"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself into the sea beneath the stars, and swam northwards manfully towards Finland, swimming with his hands, steering with his feet, and with his hair floating like a sail. He swam on till past midnight without meeting with a resting-place; but at length he espied a black speck in the distance, which proved to be a small rocky island. The hero discovered a mossy bank on a projecting rock, and made his way to the shore, and lay down, intending to sleep a little, when he was roused by the voice of a maiden singing a love-song. It was very dark and somewhat foggy, but ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... four A.M. to keep my watch, and, as soon as I had ascertained that the men composing it were all present and at their stations, I went up aloft, and as I anticipated a speck of land soon appeared above the horizon. This was Red Island. Other points shortly rose behind it: hill after hill came up into view, at a distance looking like islands, which indeed many of them were; but, on a nearer approach, the parts connecting the others became visible, and the mainland of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... easy to lead. When you return to the university, get hold of some books on the means by which all the various kinds of living creatures in the world are kept on an even balance, how they all get their food, and how every tiny speck fits into the whole world scheme. You'll find that sort of reading has more grip to it than any novel—except, perhaps, those of a few of the really great writers, of whom there ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... therefore, to act upon things as they are and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, pace in preparation for the defense of our sea ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... held on the train about going to the front and the dangers were depicted quite vividly. We stopped at Chagny, after passing a very old church dating back to the Tenth century. We saw, as we passed along, droves of beautiful white cows, with not a speck of color. ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... with a real gun, how many men of your own company do you speck you can manage to kill ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... blotting-paper, sir," said Elsworthy, eagerly. "With a bit o' blotting-paper I'd undertake to rub out ink-stains out o' the finest carpet—if you'll permit me. It aint but a small speck, and it'll be gone afore you could look round. It's twenty times better nor lemon-juice, or them poisonous salts as you're always nervous of leaving about. Look you here, sir, if it aint a-sopping up beautiful. There aint no harm done as your respected lady could be put ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... moving speck on the water caught his eye. For a few minutes he watched it in suspense, then gave a cheer ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... deck of a Mediterranean steamer, looking at a town in Algeria or Tunis. And beyond, under the low-hanging stars, was the Mexican desert—a blank page, with only here and there the obscurity of a garden, or a hacienda, or a mere speck which would be a lonely ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... care Stretched hand to clear the speck away. "No, no!"— His comrade stayed his arm. "Why," said the first, "What would you have me do?" "Ah, let it float A moment longer!" And the second smiled. "Do you not know what that is?" "No, indeed." "A mere dust-mote, a speck of soot, you think, A plague-germ ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... On his quarry in the desert, On the sick or wounded bison, But another vulture, watching From his high aerial look-out, Sees the downward plunge, and follows; And a third pursues the second, Coming from the invisible ether, First a speck, and then a vulture, Till the air is ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... Bridge Had got just a speck on the ridge Of her Romanesque nose. "It's a black, I suppose," She observed. Then ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... exclaimed the old man, "chilluns can't speck ter know all 'bout eve'ything. And bless grashus, honey! some er der doin's er Brer Fox 'bout dis yer time ain't fit fer chilluns ter know. Brer Fox, I'm feared, wuz kinder simpertin' roun' atter udder ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... capture of one of the swift Clyde-built steamers was a different matter. Perhaps a lookout in the maintop of a cruiser, steaming idly about the Atlantic, between Nassau and Wilmington, would spy, far off on the horizon, a black speck, moving swiftly along the ocean. No curling smoke would tell of the blockade-runner's presence, and nothing could be seen until the hull of the steamer itself was perceptible. With the quick hail of the lookout, the man-of-war ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... pulled up his stockings and tied his shoes neatly, buttoned his jacket closely over his shirt, and was just pinning up the rent in his hat, when Rags considerately brought another suggestion in the shape of an old chicken-wing, with which he brushed every speck of dust from his clothes. This done, and being no respecter of persons, he took the family comb to Rags, who woke the echoes during the operation, and hoped to the Lord that the squirrels would run slowly and that ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were in Geneva, you know, and we used to call him 'our mountain boy,' saying that he had brought a speck of the mountain skies away ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... up its dark branches through the blanket of white. Norris was the first to take off. He shot downward and as he gained momentum sent back a cry that floated up eerily. Teeny-bits poised at the edge and took a deep breath. This was living. Down there, growing smaller and smaller, a moving speck that seemed a mere shadow on the snow, was a new friend of his. It seemed strange that this was one of the outcomes of the Jefferson-Ridgley game: that from so desperate a struggle had arisen this opportunity to know ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... the great zodiac band—the golden Hamal of Aries and the paired stars of Pisces; and behind, over the black jungle, glowed the Southern Cross. But night after night, as I watched on the beach, the sight which moved me most was the dull speck of emerald mist, a merest smudge on the slate of the heavens,—the spiral nebula in Andromeda,—a universe in the making, of a size unthinkable to ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... she seemed a speck, no larger than a shoe button, drifting aimlessly toward the south, but as the Southern Cross drew nearer to her she stood out in more detail. The watchers could then see that she was a large air craft for her type and carried two men, who were running back and forth ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... big enough to hold three hundred. I have a vision still before me, of twenty out of these fifty guests, solemnly executing intricate figure-dances, under the superintendence of an infirm local dancing-master—a mere speck of fidgety human wretchedness twisting about in the middle of an empty floor. I see, faintly, down the dim vista of the Past, an agreeable figure, like myself, with a cocked hat under its arm, black tights ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... as it is termed, is a small white speck (often noticed on cigars), making its appearance on the leaves of the plant towards the latter part of its growth, and usually found on the top and middle leaves. It is usually found on the best, and more frequently on light than ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... clear, salt water that lay between them), to a little mossy promontory with the sea splashing round it, I looked back again to see who next was stirring. Still, there were only the early grooms with their horses, and one gentleman with a little dark speck of a dog running before him, and one water-cart coming out of the town to get water for the baths. In another minute or two, the distant bathing machines would begin to move, and then the elderly gentlemen of regular habits and sober quaker ladies would be coming to take their ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... cause his brimming cup of joy to overflow a tree stood upon the little speck of green land laden with white blossoms, which wafted a faint but fragrant promise to the enchanted scout upon ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... last fifty or sixty miles we had seen the Cassala mountain—at first a blue speck above the horizon. It now rose in all the beauty of a smooth and bare block of granite, about 3,500 feet above the level of the country with the town of Cassala at the base, and the roaring torrent Gash flowing at our feet. When we reached the end ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... 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 out what the ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep, Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, Which by the toil of gathering energies Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences, Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green Into a pleasant island in the seas, Where, 'mid tall palms, the cave-roofed home is seen And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour, Hearing the leaves and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... moved about, and clomb Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, Down that long water opening on the deep Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go From less to less and vanish into light. And the new sun rose bringing the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... grass off the paddocks and piled it against the fences, darkened the air with dust, and seemed to promise rain, but ever it dispersed whence it came, taking with it the few clouds it had gathered up; and for weeks and weeks at a stretch, from horizon to horizon, was never a speck to mar the cruel dazzling brilliance of the ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... no flag. Instead, however, of steering for the harbour where the "Lady Alice" lay, she kept round the island to another on the other side. What she was, or why she had come to the island, I could not conjecture, I was about to return when I caught sight of a speck of white canvas above the horizon. "That probably is the 'Eagle,'" I thought. "In a few days I shall have to bid my kind friends farewell and go back to ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... for 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 ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... a long silence. "Either he or some one else will take us in." Margaret helped him anchor, furl the sails, and then they went ashore, pulling the tender far up on the shingle beech beside the lobster-pots. They crossed the field—it was nearly dark and the Swallow was a speck on the dark water beneath—and knocked at the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... enjoyment which the ardent lover of nature alone can appreciate. Far as the eye can look, there is uninterrupted harmony. Splendid plains covered with the fleecy tribe, and here and there (alas! only but here and there) a speck of water, enough to vindicate nature from the charge of utter neglect—and no more. A glance thrown in another direction brings to your view an endless tract of country deprived even of these solitary specks, where the grass grows as high as your knee, and where no man dare take his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... them; and if they had a pardonable fashion of congealing under the stress of the Canadian winter, they generally showed signs of a thaw at the approach of spring. At the present moment he had no thought, no eyes, for anything save a mist-enshrouded speck far off across the waters of Lake Ontario. All the impatience and longing of the week just past found vent through his eyes, as he watched that pale, uncertain, scarcely visible mote on the horizon. As he reached the ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... always chilled him by their awful suggestion of worlds beyond worlds circling through gulfs of space. But here in the primordial solitudes, under the solemn cope of the sky, the thought lost its terror. He seemed in harmony with the universe, part of it as was each speck of star dust. Without question or understanding he felt secure, convinced of his oneness with the great design, cradled in ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... my father's town of Clonbrony?" thought Lord Colambre. "Is this Ireland? No, it is not Ireland. Let me not, like most of those who forsake their native country, traduce it. Let me not, even to my own mind, commit the injustice of taking a speck for the whole. What I have just seen is the picture only of that to which an Irish estate and Irish tenantry may be degraded in the absence of those whose duty and interest it is to reside in Ireland, to uphold justice by example and authority; but who, neglecting ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... water; but with a quick semicircular flirt that sent the water flying over the shallow rim into the stream, he disclosed a layer of black sand on the bottom of the pan. So thin was this layer that it was like a streak of paint. He examined it closely. In the midst of it was a tiny golden speck. He dribbled a little water in over the depressed edge of the pan. With a quick flirt he sent the water sluicing across the bottom, turning the grains of black sand over and over. A second tiny golden ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of butter, the juice of half a lemon, the yolk of two eggs, a speck of cayenne pepper, half a cupful of boiling water, half a teaspoonful of salt; beat the butter to a cream, add the yolks of eggs one by one; then the lemon juice, pepper and salt, beating all thoroughly; place the bowl ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... entrance to this bay. At that vast distance I could trace no signs of life about this harbour. No stockyards, cattle, nor even smoke, although at the highest northern point of the bay I saw a mass of white objects which might have been either tents or vessels. I perceived a white speck, which I took for breakers or white sand, on the projecting point of the north-eastern shore. (B.) On that day nine years exactly I first beheld the heads of Port Jackson, a rather singular coincidence. Thus the mountain on which I ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... to turn back and begin all over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at the office; at the Doctor's too: and I really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-horse. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... rubbed with paint and tar, which forms a lather for a saw which represents the razor, and then being half drowned in a sail filled with salt water. About 50 miles north of the line we touched at the rocks of St. Paul; this little speck (about 1/4 of a mile across) in the Atlantic has seldom been visited. It is totally barren, but is covered by hosts of birds; they were so unused to men that we found we could kill plenty with stones and sticks. After ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... admirable command of profane language, and had killed several "parties." His shirt fronts were always immaculate; his boots daintily polished, and no man could lift a foot and fire a dead shot at a stray speck of dirt on it with a white handkerchief with a finer grace than he; his watch chain weighed a pound; the gold in his finger ring was worth forty five dollars; he wore a diamond cluster-pin and he parted his hair behind. He had always been, regarded as the most elegant ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... nearer, until a shell, whining as it whizzed past us, burst about a hundred yards behind our trench. A second shell followed, exploding almost at the same place. At the same time, we noticed a faint spinning noise above us. Soaring high above our position, looking like a speck in the firmament, flew a Russian aeroplane, watching the effect of the shells and presumably directing the fire of the Russian artillery. This explained its sudden accuracy. One of our aeroplanes rose, giving chase to the enemy, and simultaneously our batteries got into ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... was actually living the part. There were no extraneous sublevels at all and that's just never happened before. It's like Lorancelli says about Rowe dying and the character coming to life. Zack swears that Rowe just disappears. There isn't a speck of him that shows on ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... saw the reflected glare on the opposite wall, he sank deeper into the pillow. The woman was openly sobbing. She came back to his side, knelt, and laid her lips upon his hand. There was now only a dim white speck on the horizon, and with that strange sea-magic the hull suddenly dipped down, and naught but a trail of smoke remained. Then this too vanished. Breitmann withdrew his hand, but he laid it ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... And what's all this here? Nothing at all. All we can see is only a speck. When one speaks of the whole war, it's as if you said nothing at all—the words are strangled. We're here, and we look ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... hush'd, 'twas mimic death. The ear, from all assaults releas'd, As motion, sound, and life, had ceas'd. The beetle rarely murmur'd by, No sheep-dog sent his voice so high, Save when, by chance, far down the steep, Crept a live speck, a straggling sheep; Yet one lone object, plainly seen, Curv'd slowly, in a line of green, On the brown heath: no demon fell, No wizard foe, with magic spell, To chain the senses, chill the heart, No wizard guided POWEL'S cart; He of our nectar had the ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... Abraham Fletcher farm for him and he says he's got to have it two thirds paid for before he'll give it to him in his own name. But three years isn't any too much time to get ready for housekeeping, for I haven't a speck of fancy work made yet. But I'm going to begin crocheting doilies tomorrow. Myra Gillis had thirty-seven doilies when she was married and I'm determined I shall have as many ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the public gave to an acquisition so beautiful and so unique. This diamond was called the "Regent." It is of the size of a greengage plum, nearly round, of a thickness which corresponds with its volume, perfectly white, free from all spot, speck, or blemish, of admirable water, and weighs more than 500 grains. I much applauded myself for having induced the Regent to make so ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... momentous as that effected by Copernicus, necessitated a new theology and a new philosophical method. Man had ceased to be the center of all things; this globe was no longer 'the hub of the universe,' but a small speck floating on infinity. The Christian scheme of the Fall and the Redemption, if not absolutely incompatible with the new cosmology was rendered by it less conceivable in any literal sense. Some of the main points on which ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... square paper slipped on it was stuck up in the middle, and a rudder made fast to the stern; such a boat would sail boldly out upon the vastness of the lake, till the eye could no longer follow the diminishing white speck. These days beside the lake were full of good things. The water was clear, with a white sand bottom; we were given swimming-lessons in the hot summer weather; having waded in up to our middles, we faced ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the speck in the vast distance they had risen and stood on their feet. When it came nearer they bowed their heads. Yet now they looked with fearless eyes, for the woman that was old yet young was a joy to see, and filled their hearts with reverent delight. ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... tense, her eyes straining, until she saw him vanish around the bend in the trail; and then for a long time she stood on the porch, scanning the distant horizon, in the hope that she might again see Toban and be assured that nothing had happened to him. And when at last she saw a speck moving swiftly along a distant rise, she murmured a prayer ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the shadow of the mountains, in the white blaze of noon, in the stillness and solitude of that overgrown piece of land between the oval of the harbour and the spacious semi-circle of the gulf. He lay as if dead. A rey-zamuro, appearing like a tiny black speck in the blue, stooped, circling prudently with a stealthiness of flight startling in a bird of that great size. The shadow of his pearly-white body, of his black-tipped wings, fell on the grass no more silently than he alighted himself on a hillock of rubbish ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... shall meet. . . . We shall not separate till late. It will be his province to accompany me home. The airy expanse is without a speck. This breeze is usually steadfast, and its promise of a bland and cloudless evening may be trusted. The moon will rise at eleven, and at that hour we shall wind along this bank. Possibly that hour may decide my fate. If suitable encouragement ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... back and shoulders—thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon which the gaze ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... me, a prospect of twenty leagues, marvellously enhanced by the extreme transparency of the air; above, the azure of the sky; beneath, the creviced sides of the mountain sweeping down to the plain; afar, the waving savannas; beyond them, a grayish speck (the distant city); and encompassing them all, the immensity of the ocean, closing the horizon with its deep blue line. Behind me was a rock on which a torrent of melted snow dashes its white foam, and there, diverted from its course, rushes with a mad leap and plunges headlong into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... perched on the pantry-steps, and looked anxiously down at Miss Phoebe, who, comfortably seated, on account of her rheumatism, was vainly endeavoring to find a speck of dust on ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... darkening shore, Wave you farewell, and strain our eyes Till that bright speck which is your sail Is ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... villain went on to say, "Reverend Abraham, can you see well afar off?" and when I answered that I once could see very well, but that the many tears I had shed had now peradventure dimmed my eyes, he pointed to the Streckelberg, and said, "Do you then see nothing there?" Ego. "Naught save a black speck, which I cannot make out." Ille. "Know then that that is the pile whereon your daughter is to burn at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and which the constables are now raising." When this hell-hound had thus spoken, I gave a loud ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... cannon-shot once reverberated—only once: there are no mountains here to multiply a sound. And all the while the water becomes a thicker and more turbid green; the wake looks more and more ochreous, the foam ropier and yellower. Vessels becalmed everywhere speck the glass-level of the sea, like insects sticking upon a mirror. It begins, all of a sudden, to rain torrentially; and through the white storm of falling drops ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... its surface. In a sense such a telescope brings the moon to within about fifty miles of us. We should see a city like London as a dark, sprawling blotch on the globe. We could just detect a Zeppelin or a Diplodocus as a moving speck against the surface. But we find none of these things. It is true that a few astronomers believe that they see signs of some sort of feeble life or movement on the moon. Professor Pickering thinks that he can trace some volcanic activity. ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... bein's his mouf 'gun ter water atter de sweetnin,' he up'n say he speck de candy's ripe, en off ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... himself on having mastered his passion. Laura had become but a speck on the distant horizon, a passing incident of his youth. But he sighed for Avignon. There was life and animation, music, literature, art, oratory and the society of great men. Besides he wanted to prove to his own satisfaction that he had mastered his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... clean for that story to impress me," the doctor whispered. "Not a speck of foreign matter in it. Moreover, the wound is almost on top of his head. Now, if he had been thrown from a horse and had struck on top of his head on a rock with sufficient force to lacerate his scalp ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... "I did see a speck of red through the crack," he confessed after a minute, as if he were unburdening his conscience ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... 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 each day." ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... insect (the "Peepsa," a species of Siamulium) swarms on the banks of the streams; it is very small and black, floating like a speck before the eye; its bite leaves a spot of extravasated blood under the cuticle, very irritating if ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of crockery from the kitchen, and the voices of the birds and maids without. The hour for lunch approached, and Lydia became a little restless. She interrupted her work to look at the clock, and brushed a speck of dust from its dial with the feather of her quill. Then she looked absently through the window along the elm vista, where she had once seen, as she had thought, a sylvan god. This time she saw a less romantic object—a policeman. She looked again, incredulously, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... another pin," said Malka, with a gleam of triumph at her victory. But she did not budge. At the end of five minutes she rose solemnly, adjusted her wig and her dress in the mirror, put on her bonnet, brushed away a non-existent speck of dust from her left sleeve, put a peppermint in her mouth, and crossed the Square, carrying the clothes-brush in her hand. Milly's door was half open, but she knocked at it ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the prison which was blazing nigh, began to fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards, he knew that every spark which fell upon the heap, and in the act lost its bright life and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish, helped to entomb him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded with shrieks and cries for help,—though the fire bounded up as if each separate name had had a tiger's life, and roared ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... There is a cloud now rising in the west, In shape a hand, and scarcely would its grasp Exceed mine own, it is so small; a spot, A speck; see now again its colour flits! A lurid tint; they call it on our coast 'The hand of God;' I for when its finger rises From out the horizon, there are storms abroad ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... gilds the vault of day. Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds; And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear, Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere. 35 —Now less and less!—and now a speck is seen!— And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between!— With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brow To every shrine with mingled cries they vow.— "Save Him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside; 40 "Bear Him, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... know that the Kaan keeps an immense stud of white horses and mares; in fact more than 10,000 of them, and all pure white without a speck. The milk of these mares is drunk by himself and his family, and by none else, except by those of one great tribe that have also the privilege of drinking it. This privilege was granted them by Chinghis Kaan, on account of a certain victory that they helped him to win long ago. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... originally formed in obedience to the law of gravitation by the condensation of rotating nebulous spheres. And there were those who used these discoveries of astronomy to cast doubts upon the likelihood that the Divine attention would be concentrated upon the concerns of so tiny a speck as this planet of ours. There were others who maintained that the unbroken persistency of the order of Nature was evidence enough to shew that it had no beginning and could ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... Betty," said Wetzel as he stepped to the mark. He fastened his keen eyes on the stake. At that distance the head of the nail looked like a tiny black speck. Wetzel took one of the locks of hair that waved over his broad shoulders and held it up in front of his eyes a moment. He thus ascertained that there was not any perceptible breeze. The long black barrel started slowly to rise—it seemed to the interested onlookers that ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... A speck drifted across it, the hawk sailing in search of prey. Under the noble arch of heaven floated that ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... flotilla that accompanied us during the last two days was made up mostly of American and British destroyers, though there were two French boats among them. They made a lively scene, and surely gave us great protection. If a speck would appear on the horizon, two boats would be off to investigate it, and would return later to join the fleet. We were also accompanied on the last day of the voyage by two airplanes as ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... yet, a very few years back— she won't dispute it— I was one of the smartest chaps going, good at my job, with prospects as rosy as any man's in my regiment. There wasn't a cloud the size of your hand, apparently, in my particular bit of sky at the time I speak of; not a speck! Then I met this young lady, and— [pointing to the box-ottoman] well, since ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... in the clouds, after all. Rachel was coming to see her that afternoon. Hester was, as Fraeulein often said, "easy cast down and easy cast up." The mild stimulant of the egg "cast her up" once more. She kissed Fraeulein and ran up to her room, where she divested her small person of every speck of dust contracted on the road, smoothed out an invisible crease in her holland gown, put back the little ring of hair behind her ear which had become loosened in her rush after her brother, and then came down, smiling and composed, ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... usually distinguished for their Neatness. We often hear it said of another, "She is so afraid of a speck of dirt, that she will certainly be an old maid." If this be the chief index of that character, it is one which the married lady would do well to imitate, rather than deride. The personal habits can be excusably neglected by no one. If those, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... that it will take light a thousand millions of years to come from it to the earth, journeying at the rate of twelve millions of miles a minute. There is no Heaven this side of that: you see all the way through: there is not a speck of Heaven; and do you think there is any beyond it; and if so, when would you reach it? There is no Providence. Nature is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; thought is a fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous result of a fortuitous result, a chance-shot from the great wind-gun ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice, old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once more, and to wonder how the minister ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... fulsomely 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 on the horizon. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... keep up their econimy of justice, and right, and common sense, so afraid to use a speck of 'em, especially the common sense. Think of how they refused to let wimmen set down meekly in a humble pew, and say 'Yea' in a still small voice as a delegate, so 'fraid that it wuz outstrippin' ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... 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
... I'd do if I were you, Joey," said Polly, kindly, and running down to sit beside him. "I'd think up all sorts of different things, and get all ready, every speck. There's really a great deal to do. And then I'd pick cheeses all the spare time I had. Oh, I'd pick lots and lots!" Polly swept out her arms as if enclosing untold ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... their radiance to adorn the firmament of that magnificent world. He can wing his flight through the still more distant regions of the universe, leaving the sun and all his planets behind him, till they appear like a scarcely discernible speck in creation, and contemplate thousands and millions of stars and starry systems beyond the range of the unassisted eye, and wander among the suns and worlds dispersed throughout the boundless dimensions ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... 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 ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... was low, though it was possible, as Raoul perceived, to detect the speck that was still swinging at the Minerva's fore-yard-arm; a circumstance to which the young man, with considerate feeling, refrained from adverting. The Proserpine had been some time in motion, standing out of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... believed it to be a human wonder. He was solicitous on the score of its infantile ailments, and loaded it with gifts and toys beyond the scope of its enjoyment. He went about the house whistling more exuberantly than ever. There was no speck on his horizon; no fly in his pot of ointment. It was he who urged that the child should be christened promptly, though Dr. Glynn was not disposed to dwell on the clerical barbarism as to the destiny of unbaptized infants. Babcock was cultivating ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... clean and refreshing looking as a madrono-tree in the dust-blown forest. An odor of scented soap and freshly ironed linen was wafted from him; there was scarcely a crease in his white waistcoat, nor a speck upon his varnished shoes. He might have been an auditor of the previous conversation, so quickly and completely did he seem to take in the whole situation at a glance. Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his black-ribboned Panama hat, and a certain dancing devilry in his brown eyes—which ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... carefully. And now the most extraordinary thing happened, for from this moment everything in the old man's house was changed. When he awoke in the morning he always found his room tidied and put into such beautiful order that not a speck of dust was to be found anywhere. When he came home at midday, he found a table laid out with the most dainty food, and he had only to sit down and enjoy himself to his heart's content. At first he was so surprised he didn't know what to think, but after a time he grew ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... he spoke, had leaned over to the ground. He now rose, with a little black travelling speck ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of one accord, ran out through the engineers' quarters to the open. It was now dark. Little fires dotted the hillsides. A dull red speck, like an ember, showed over the roof, darkened, and disappeared. Then a streak of fire shot out from the black slope and sped on clear ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... the polar sea and the Eskimo, and it was with this thought of the lifelessness and mystery of a dead and empty world that Philip turned his eyes from the sun into the gray desolation that reached from Pierre Thoreau's door to the end of the earth. Far off to the north he saw a black speck moving in the chaos of white. It might have been a fox coming over a snow-dune a rifle-shot away, for distances are elusive where the sky and the earth seem to meet in a cold gray rim about one; or it might have ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... wash with a hoarse and hollow cadence; and they passed the sepulchral Bay of the Trinity, dark as the tide of Acheron,—a sanctuary of solitude and silence: depths which, as the fable runs, no sounding line can fathom, and heights at whose dizzy verge the wheeling eagle seems a speck. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sky slashed across by bars of purple and gold. More than nine miles beneath them spread the deep gorge, where nestled their little home, looking like a doll-house, and above it shone the great, silver ship. The lake shone like a speck of silver on the drab rocks. They gazed down upon it in an attitude of worship, for it alone in all that vast realm of peaks and plains and valleys symbolized life. Then suddenly a dark speck appeared on the surface of the lake. Omega looked at Thalma ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... which a little space had been cleared. There was never so much chaos but that the picture was turned where the light fell best upon it; the dirt might lie thick upon every inch in the room, but every morning a silk handkerchief carefully removed from the glass-mounting every disfiguring speck. Yet the man himself seemed to have little enough sentiment about him. His shoulders were broad and his head massive. A short-cut beard concealed his chin, but his mouth was of iron and his eyes were hard and keen. He was of no more than the average stature ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... 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, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... said the laundress, "my young master will stick nothing to call an honest woman slut and quean, if there be but a speck of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... as I gazed about seeking for a clue, a speck on the north-west horizon caught my eye and my hopes went down. It looked like a distant ship; it might well have been the 'Aurora'. Well, what matter! the long journey was at an end-a terrible chapter of my ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the scouts who were watching them report that they remained absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight, and apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had finished, for his cowl was then seen above ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... for his fellow men "to see the whole world in peace and its inhabitants one band of brothers, striving who could contribute most to the happiness of mankind"—without a wish for himself, but "to live and die an honest man on his farm." A speck of war spots the sky. John Adams, now president, calls him forth as lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief to lead America once more. But the cloud vanishes. Peace reigns. The lark sings at Heaven's gate in the fair morn ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... the ice-cold Serpentine. He's only a speck now, like our world in space. Now I can't ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... sailing by Triest Where a day or two we harboured: A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, One of our company espied A sudden speck to larboard. And as a sea-duck flies and swims At once, so came the light craft up, 220 With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) And by ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... question him, and was gruffly answered. Something I 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 across the leagues of water. I was still ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly, and when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved their hands, or shouted some brief encouragement. It was not until they had seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the distant road, that they turned to each other, and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... we enjoy, one of the greatest blessings a people can enjoy, is liberty. But every good in this life has its allay of evil. Licentiousness is the allay of liberty. It is an ebullition, an excrescence; it is a speck upon the eye of the political body, which I can never touch but with a gentle, with a trembling hand; lest I destroy the body, lest I injure the eye, upon which it is apt to appear. If the stage becomes at any time licentious, if a play appears to be a libel upon the government, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the main there are rocks and reefs; and though a passage may exist, it would not be advisable for a vessel to try it. These two small islands possess all the characteristic beauties of the clime. Formed of brown granite, with a speck of white sandy beach, and rising into hills covered with the noblest timber, wreathed with gigantic creepers. Cream-colored pigeons flit from tree to tree, and an eagle or two soared aloft watching their motions. Frigate-birds are numerous; and ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... horses brushed until their coats shone. The hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust the stable ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... biked over to the aerodrome. When I arrived D'Aubigne was looking through a pair of prism glasses. 'Where's Carville?' I said as I got off. He handed me the glasses and pointed up between two masses of billowy clouds. I stared and finally focussed on a minute speck against the blue. It was incredible, and, I think, sublime. I must say it thrilled me to see it. It is something new in life, if not in art, this supreme triumph over gravity. I am serious! Slowly he passed behind the cloud and I came back to ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... temptations to man: that tends to excite pride; this, discontentment."—Id. et al cor. "Religion raises men above themselves; irreligion sinks them beneath the brutes: this binds them down to a poor pitiable speck of perishable earth; that opens for them a prospect to the skies."—Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 189. "Love not idleness: it destroys many."—Ingersoll cor. "Children, obey your parents: 'Honour thy father and mother,' is the first commandment with promise."—Bullions ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... leading up Ceres to a river-god, who has his arms round the neck of Pomona; while Mars (in a full-bottomed wig) is driven away by Peace, under whose mantle two lovely children, representing the Duke's two provinces, repose. The celebrated Speck is, as need scarcely be said, the author of this piece; and of other magnificent edifices in the Residenz, such as the guard-room, the skittle-hall Grossherzoglich Kalbsbratenpumpernickelisch Schkittelspielsaal, ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... too healthy-minded not to like beaux. There she comes now! I can see her car way up the street—just a blue speck," cried Judge Middleton. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... sure he didn't take his shoes with, him." Hazard rolled over on his back and lazily regarded the speck of flag fluttering briskly on the sheer edge of the precipice. "Say!" He sat up ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... with flyaway hair and dancing brown eyes, "at home all is winter—white, beautiful, glorious winter, with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the splendor of it! And here—here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call winter because they don't know ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... good ship "Commodore,"— Nobody ever crossed her track To bring us news, and she never came back. Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more Since that old ship went out of the bay With my great-hearted brother on her deck: I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... a knock at the door, and a ruddy old face looked in. It is the Cavaliere Trenta, in his official blue coat and gold buttons, nankeen inexpressibles, a broad-brimmed white hat and a gold-headed cane in his hand. Whatever speck of dust might have had the audacity to venture to settle itself upon any part of the cavaliere's official blue coat, must at once have hidden its diminished head after peeping at the cavaliere's beaming countenance, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... 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; but these same stores proved their undoing. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... amongst those which we experience 'when we see, or hear, or feel, or love, or hate, or will, or desire,' would suffice for his entire refutation, he found such an idea produced. He knew too well also to what enormous errors of thought minute errors of expression may lead, to disregard any speck of inaccuracy in any one of his definitions. The apparently slight oversight committed by him on this occasion will, indeed, be presently seen to have sensibly contributed to lead him subsequently into a mistake ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... however, with more care than Archie watched the sky on all sides for signs of enemy air-craft. The American machine had been so long inside the enemy lines that a German fighting plane might be expected at any moment. At last a Boche plane did make its appearance, a mere brown speck, at first, far ahead. Archie's signal to Carleton that trouble was ahead was conveyed by giving the machine a slight rock as he started to climb. Not much time was allowed for maneuvering. Carleton lost no time in placing a disk on his Lewis gun, and as the German approached, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... in traveling as fast as possible, that one day, the sixth of October, 1846, the party discerned something which, at first, looked like a mere speck moving on the prairies. Watching it with intense anxiety, the little speck increased in size until they saw it emerge, as it were, from the apparent junction of the heavens with the earth, and form a visible line; as the front of this column ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... the bounds of the visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in space; a pygmy in comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... we need not wonder at, for nature is not bounded by the laws of human reason, which aims only at man's true benefit and preservation; her limits are infinitely wider, and have reference to the eternal order of nature, wherein man is but a speck; it is by the necessity of this alone that all individuals are conditioned for living and acting in a particular way. (21) If anything, therefore, in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, it is because we only know in part, and are almost entirely ignorant of the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full flood of light. Then I turned to ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... do it a little while ago—and no hand but his can raise the chains that support it; for he only knows the secret of their machinery. He has left the place for the night. He lives three miles and a half away, at a little village yonder, which looks only a black speck in the distance, and he will not return ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... zeal and loyalty to those who labor for his delight that the amateur grows worthy of the artist. And it should be kept in mind that, not only in art, but in morals, Pepys rejoiced to recognize his betters. There was not one speck of envy ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... reason hath no knowledge wrought. And on this wise an equal power I'd yield To all the various tenants of the field; Not reason such as in ourselves we find, But something more than any mainspring blind. A speck of matter I would subtilise Almost beyond the reach of mental eyes;— An atom's essence, one might say, An extract of a solar ray, More quick and pungent than a flame of fire,— For if of flame the wood is sire, Cannot the flame, itself refined, Give ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... there was no dust signal, and the macaroni box was but a dismal reminder of her exile. The world was very far away, behind the violet rim of mountains, and she was just a speck in the desert. Her high laced boots were heavy, and the dust settled in the creases around her slim ankles, that could be perfectly fascinating in silken hose and dainty slippers. Her khaki skirt, of the divided kind much affected ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... a wonder, I climbed up to the sanctuary of St. Michael above Serrone, that solitary white speck visible from afar on the upper slopes of Mount Scalambra. It is a respectable walk, and would have been inconveniently warm but for the fact that I rose with the nightingales, reaching my destination at the very moment when the sun peered over the ridge of the mountain at ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small stove, where a can of milk was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern by blowing into it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted by a candle suspended by a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the gun. Rooftop artillery! The new warfare! On the roof of the fashionable Automobile Club on the Place de la Concorde the little blue firing guns wheel with the blazing fingers. Always ready to send shot and shell into a bulging speck in the sky that does not return the luminous signals. So on the roof of the Observatoir, so on the encircling environs; sometimes three, sometimes six, they are always going. People stand in the streets to watch, hypnotized ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... came we here in all the noon-day light With only darting swallows over us To make a speck of darkness on the sun? Let us go down where walls will shut us round. Your castle has a hundred quiet halls, A hundred chambers, where the shadows lie On things put by, forgotten long ago. Forgotten lutes with strings that Time has slackened, We two shall ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... So intensely still was it, and so perfectly transparent was the surface of the deep, that had it not been for the long swell already alluded to, we might have believed the surrounding universe to be a huge, blue, liquid ball, and our little ship the one solitary material speck in all creation, floating in the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne |
