty—flourishing so vigorously,—conspire to make Antigua one of the fairest portions of the earth. Formerly it was in our eyes but a speck on the world's map, and little had we checked if an earthquake had sunk, or the ocean had overwhelmed it; but now, the minute circumstances in its condition, or little incidents in its history, are to our minds invested ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... intelligent enough to perceive it. It is only the fool or the brute or the sentimentalist who is unterrified by nature. The man of reflection and imagination sees his race crawling ant-like over its tiny speck of slowly cooling earth and surrounded by titanic and ruthless forces which threaten at any moment to engulf it. The religious man knows that he is infinitely greater than the beasts of the field or the clods of the highway. Yet Vesuvius ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... string of the kite, first a mere speck against the sky, then larger till plain for all to see came the missing one, slithering and sliding, with his golden coat, and the little silver wings tied to his ankles, and handfuls of flowers which he threw into his mother's face as he came. "Oh! cruel chief ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... those official cares Which my exalted dignity assumes, I could not ask my feet to climb the stairs Which link that mansion's three-and-thirty rooms; And, if the Law must have so clean a fame That none can point to where a speck of dust is, A single bathroom cannot meet the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... gap in the hills far to the left we saw a little black speck moving rapidly in our direction. At the end of a minute we could make it out as the second rhinoceros. He had run heaven knows how many miles away, and now he was returning; whether with some idea of rejoining his companion or from sheer chance, I do ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the disappearance of the jubarte, not a speck came to alter the surface. All was sky and water around the "Pilgrim." The young novice knew only too well that he was beyond the routes followed by the ships of commerce, and that the other whalers were cruising still farther away at ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... the latter, the Rev. W. T. Bree possessed a female, and he states "that of the offspring produced at one and the same birth, such as, like the mother, were entirely white (with blue eyes) were, like her, invariably deaf; while those that had the least speck of colour on their fur, as invariably possessed the usual faculty of hearing."[824] The Rev. W. Darwin Fox informs me that he has seen more than a dozen instances of this correlation in English, Persian, and Danish cats; but he adds "that, if one eye, as I have several times ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... loyal and devoted thoughts, Billie had followed Mary, and the two girls stood with clasped hands watching the distant motor, now a black speck in the valley. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... ever wishes to repent of his yesterdays, let him contemplate them all over during his waking hours in the morning. Then, indeed, is his time. He becomes ashamed before the monotonous rose-bushes that speck the wall, and as his wandering orbs scan the picture-nails and the cobwebs in search of distraction, he will realize the necessity of amendment more fully than the eloquence of a multitude could paint it. It was the weariness of this new realization ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... lofty outlook in the iron cage, dizzily suspended between earth and heaven, our adventurer obtained a new and wider view. The palace and its life dwindled to a speck. Far away to the north he could discern the white summits of the mountains that cradle the blue lake of Garda, while at his feet the Mincio flowed peacefully toward the Adriatic, where a good ship (on which, but for his folly in pausing at Mantua, he might on the morrow be voyaging homeward) ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... sleeping-bag in the hope of obtaining a meridional altitude; and after getting the very best result he could under the very difficult conditions prevailing, he casually lowered the telescope and swept it round the horizon. Suddenly a speck seemed to flash by, and a vehement hope as suddenly arose. Then he brought the telescope slowly back, and there it was again, and accompanied this [Page 128] time by two smaller specks on either side of it. Without a shadow of doubt it was ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... and departed. An hour later the Bozra ran out on the light wind around the point of Calauria and into the sparkling sea to eastward. Democrates stood gazing after her until she was a dark speck ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... reading this, to see the men of science still maintaining their theory of "a hot globe cooling," one may be excused for feeling surprised at such inconsistency. Verily is that great physicist right in viewing the sun itself as "a speck in infinite extension—a mere drop in the Universal sea;" and saying that, "to Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energy is constant, and the utmost man can do ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... forget, come home and tell Mother all about it, and we'll take a fresh start. You're pretty fairly, tolerably, moderately good children after all! Only I want you to grow a little speck better ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... I that was proud am humble now. Yet is she terribly beautiful—beware. Never," he added, raising his head, "shall this armour be furbished, but by the blows of knightly encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from every spot where the battle-axe and sword of evil-doers, or noble foes, might fall; when I shall again lift my head, and say to my squire, 'Do thy duty once more, and make this ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... kind to be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the other day after his return from his grandmamma's that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcome and Charles, too, and of both their spectacles, quite like. He has done me and Hannah, too. Mr. Speck, the artist, says he is ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... happened on that same afternoon while the sun shone alluringly upon the open fields, Patience Nutter dropped her wearisome patchwork and looked out of the window. A speck of red in the grass outside the house caught her attention. Her stint was not finished by several squares, yet the temptation of that strawberry was too great. Laying aside her work, she stepped out and popped the ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... and white and shallow, and gave the impression of great distance. Mr. Ricardo, at the bottom of them, was a black speck—a bird that had blundered into the building by mistake and beaten itself breathless against the walls. As he saw Robert he began to drag himself up, limping. He seemed to shrivel then to a mere face, stricken and yellow, that gaped ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... but a speck she shaded her eyes with her hand and still watched. But when in the purple distance the tiny speck could no longer be seen, Halcyone turned with a sigh to the marble palace and ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... body of his patient, and began to rub the abdomen with oil, using a slow, rhythmic, circulating motion, a sort of massage. For a long time he rubbed finely and steadily, then went over the whole of the lower body, mindless, as if in a sort of incantation. He rubbed every speck of the man's lower body—the abdomen, the buttocks, the thighs and knees, down to the feet, rubbed it all warm and glowing with camphorated oil, every bit of it, chafing the toes swiftly, till he was almost exhausted. Then Aaron was covered up ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... etc.) What are ye doing, coming in this room again after I having it settled so nice? I'll allow no one in the place again, only carriage company that will have no speck of dust upon the sole of ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... the infinite are, besides, exposed to danger from small, unsuspected admixtures of human error, which become deadly when carried to such vast results. The smallest speck of earth's dust, in the focus of an infinite lens, appears magnified among the heavenly orbs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... that Aunt Agnes and I were on pleasant terms; but there was one speck on the mirror of her serenity which threatened at times to mar the whole. It was my intimacy with Mr. Barr. Some one had informed her,—I have no doubt it was Miss Kingsley,—that he was much in my society, and that we behaved like lovers. I had ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... worry a speck more about it, Matthew. I'll make it up in the very latest fashion," said Mrs. Lynde. To herself she ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... blue of the afternoon sky rode a tiny speck of glistening metal, scarcely visible in the glare of the sun. The workers on the machines below glanced up for a moment, then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators. Even this minor diversion was of interest ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... to this elusive plate, Did our Edwin curse his fate? No, he was content to live, For he was inquisitive. If he saw a speck of grit He must needs examine it, Not as any other might, Standing at his proper height, But with body slightly slanted And his head obliquely canted, While with small unblinking eye ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... nearly half a century throughout Canada's great plains, the red coat of the Mounted Policeman was the visible and definite assurance that right was might. A red speck on the horizon was notice to both weak and strong, honest and dishonest, that the rule of law prevailed; while experience taught white men and red that 'Law' meant even-handed justice as between man and man ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... fellows were riding slowly back on the west side, while Wing was galloping as though to meet them, and when they weren't more than a mile apart Wing's horse went down,—looks no bigger than a black speck,—and the other three sheered off away from the rocks on this side and seemed to be ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... better conceived, soothed Hester's vanity—of which she had more than was good for her, seeing the least speck of it in the noblest is a fly ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... with the crowd and watched two fine lads go up the gangplank, each carrying a red handkerchief containing his worldly goods. As the good ship moved away we lifted a wild wail of woe that drowned the sobbing of the waves. Everybody cried—I wept, too—and as the great, black ship became but a speck on the Western horizon we embraced each other ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... all is right, even with the master, provided that there is not a speck on the outside insensible horn; and perhaps that is oiled and blacked (!) when the horse is brought out, while inside, the soft frog is left night and day soaked and saturated with the most frightful horrors. Hence the most fetid thrushes, and hence the contracted heel; ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... had turned his back on me and was pretending to be absorbed in a distant speck in ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... fatal river, and with a single horse set out for Carlton. From the high north bank I took one last look back at the South Saskatchewan-it lay in its broad deep valley glittering in one great band of purest 'snow; but I loathed the sight of it, while the small round open hole, dwarfed to a speck by distance, marked the spot where my poor horse had found his grave, after having carried me so faithfully through the long lonely wilds. We had travelled about six miles when a figure appeared in sight, coming towards us upon the same track. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... miles in a straight line to Havana, and within five hours Ridge was thrilled by the sight of a cloud-like speck that he knew marked the highlands of Cuba. Gradually the coast was revealed, then came the low-trailing smoke of ships on blockade as they patrolled wearily before the entrance to Havana Harbor, and after awhile the outlined cathedral spires of the ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist: It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... either side. No glory awaits the Southern Confederacy, even if it does achieve its independence; it will be a mere speck in the world, with no weight or authority. The North confesses itself lost without us, and has paid an unheard-of ransom to regain us. On the other hand, conquered, what hope is there in this world for us? Broken in health ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... glade clash cream swim blind grade crash dream spend grind shade smash gleam speck spike trade trash steam fresh smile skate slash stream whelp while brisk drove blush cheap carve quilt grove flush peach farce filth stove slush teach parse pinch clove brush reach barge flinch smote crush bleach large mince store ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... but a soap-bubble hanging from a reed; it is formed, expands to its full size, clothes itself with the loveliest colors of the prism, and even escapes at moments from the law of gravitation; but soon the black speck appears in it, and the globe of emerald and gold vanishes into space, leaving behind it nothing but a simple drop of turbid water. All the poets have made this comparison, it is so striking and so true. To appear, to shine, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it out much farther. We'll go on and on till this earth dries up, and then we'll move to another, or build one—I can't tell which—and all the time we're moving round something, but I don't know what or why. I only know it's been going on forever—this life thing—and we're a little speck in the current, and it will ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Helen still concentrated her attention upon the dusky speck against the blue. "I have no reason for disliking Mr. Thurston; indeed, I do not dislike him and my feeling may be mere jealousy. You give—him—most of your confidences now, and I should hate anybody who divided you ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Glycera,' Alvan murmured, amorous of the musical names. 'Clotilde is a Greek of one of the Isles, an Ionian. I see her in the Horatian ode as in one of those old round shield-mirrors which give you a speck of the figure on a silver-solar beam, brilliant, not much bigger than a dewdrop. And so should a man's heart reflect her! Take her on the light in it, she is perfection. We won't take her in the shady part or on your flat looking-glasses. There never ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... laird; "don't you see the eagle himself like a black speck hovering above it? My shepherd would gladly see the bird killed, for he and his wife make sad havoc among the lambs sometimes; but I can't say that I sympathise with the shepherd. An eagle is a noble bird, and there are none too many of them now ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... Shipyard opened out, Charley edged into it to get the smoother water. Benicia was in view, and we were bowling along over comparatively easy water, when a speck of a boat danced up ahead of us, directly in our course. It was low-water slack. Charley and I looked at each other. No word was spoken, but at once the yacht began a most astonishing performance, veering and yawing as ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... would be impossible to describe. The thought at last came to me that we must be somewhere in the vicinity of the old California Crossing. I crawled back to the boat and told my companion to go ahead, while I continually used the field glass. After fifteen minutes, I discovered a white speck in the eastern horizon. We were soon over our fright, and with light hearts were sailing over the rippling waters of the old Platte feeling assured that we would soon reach a place of safety, as far as the ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... one, at least, in Great Britain watched with anxious gaze this small speck of revolt rising so far away in the vast wilderness of the North-West; and when, about the beginning of the month of April, 1870, news came of the projected despatch of an armed force from Canada against the malcontents of Red River, there ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... noon to-day, and git so hungry I could stan it no longer. Den I goes out to find someting to eat. Den somebody sees me, and dey follow me wid de dogs. I done kill two of dem dogs, and I kill de rest, but I hear de men coming, and I run for de lake. I speck, when I git in de water, to frow de dogs off de scent, but dey git so near dey see and hear me. Dem's mighty fine nigger dogs, or dey never follor me into de water. I done gib it all up when I hear dem ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... and the freedom from risks, supposed to be a part of the "billeting" system, were not wholly the portion of the "Here-We Comes." Meran—en—Laye was just then a somewhat important little speck ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Duke de Nemours, surnamed the Thunderbolt of Italy, died at the age of twenty-three after the victory of Ravenna, the French transalpine conquests were endangered. The bullet which struck Turenne at Saltzbach also menaced the work of Louis XIV. But Guynemer had nothing but his airplane, a speck in the immense spaces filled by the war. This young captain, though without an equal in the sky, conducted no battle on land. Why, then, did he alone have the power, like a great military chief, of leaving ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... attention was arrested by a luminous speck straight ahead on the southern horizon. At first, imagining that he was the victim of some spectral illusion, he observed it with silent attention; but when, after some minutes, he became convinced that what he saw was actually ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... could follow the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our ashes," laughed Evelyn. "Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our shoulders. 'Me no speck Ang-lish.'" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... said however, gave him knowledge that I was a seaman, and he paused a moment more civilly before resuming his watch, even pointing out what resembled the gleam of a distant sail far away on our starboard quarter. This was such a dim speck against the darkening horizon that I stood up to see better, shadowing my eyes, and forgetful of all else in aroused interest. Undoubtedly it was a sail, although appearing no larger than a gull's wing, and my imagination took me in spirit ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... kept their own home and cooked and served their own meals. We used wooden trays and wooden spoons. Once a week all the cullud chillun went to the Big House to eat dinner. The table was out in de yard. My nickname was "Speck". I didn't like to eat bread and milk when I went up there and I'd just sit there. Finally they'd let me go in de house and my mother would feed me. She was the house woman and my Auntie was cook. I don't ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... through the devious footways where the shadow was chill, and through the broad campos where the sun was tenderly warm, and the towers of the church rose against the speck-less azure of the vernal heaven. As he went along, he frowned in a helpless perplexity with the case of Don Ippolito, whom he had begun by doubting for a spy with some incomprehensible motive, and had ended by pitying with a certain ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... about the trees, more or less noisy and loquacious. About noon a thin white veil began to blur the distant southern mountains. It was like a white dream slowly descending upon them. The first flake or flakelet that reached me was a mere white speck that came idly circling and eddying to the ground. I could not see it after it alighted. It might have been a scale from the feather of some passing bird, or a larger mote in the air that the stillness was allowing to settle. Yet it was the altogether inaudible and infinitesimal ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... "blue clay," which had been struck at no great depth below the surface. I was let down into a big hole, the early parent of shaft-sinking, given a spade, and directed to apply it to a place where a digger's quick eye had detected one speck of gold. There was probably, he said, a string of gold behind it. And so it proved, for out of about a pound weight of matrix which I removed on the corner of the spade, I picked out 7 shillings and 6 pence ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... of his face twitching. His words had come with difficulty, as though he had suddenly developed an impediment in his speech. His sallow complexion had become yellow. His carefully waxed moustache was drooping, a speck of saliva was ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the same fall, but a ball will reach the bottom of one that is steepest near the top in less time than on any other, because the maximum acceleration is at the start. We are all tired of being stuck to this cosmical speck, with its monotonous ocean, leaden sky, and single moon that is useless more than half the time, while its size is so microscopic compared with the universe that we can traverse its great circle in four days. Its possibilities are exhausted; ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... sounded like the distant roar of a family of lions. He knocked in amazement. No one answered. When he had opened the door he stood still on the threshold, for at first he could see nothing but a dense smoke, through which a yellow speck of light appeared, with a great halo round it. Gradually he discovered in this smoke a few rotund forms, placed around the candle like so many planets around the sun, and at times something was seen to move, possibly a man's arm, but not unlike ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... unclasped—but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain—two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it aslant, like ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... morality or wisdom of slavery," he said, "are considerations belonging to the states. What enriches a part enriches the whole." To the future he turned an untroubled face: "As population increases, poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our country." Virginia and North Carolina, already overstocked with slaves, favored prohibiting the traffic in them; but South Carolina was adamant. She must have fresh supplies of slaves or she ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... you had to make it. There! I knew it would be so. There isn't a speck of soda. Put on your bonnet, Matilda, and run round to Mr. Sample's and get some soda, will you?—and be quick. We shall be late, and then ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... her the abysses of sky and sea met in an unattainable frontier. A great circular solitude moved with her, ever changing and ever the same, always monotonous and always imposing. Now and then another wandering white speck, burdened with life, appeared far off—disappeared; intent on its own destiny. The sun looked upon her all day, and every morning rose with a burning, round stare of undying curiosity. She had her own future; she was alive with the lives of those beings who trod her decks; like ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... or port, side of the ship I see high hills. They are red in colour, and seem to be baked by the hot sun. Even through my spy-glass I cannot see a speck of green on them. All ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... severest discipline had no sordid and hideous side to it in The Retreat. The inmates fasted on spotless tablecloths, and handled knives and forks (the humble servants of half-filled stomachs) without a speck on their decent brightness. Penitents who kissed the steps of the altar (to use the expressive Oriental phrase), "eat no dirt." Friends, liberal friends, permitted to visit the inmates on stated days, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... 'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser the gold is, the sooner it appears. A practised digger can work off the last speck of gravel, without losing a 'colour', by just working the water round and off in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, recover practically ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... calculate the distance which still separated them from their goal. More than a league of painful and stony ascent was to be surmounted, and yet Adelheid and Christine had both permitted slight exclamations of pleasure to escape them, when Pierre pointed to the speck of blue sky between the hoary pinnacles above, and first gave them to understand that it denoted the position of the convent. Here and there, too, small patches of the last year's snow were discovered, lying under the shadows of overhanging rocks, and which were likely to resist the powers ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... pale and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck— A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... day, as we stood in front of our tent watching the sun above the horizon, we saw in the distance a black speck coming over the snow. We watched! What could it be? The speck came nearer, and we recognized a woman with a bludgeon coming towards us as fast as her skees could carry her. As soon as she was within hearing distance she shouted, "Wolves! Wolves!" The dreaded news had come; the wolves had made ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... now," said Jack, pointing up to his left at a bright golden speck that seemed almost over their heads, and once more they witnessed all the glories of a tropic sunrise, the change from darkness to light being wonderfully quick, and soon after their eyes were aching with the beauties of coast ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... the night I was wakened by Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a speck rather ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... admitted Jack, slowly, "but I just guess you'd need a magnifying glass to find the speck of good in that cur. He's a sure enough slick one. All I want him to do is to keep away from me. His room is better ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... sea for something, and presently he found it. Viewed from the height at which they flew it looked no more than a white speck in a great blue saucer, but presently the machine began to dip, falling at a terrific rate of speed, which took away the breath of the man who was hanging on with both hands to ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... marble statue, Valentine stood on the bank of the river, watching the frail bark which was carrying her lover away. It flew along the Rhone like a bird in a tempest, and after a few seconds appeared like a black speck in the midst of the heavy fog which floated over the water, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... says you. Low in your ear—and don't let the papers get hold of it—she is of no family. None, they say; literally a common woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who may be villeins; but we give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste, the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is not all the same. There are great rivers which you cannot cross by swimming; mountains you cannot climb; forests you cannot penetrate—dark, and inhabited by dangerous beasts, and so vast that all this space your eyes look on is a mere speck of earth in comparison." ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... speck was seen in the horizon; now it is visible above the hollow wave, now curtained from our sight by the swelling billow: we approach nearer; the speck divides, and two spots appear; ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... care should be taken in following up any other small prick or dark spot that may show itself upon the white surface of the cleaned sole. In any case, a suspicious-looking speck should be followed up with the searcher until it is either cut out or is ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... some time, and what was but a speck to his naked eye plainly showed in the field of the glass the regular movements of the men, and now and then a flash suggestive of the rowers wearing ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... deepening to a complaint of the heart, announced the train. Fire and steam, and smoke, and red light; a hiss, a crash, a bell, and a shriek; Louisa put into one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into another: the little station a desert speck in ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... door, and there was a long dark entry; at the far end was shining a little speck ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... perplexity on this point, however, by the sudden appearance of a horseman on the distant plain, who seemed to be approaching the valley in which they were encamped. At first he looked like a black speck or a crow on the horizon, and, in the uncertain light of the rapidly closing day, it would have been difficult for any unaccustomed eye to make ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... home from the woods that same afternoon by way of the bridge, in order to buy some provisions at the brick store. When he was still a long distance from the bars that divided the lane from the highroad, he espied a dark-clad little speck he knew to be Rodman leaning over the fence, waiting and longing as usual for his home-coming, and his heart warmed at the thought of the boyish welcome ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... but by her virtues rather—not by the sense of justice, but by the spirit of envy and jealousy and uncharitableness. Unawed, however, by censure or menace, she continues in her course, upward and onward, to the accomplishment of her high destinies. She is but a speck, a mere patch on the surface of America, hardly more than one four-hundredth part of the territory of the Republic, with a rugged soil and still more rugged clime. But on that little spot of the globe is a Common wealth where common ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick |
