"Black hole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in pepper and salt, and I'll mourn out-doors. I hain't a-goin' to wind myself up in crape, and shet myself up in a black hole no more, mourn ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... ships, but those who could not—146 in number—were shut up all night in a small room, in the hottest time of the year, and they were so crushed together and suffocated by the heat that, when the morning came, there were only twenty-three of them alive. This dreadful place was known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. The next year Calcutta was won back again; and the English, under Colonel Clive, gained so much ground that the French had no power left in India, and the English could go on obtaining more and ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... starve! Better starve than sin. I say, it is a sin to give in to this system. It is a sin to add our weight to the crowd of artizans who are now choking and strangling each other to death, as the prisoners did in the black hole of Calcutta. Let those who will turn beasts of prey, and feed upon their fellows; but let us at least keep ourselves pure. It may be the law of political civilization, the law of nature, that the rich should eat up the poor, and the poor eat up each other. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... as it broke off, he lifted it on his shoulder and clambered up the rough bark of the tree to the great black hole where the owls lived. When he looked down into it, there they were in the nest, fluffy and gray, and fast asleep. Very quietly he slipped down, and set the thorn in the side of the nest, with the point sticking out. After that, he ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... more tormented mind than the mind of Peter Gudge had ever been put in that black hole. It was the more terrible, because so utterly undeserved, so preposterous. For such a thing to happen to him, Peter Gudge, of all people—who took such pains to avoid discomfort in life, who was always ready to oblige anybody, to do anything he was told to do, so as to have'an ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... she stepped to a pallet where lay a face like a girl's, Young, and pathetic with dying,—a deep black hole in the curls. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... sake, Kiddo—don't—don't do that! I didn't mean to hurt you—honest, I didn't. Don't cry any more and I'll take you right down to the black hole, and let you sleep on the floor if you want to. Gee! I'll give you the whole place, tools, junk ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... more; and now there was feverish haste. An oval door in the wall ahead was swung open, revealing a round, black hole. ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... men were lost in infinite distance? To dance, or not to dance, was all the choice men had, and rather than play a part in such a show as fell to his lot, it seemed better to break the strings and let the miserable marionette fall into the black hole ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... with the local remembrances of the poor historian, very much in those terms which Mr. Governor Holwell might have used on finding himself 'pretty bobbish' on the morning after the memorable night in the Black Hole of Calcutta: he could hardly believe that he still lived. [Footnote 1] And yet, how had the eloquent historian trespassed on his patience and his weak powers of toleration? Livy was certainly not very learned in the archaeologies of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... his arm and so saved him from tumbling headlong into a black hole in the ground. Vines and a small shrub or two had been ruthlessly torn out to bare the opening. It was here that the visitors must have gone to earth. And then Val had a glimmering of the truth; the "Boss" and his friends had at last found Jeems' ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... a waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he couldn't find the way up stairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... get the baggage on board, Jennie," said Rollo. "I never should have thought of getting baggage on board in that way; should you, Jennie? I wonder where the trunks go to when the rope lets them down. It is in some great black hole, I have no doubt, down in the ship. The next load of trunks that comes I have a great mind to ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... Drawing Room, 154which conveniently holds ten persons, is to be the black hole for thirty—My study, dear beloved retreat, where sonnets have been composed and novels written—this spot which just holds me and my cat, is to be the scene of bagatelle, commerce, or any thing else that a parcel of giggling girls may chuse to act in it,—my statues ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of the capital of India; and also the country-house of Warren Hastings at Alipur, for the entertainment of Indian princes. Lord Curzon restored, at his own cost, the monument which formerly commemorated the massacre of the Black Hole, and a tablet let into the wall of the general post office indicates the position of the Black Hole in the north-east bastion of Fort William, now occupied by the roadway. Government House, which ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... alone, I did so, in the most adventurous spirit, and began my operations by sliding behind the casks and testing the handle of the little door. It turned, and after a pull or two the door yielded. With my heart in my mouth, I stooped and peered in. I could see nothing—a black hole and nothing more. This caused me a moment's hesitation. I was afraid of the dark—had always been. But curiosity and the spirit of adventure triumphed. Saying to myself that I was Robinson Crusoe exploring the cave, I crawled in, only to find that I had gained nothing. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... us in. We had the whole passenger list for company, but their room would have been preferable, for there was no light, there were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and hot. We were much crowded. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta on a small scale. Presently a smoke rose about our feet—a smoke that smelled of all the dead things of earth, of all the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... uncle, Reverend Mr. Austin, also coffined and departed, who saved me from early extinction in a dark place. Major, I no like graves, I see too much of them, and can't tell what lie on other side. Though everyone say they know, Jeekie not quite sure. May be all light and crowns of glory, may be damp black hole and no way out. But this at least true, that I love you better, yes, better than Miss Barbara, for love of woman very poor, uncertain thing, quick come, quick go. Jeekie find that out—often. Yes, if need be, though death most nasty, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... of the general's cast-off breeches, which he held up with one hand while he grasped his firelock with the other. The rest were accoutred in similar style, excepting three ragamuffins without shirts, and with but a pair and a half of breeches between them; wherefore they were sent to the black hole, to keep them out of sight, that they might ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... know, sir. I suppose it was all due to the excitement and being fagged out with what we'd gone through in that black hole." ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... saw a nice big, black hole and into it they scampered, thinking it too small a place for Zip to follow, but they did not know Zip. The hole was black enough inside and out to suit anyone, for it was nothing more or less than ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... over in one corner. Then, shading a very modern flash-light with a fold of his robe, he showed me one of the square flags lifted, and a black hole yawning ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... end might see the madness done And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun. But this incarnate hell that yawns before Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench— This purgatory that men call the "trench"— This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war! Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so I lay my heart in yours and let ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... He stopped when he saw that he was addressing a round, black hole that was only a fraction more than a third of an inch in diameter but looked much, much larger from ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... were busy with the feast-cooking. Candles were stuck everywhere on the tables and benches. They threw little pools of light on the floor before the stove and looked at the empty niche. In the night it was merely a black hole in the stove filled ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... said Lady Delacour to Belinda, "to hear congratulatory speeches from people, who would not care if I were in the black hole at Calcutta this minute; but we must take the world as it goes—dirt and precious stones mixed together. Clarence Hervey, however, n'a pas une ame de boue; he, I am sure, has been really concerned for me: he thinks that his young horses were the sole cause ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... strength was exerted for his own individual safety. From crowding so close together in so narrow a compass, and having nothing to moisten their mouths, several poor wretches were suffocated, like those in the black hole,—with this only difference, that we were confined by water instead of strong walls; and the least movement or relaxation of our hold would have ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... recognized Roger, and a frightened cry came from his lips. There was no one else in the room, but his eyes ran swiftly to the visiphone. With careful precision Roger Strang brought the heat-pistol to eye level, and pulled the trigger. Farrel Strang crumpled slowly from the knees, a black hole scorched ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... now; but you've had a narrow escape. There, you can go up on deck every day a bit, but keep out of the sun; it's very hot, and getting hotter. It will do you more good than stopping down in this black hole." ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... black hole to another. In the first there is a kind of bin for ashes and coals, and there are pots and grills lying about—it is the kitchen. A heap of fire kindling wood in one corner, a bench or stool as black as soot can paint it, a few bowls, a few bits of rags, a few fragments of food, and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... of the packed gallery soon caused her to forget even the final swindle of the corset. The air had rapidly become exhausted. Women clutched at each other; women rapped frenziedly against the heavy, glazed doors; women screamed. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta over again, and yet no one in the blouse department seemed to notice the signals of distress. Lily felt the perspiration on her brow and chin, and then she knew that she, too, must scream and ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... of Indian history leads me to the conclusion that in all likelihood we should never have been rulers in India had we not been grievously injured as traders, in violation of rights accorded to us by the native powers. All know the story of the black hole of Calcutta, which led to our waging war on the Nawab. We had previously fought with the French and French allies in the south, we had contended with other European rivals, but our rule began with the victory of Plassey. After that victory our only alternative was either to ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... her right shoulder, the corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black hole at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs were bent into the palms of her hands; a kind of white dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes were beginning to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks like a thin web, as if spiders had spun it over. The ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... in Bengal. In 1756 the young nawab of Bengal, Suraj-ud-Dowlah by name, seized the English fort at Calcutta and locked 146 Englishmen overnight in a stifling prison—the "Black Hole" of Calcutta—from which only twenty-three emerged alive the next morning. Clive, hastening from Madras, chastised Suraj for this atrocity, and forced him to give up Calcutta. And since by this time Great Britain and France were openly at war, Clive did ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... [Showing the hole at the bottom of the flower-pot.] Could I see you! Yonder stump of red cone has exactly the black hole to let through my yellow bill. Apologies,—but it was too tempting! A bird of ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... causation and unchangeable as the dead. There are not many men in the modern world who do not know that mood, though it was not discovered by the moderns; it was the final and seemingly fixed mood of nearly all the ancients. Only above the black hole of Bethlehem they had seen a star wandering like a lost spark; and it had done what the eternal suns and planets could not ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... Sphinx, in the middle of what our contemporaries have left him of his desert. We had to descend the slope of that sandhill which looked like a cloud, and seemed as if covered with felt, in order to preserve in such a place a more complete silence. And here and there we passed a gaping black hole—an airhole, as it seemed, of the profound and inextricable kingdom of mummies, very populous still, in spite of the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... the grass we see one approaching now—a big red ant from yonder ant-hill. He creeps this way and that, and anon is seen trespassing in the precincts of the unhealthy court. He crosses its centre, when, click! and in an instant his place knows him no more, and a black hole marks the spot where he met his fate, which is now being duly celebrated in a supplementary fete several ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... by his bedside the wounded soldier—young, fair-faced, blond-haired, with just the first faint shadow of a mustache. His forehead was pale, his lips were livid, his blue eyes were dim, and in his left temple there was a round black hole made by the bullet from his—Napoleonder's—pistol. And the ghastly figure seemed to ask again, "Why did you ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... not only of that native state, but of all India. Moved by jealousy of the growing power of the English, and encouraged by the French, the Nabob attacked and captured the English post at Calcutta. His one hundred and forty-six prisoners he crowded into a close dungeon, called the Black Hole. In the course of a sultry night the larger part of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery—a place that reeked with the dank odours ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... unshackled us, and opened a lattice door of heavy iron, bidding us enter. I knew then that we were going into a dungeon, deep under the walls of a British fort somewhere on the frontier. A thought stung me as D'ri and I entered this black hole and sat upon a heap of straw. Was this to be the end of our ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... crowded around that black hole in the mound as thick as noon lunchers at a pie counter. And we was strainin' our eyes to see what the faint light of the torch was tryin' to show up. All of a sudden I reaches in and makes a grab at something, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that the boy was right. The little black hole of a passage suddenly opened out into light that almost blinded them by its brilliancy. It was a broad track. On the right was the wall of the cliff pierced with little holes, through which they looked down again on the canon itself, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... made little headway, though a few minutes more would have given it a dangerous start. The flames hissed and died out as Gussie threw on the water, and in a few seconds only a small black hole in the shingles remained. Gussie slid down the ladder. She trembled in every limb, but she put out her wet hand to me with a faint, triumphant smile. We shook hands across the ladder with ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hastily. "Please, PLEASE don't do that. It's bad enough to choke slowly, like this, in the gloom. But to die in the dark—that would be ten times more terrible. Why, it's a perfect Black Hole of Calcutta, even now. If you were to turn out the lights I could ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... fighting with his horse;—but the farmer had turned away. He thought that Chiltern nodded to him, as much as to tell him to go on. On he went at any rate. The brook, when he came to it, seemed to be a huge black hole, yawning beneath him. The banks were quite steep, and just where he was to take off there was an ugly stump. It was too late to think of anything. He stuck his knees against his saddle,—and in a moment was on the ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the black hole in the rocks for a long time, because he was afraid; but when he turned to speak to the Coyote he found himself to be alone. The Coyote had gone about his own business—had silently ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... he found himself looking into what seemed to be a very deep and black hole; "wasn't it lucky we got the glim going when we did? I guess I'd dropped into that pit if we'd held off any longer. My good little angel must have warned me to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... fortress, keep, donjon, dungeon, Bastille, oubliette, bridewell^, house of correction, hulks, tollbooth, panopticon^, penitentiary, guardroom, lockup, hold; round house, watch house, station house, sponging house; station; house of detention, black hole, pen, fold, pound; inclosure &c 232; isolation (exclusion) 893; penal settlement, penal colony; bilboes, stocks, limbo, quod [Lat.]; calaboose, chauki^, choky^, thana^; workhouse [U.S.]. Newgate, Fleet, Marshalsea; King's Bench, Queen's Bench. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the cafe called back, "We can't hear you," and I repeated, "Fire higher! You nearly hit me," and pointed with my finger to where the big 44-calibre ball had left a black hole in the green paint of the trough. When they saw this there were excited exclamations from the men, and I heard the one who was giving the orders repeating my warning. And then came the shock of another volley. Simultaneously with the shock a ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law regions to consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have used them. As it was, he contented himself by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the detected youth, who sat on his perch insensible ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mean by going there? What is done there, that everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and then lit the fuse, and, running back, flattened himself against the side of the tunnel. There was at last a dull, rumbling roar and a great crash of falling rock. Roddy raced to the sound and saw in the wall a gaping, black hole. Through it, from the other side, lights showed dimly. In the tunnel he was choked with a cloud of powdered cement. He leaped through this and, stumbling over a mass of broken stone, found himself in the cell. Except for the breach in the wall the explosion had in no way disturbed ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... to the lip of the volcano (it took us half a day to get up to it) we found the stone was unbelievably large—big as a cathedral. Underneath it we could look right down into a black hole which seemed to have no bottom. The Doctor explained to us that volcanoes sometimes spurted up fire from these holes in their tops; but that those on floating islands were always ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... escorted me to the passenger car filled with German immigrants, with tin cups, babies, bags, and bundles innumerable. The ventilators were all closed, the stoves hot, and the air was like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. So, after depositing my cloak and bag in an empty seat, I quietly propped both doors open with a stick of wood, shut up the stoves, and opened all the ventilators with the poker. But the celestial breeze, so grateful to me, had the most unhappy effect ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Ellerburne there stand some old cottages generally known as the Poorhouse. They are built on sloping ground, and on the lower side there is a small round-topped tunnel leading into a little cell dug out of the ground beneath the cottages. This little village prison was known as the "Black Hole," and was in frequent use about fifty years ago. An old resident in the village named Birdsall, who is now in the Almshouses, remembers that the last woman who was placed in the Black Hole was released by four men who forcibly broke their way in. The quaint ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Jasper. Waves like mountains; then a black hole, black as pitch, and great high walls. After that—I'll tell 'ee dreckly. As for the maid, laive ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... of summer Pitt sent a great expedition to attack Rochefort; the military and naval commanders disagreed, and the consequence was failure. There was no light except from far-off India, where Clive won the great victory of Plassey, avenged the Black Hole of Calcutta, and prepared the ruin of the French power and the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... for small boys, seems to have been a very severe one, for Crabbe and his friends were punished for simply 'playing at soldiers.' He was condemned, with his friends, to be shut in a large dog-kennel, known by the terrible name of 'the Black Hole.' Little Crabbe was the first to be pushed in, and the rest were crowded in on top of him, till at last the kennel was so full of boys that they were all but suffocated. Crabbe in vain cried out that he could not breathe, but no notice was taken of him until, in despair, he bit the lad ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs, disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. The dark, heavy faces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at the boat with a steady, incurious gaze. Sylvia's boatman balanced his oar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. The boat swayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... have been spotted with deeds that causes a blush upon the face of a virtuous patriot; so you must be contented with your lot, while crime, cowardice, cupidity or low cunning have handed you down from the high tower of a statesman to the black hole of a gambler . . . . Crape the heavens with weeds of woe; gird the earth with sackcloth, and let hell mutter one melody in commemoration of fallen splendor! For the glory of America has departed, and God ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... snapped in it. The Countess was climbing up the ladder. Rather dismayed, Prince Ferdinand William Otto surveyed the bag. Something had broken, he feared. And in another moment he saw what it was. The little watch which was set in one side of it had slipped away, leaving a round black hole. His heart ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... they groped around the black hole of their prison, hoping to find some way of escape, but without success. They were beginning to get tired and discouraged, and they sat down on the floor ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... was a crash and an unearthly scream, then a thud that sounded as if it had happened in the middle of the earth. Father Donovan and I looked around in alarm, but Paddy was nowhere to be seen. Toward the wall there was a square black hole, and, rushing up to it, we knew at once what had happened. Paddy had danced a bit too heavy on an old trap-door, and the rusty bolts had broken. It had let him down into a dungeon that had no other entrance; and indeed this was a queer house entirely, with many odd nooks and corners about it, ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... and the suba, or viceroy, promised on the word of a soldier, that no injury should be done to him or his garrison. Nevertheless, they were all driven, to the number of one hundred and forty-six persons of both sexes, into a place called the Black Hole Prison, a cube of about eighteen feet, walled up to the eastward and southward, the only quarters from which they could expect the least refreshing air, and open to the westward by two windows strongly barred with iron, through which there was no perceptible circulation. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the corner of the highroad," he replied, and then they were all silent, with their eyes fixed on the door of the cow house, which formed a sort of black hole in the wall of the building. Nothing could be seen inside, but they heard a vague noise, movements and footsteps and the sound of hoofs, which were deadened by the straw on the floor, and soon the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... then in the minutes that followed that there were thousands of black demons in that black hole. At the first rushing impact I shouted to Harry: "Keep your back to the wall," and for response I got a high, ringing laugh that ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... of it; quite as bright as there is any occasion for it to be, that its little lady may see to keep it tidy. Well, it is very probable, also, that if you could look into your heart from the sun's point of view, it might appear a very black hole indeed; nay, the sun may sometimes think good to tell you that it looks so to Him; but He will come into it, and make it very cheerful for you, for all that, if you don't put the shutters up. And the one question for you, remember, is not 'dark ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and fifty settlers and traders, were thrust into an air-tight dungeon—an Indian midsummer. Maddened with heat and with thirst, most of them died before morning, trampling upon each other in frantic efforts to get air and water. This is the story of the "Black Hole of Calcutta;" which led to the victories of Clive, and the establishment of English Empire ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... retribution for the atrocity of the Black Hole of Calcutta, Watson, under instructions from Clive, reduced Chandernagore on the 23rd of March 1757; the battle of Plassey was fought on ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... come in contact there with the butt end of his revolver, under his red sash. No inspiration, no further word would come. But he drew his pistol, advanced two steps, and, taking aim, fired at the late monarch. The ball entered the forehead, leaving a little, black hole, like a spot, nothing more. There was no effect. Then he fired a second shot, which made a second hole, then, a third; and then, without stopping, he emptied his revolver. The brow of Napoleon disappeared in white powder, but the eyes, the nose, and the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... believe what he saw. He had been there the night before; everything had been in order, the shaft closed, and the trap-door locked. He leaned over the grating and looked down; he could see nothing but a black hole without any bottom. The man did not look long, for it made him dizzy. He turned and ran out of the house ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... dark, draughty passage, with a bench on each side. "But where is the waiting-room?" I ask an attendant. "This is the waiting-room," he replies. More like the Black Hole. Was it wise of me to give ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... and through the folding-doors into the wings. The O.P. corner was packed—standing room only—and the overflow reached nearly to the doors. The Black Hole of Calcutta was roomy compared with the wings on the night of a new song. Everybody who had the least excuse for being out of his or her dressing-room at that moment was peering through odd chinks in the scenery. Chorus-girls, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... he said, "they don't be carried away; they go over the edge, down into the black hole, whole ships and ships, and you never see them again. I wonder where they stop, or whether it goes through to the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... more nor he could help for a stranger. Aye indeed, he was a great ould villain! To think of him with lashin's and lavin's of everything an' money untold laid by, an' his only son's widdy livin' down there with a half-witted lodger in a little black hole of a place that was not fit for a pig, let alone a Christian, an' the beautiful little cratur', his grandchild, Roseen, runnin' about barefut, with her dotey little hands an' feet black an' blue wid the cowld—sure what sort of a heart ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... the dungeon, hewn in the rock at the foot of the temple, on the summit of the Acropolis, had just opened; and a man was standing on the threshold of this black hole. ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... that it was gone. But it would come back, and they would see his signals; a boat would come ashore, he would be fetched out of this miserable black hole; the smugglers would be captured, and he would have such a revenge on that boy Ram. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... of his toilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. His perception of possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the candle in its candlestick. "Here! you be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay, and forthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole in the toilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time he stared from this to the little flame and back, and then looked up and met his own gaze in the looking-glass. By this help he communed with himself in silence ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... definite, and there was nothing of which a boy of spirit need be afraid. The shaft was choked with dirt a few feet below their landing-planks, and there was no spot in which a mystery might lurk; but it was very different now with that black hole leading Heaven knew into what awesome depths, harbouring goodness knew what horrors. Ted's defection had suddenly become the sentiment of the majority. At that moment Dick could have counted on Peterson alone ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... negroes, but they still persisted in their refusal. After warning them of the consequences of mutiny, the Major ordered their ringleader to be put in irons, and he was conveyed on board the Saghalin and imprisoned in the "black hole"; but his comrades still held out. It was of vital importance that the Palmetto should go to sea with the first high tide, because the season was already far advanced, and she must inevitably be wrecked by ice if she remained in the river ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... black hole had opened in the very middle of the map of England, and the sides of the map were tilting themselves up, so that the rain ran down ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... man back out of the trees, still facing whatever pursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube. Leaves crisped into a black hole, curls of smoke arose along the path ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... very sleepy, and woke up when he heard footsteps near him. The magicians asked him if he could show them to the lowest part of the castle. "All right," said he; "this way;" and he led them to where there was a great black hole, with a windlass over it. "Get in the bucket," said he, "and I ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... over-crowded. Classes are held on the stairs, in the cloak-room, the hall, or the yard. For the more fortunate, class-rooms are provided with an air-space per individual only slightly less than that available in the Black Hole of Calcutta. All over the country, children go to school breakfastless and stupid with hunger, and the local authorities have no power to feed them as in England, and in most European countries. Then again, even where the physical conditions are reasonable, the programme lacks actuality. ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... the Long Pool and the Rock Pool; it is a circular, deep, black hole, in which the waters collect before dashing and roaring down between the great gray boulders; and to fish it you must get out on certain knife-like ledges that seem to offer anything but a secure foothold. However, Miss Honnor did not think twice about it; and, indeed, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... of cruelty throughout the whole of Barbary. On their arrival at Fez, after a journey in which the whole population turned out to howl at and to stone them, they were thrust into a tiny cell without a ray of light. The four months that they spent in this black hole were bad enough, but worse was yet to follow. The little money that Fernando had left was taken from him, and heavy chains were fastened to the ankles of the prisoners, while their food was hardly fit for dogs or enough to keep them alive. But Fernando at least never ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... at first; but her air was exultant and satisfied. There was no face on board so elated and flushed. I kept out of her way as long as I could without consigning myself to the black hole of the cabin; but at last she caught sight of me, and came down to the forecastle to claim me as ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... storm grew wilder an unreasoning terror filled our fellow-passengers. Too ill to protect her helpless brood, my mother saw us carried away from her for hours at a time, on the crests of waves of panic that sometimes approached her and sometimes receded, as they swept through the black hole in which we found ourselves when the hatches were nailed down. No madhouse, I am sure, could throw more hideous pictures on the screen of life than those which met our childish eyes during the appalling three days of the storm. Our one comfort was the knowledge ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... aim, "but I could, just as easy as nothing." Still dallying with temptation, he pointed again at the frowning eye and drew the rubber slowly back. All of a sudden, zip! The buckshot seemed to leap from the rubber of its own accord, and Stuart fell back, frightened by what he had done. A round black hole the size of the buckshot gaped in the middle of the old-ancestor's eye-ball, as clean cut as if it had been made with a punch. It gave it the queerest, wickedest stare you can imagine. It was the first thing one would notice on looking about the ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... mud, nothing but tangled sticks through which a breath of fresh air found its way now and then. In spite of this feeble attempt at ventilation I am obliged to admit that the atmosphere of the lodge was often a good deal like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, but beavers are so constituted that they do not need much oxygen, and they did not seem to mind it. In all other respects the house was neat and clean. The floor was only two or three inches above the level of the water in the angles, and ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... completely did the great shell of smoke conceal the planet that the place occupied by the latter seemed to be simply a vast black hole in ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... there came a spasmodic movement of the victim, and immediately above the middle of his forehead, a black hole marred the whiteness of the figure-head. A dreadful pause; then again the report, and the solid sound and jar of the bullet in the wood; and this time the captain had felt the wind of it along his cheek. A third shot, and he was bleeding from one ear; ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... not sleep for the heat. Anathematizing her room as a "black hole" of Calcutta, she lay tossing from side to side, and listening for the hourly strokes of a neighboring clock, and praying for the night to be over. She heard that ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... an improvement on the black hole from which he had just escaped. Light came down through the clear water, but a cold, white light, little like the green and gold glimmer that illumined the slow tide in his Caribbean home. The floor ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... The cell, or black hole, for it had those words painted on the door, was very dark, and having recently accommodated a drunken deserter, by no means clean. Barnaby felt his way to some straw at the farther end, and looking ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the Black Hole. There we found nine others who were to suffer the same fate in the morning. I was too tired to do anything but throw myself on a filthy mattress, and in a few minutes I was sleeping what I thought was my last sleep on earth. I was roused at daybreak by a tremendous hammering ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... when matters took so ill a turn, he pledged himself to get her safe away from the dungeon cell. To this end he feigned that he would ride into the town, after possessing himself of the key of the black hole and after stowing a suit of his man's apparel and a loaf of bread into his saddle-poke. Then he wandered about the wood for some time, and as soon as it fell dark he stole back to the house again on foot. He had made a bold ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... from the trail he had been following to a place in the woods known only to Rothsky. Close to where they finally halted and began preparations for the punishment of the prisoner, who was also expected to afford them infinite amusement by his sufferings, yawned a great black hole. It was of unknown depth, and was nearly concealed by a tangle of vines and bushes. Rothsky had stumbled upon it by accident only a few days before, and now conceived that it would be a good place in which to ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... a black hole in the forecastle of the Silver Heron to await the dawn and to spend the time in making his soul. No words had passed between him and Sir John since his surrender. With wrists pinioned behind him, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... and I think he likes having me with him, but still he's as gloomy and as dull as can be. 'T was only yesterday he took me to the works, and you'd ha' thought us two Quakers as the spirit hadn't moved, all the way down we were so mum. It's a place to craze a man, certainly; such a noisy black hole! There were one or two things worth looking at, the bellows for instance, or the gale they called a bellows. I could ha' stood near it a whole day; and if I'd a berth in that place, I should like to be bellows-man, if there ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that 'heaven is above us.' But if one dies at noon and another at midnight, one goes toward Orion and the other toward Hercules; or an Eskimo goes toward Polaris and a Patagonian toward the coal-black hole in the sky near the south pole. Where is your heaven anyhow?" O sapient, sapient questioner! Heaven is above us, you especially; but going in different directions from such a little world as this is no more than a bee's leaving ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... Wilson was chained to a soldier, and, like the well-known David Baird, John Lindsay, and many others, was driven naked, barefoot, and wounded, 500 miles to Seringapatam; where, loaded with irons of thirty-two pounds weight, and chained in couples, they were thrust into a "black hole," and fed so scantily that Wilson declared that at sight of food his jaws snapped together of themselves. Many a time in the morning corpses were unchained, and the survivors coupled up together again. Wilson was one of the thirty-one who lived to be released ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... other were laconic demands for scissors, thread, etc.; and so they rapidly plied their needles in silence, while I, suddenly transported from the cold brightness without into this funereal, sweltering atmosphere of what looked like a Black Hole made of crape and bombazine, watched the lugubrious occupation of the women as if I was in a dream, till the distant rumbling of wheels growing more and more distinct, I took leave of my temporary ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... asleep. Boys that stay in a room all day should not breathe. They should wait till they get outdoors. Boys in a room make carbonicide. Carbonicide is more poisonous than mad dogs. A heap of soldiers was in a black hole in India and carbonicide got into that black hole and killed nearly every one afore morning. Girls kill the breath with corsets that squeeze the diagram. Girls can't run or holler like boys because their diagram is squeezed too much. If I was a girl, I'd rather be a boy so ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... Repealers had fought for years to bring this about. Their leader and poet, Ebenezer Elliott, declared that "what they wanted was bread in exchange for their cottons, woollens, and hardware, and no other thing can supply the want of that one thing, any more than water could supply the want of air in the Black Hole of Calcutta." ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... wealthy British trading post. He captured the fort which protected it (1756), and seizing the principal English residents, one hundred and forty-six in number, drove them at the point of the sword into a prison called the "Black Hole," a dungeon less than twenty feet square, and having ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left to the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of a temple of Proserpine, or Apollo, or any god or goddess you please. We were so absurd as to pay a scudo to be taken through a vile tunnel, accompanied by two torch-bearers, and two other dirty wretches, who often carry us pick-a-back through one black hole into another, splashing us through dark pools, putting us down here and there as they pleased, picking us up again, grinning like demons, and by dint of shaking their torches above, and disturbing the water below, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... it not be considered egotistical, therefore, when I say that the house was crowded; from pit to roof rose tier on tier one dark unbroken mass; I do not think there were twenty females in the dress circle; all men, and enduring, I should imagine, the heat of the black hole at Calcutta. I at the time regretted the absence of the ladies, when, had I been less selfish, I should have rejoiced ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Faust-books, and there is even the trace of one before the oldest Faust-book; at least in the archives of the University of Tuebingen an entry has been unearthed in which in 1587 two students were condemned to the 'Karzer,' or 'Black hole,' for composing a 'Puppenspiel' on the subject of ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... on the broken floor and swung herself down into the black hole. She hung by her hands and her feet did not touch the bottom. Suddenly she felt a qualm of terror. Perhaps the cellar was a good deal deeper ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... turned his tired but still talkative head over his shoulder, and had found himself looking into a small round black hole, rimmed by a six-sided circlet of steel, with a sort of spike standing up on the top. It fixed him like an iron eye. Through those eternal instants during which the reason is stunned he did not even know what it was. Then he saw behind it the chambered barrel and cocked hammer of a revolver, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the "Black Hole." It was a large camp with large frame buildings, which had been erected especially for the purpose. There was one building for the French prisoners, one for the Russians, and one for the British and Canadian contingent. Barbed wire entanglements ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... noble, he is brave. He will rest not night nor day whilst his brother lies a captive in these cruel hands. I have but to watch and to wait. He will surely come. And when he comes, I will show him the black hole in the wall — the dark passage to the moat — and he will dare to enter where never man has entered before. He will save his brother, and my vow will ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... jutting points, and many a frieze and coigne of vantage, placed blue lights on them all, and at the word illuminated all together, there was redoubled bedlam in that abode of Hecate, and the eternal calm of the Boodh became awful. For what deeds of outer darkness, done long ago in that black hole of superstition, so many damned souls shrieked from their night-fowl transmigrations, 'twere vain to question there were no disclosures in that trance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... the owner of the dog, "you shall get the black hole for this to-morrow. Tiger, my boy, let go." The dog with a growl released his hold. "And now be off, both of you, or my dog shall tear you ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... fried fish upon them, barrows with second-hand-looking vegetables and others piled with more than second-hand-looking garments. Trade was not driving, but near one or two of them dirty, ill-used looking women, a man or so, and a few children stood. At a corner which led into a black hole of a court, a coffee-stand was stationed, in charge of a ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... day I walked out of the town towards the Valley of Bones in order to ascertain for myself whether what Goza had told me was true. So it proved, for about three hundred yards from the mouth of the valley, which at that distance looked like a black hole in the hills, I found soldiers stationed about ten paces apart in a great circle which ran right up the hillside and vanished over the crest. Strolling up to one of these, whose face I thought I knew, I asked ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... throw its contents on the sand, and go away satisfied with these imperfect glimpses of sea-life? Will you take them home indeed, but consign them to a crowded bowl, to die like the prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta? Or will you give to each a roomy basin with water, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... responses: "Flames about this article to the bit bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I mailed you those figures last week; they must have landed in the bit bucket." Compare {black hole}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0 |
