"Flat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... front of it and the dry-goods boxes mounted thereon were places of refuge for all the loafers of the place. Down by the stream was a dilapidated building which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky wharf extended out from it, into the water. In fact a flat-boat was there moored by it, it's setting poles lying across the gunwales. Above the town the stream was crossed by a crazy wooden bridge, the supports of which leaned all ways in the soggy soil; the absence of a plank here and there in the flooring made the crossing of the bridge ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Scanty spots of shade beneath sickly trees seemed to gasp upon the hot ground, like creatures that had thrown themselves down to get cool. The outlines of the town beyond had a certain horrible distinctness, as if of a sight that should but could not be veiled. Overhead, and clean to the flat horizon, flashed a sky of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... was two feet deep over my little field. My baby came that night, much too soon. I'd have died just as it did, if my Indian with a squaw hadn't happened back to beg for food. They took me over to the California side in their flat boat, and I never went back to the ranch again, though Otto tried ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... complimented Butler on the spot and while Butler was in a situation not observable in civilized, unwarlike society. We then gave the enemy a severe dose of canister, and, finding that we could not well get over to the gunboat, we battered it to pieces with shot and shell. The vessel was a small one, flat bottomed, intended for fast river navigation, designed for one or two guns, built somewhat after the form of the Merrimac, iron plating and all. We then returned to camp, having accomplished ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... of the night or day. And then it must be borne in mind that Paris and London contain all the famous men of France and England, and anybody who jokes about them is sure of having the whole public for an audience; while the best New York joke falls flat in Boston or Philadelphia, and flatter still in Cincinnati or Chicago, owing to want of acquaintance with the materials of which ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... holds. Above the shrieking wails of the crowd could be heard the smacks and thuds of the eight flying clubs as they struck against the leather shields or against tough and scaly hides. For minutes the conflict raged, with no advantage apparent. Now the fighters were flat upon the floor of the star, now dozens of feet in the air above it, as one or the other sought to gain a height from which to plunge downward upon his opponent; but both stayed upon or over the star—to leave its boundaries ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... ages ago. Long before the date of this story the high head had been lowered and the diamonds sold, all but those that encircled the miniature of her only baby, dead before the Con-Virginia slump. She lived in a little flat up toward the cemeteries, second floor, door to the left, and please press the push button. In her small parlor the pictures of the Bonanza Kings hung on the walls and she was wont, an old rheumatic figure in shiny black with the miniature pinned at her withered throat, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... started to run, but caught my toe in some underbrush and went down ker-slap. I said all the prayers I knew in 'bout eight seconds, then got up, and started to run ag'in. Like Lot's wife, I couldn't help lookin' back, and there wuz the b'ar flat on his back. I went up to him kinder cautious, for I didn't know but he might be shammin', them black b'ars are mighty cute; but, no, he wuz deader'n a door nail. I took the partridges back to town, and then a party on us came back ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... been busy starching our language and smoothing it flat with the mangle of a supposed classical authority, the newspaper reporter has been doing even more harm by stretching and swelling it to suit his occasions. A dozen years ago I began a list, which I have added to from time to time, of some of the changes which may be fairly laid at his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... hand now pinioned flat, Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass; Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's hat; Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass; Or held, by Solomon's own invitation, A torch at ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... overhead expenses in the United States and abroad. The foreign overhead expenses are mere estimates, since the commission's representatives were refused access to the original books and records by practically every foreign firm. It accordingly became necessary to resort to estimates based on flat percentages of prime costs or sales price. These were in fact submitted by Italian manufacturers and used by the commission's representatives. It now develops that these percentages have never been analyzed or justified. Indeed, ...
— Men's Sewed Straw Hats - Report of the United Stated Tariff Commission to the - President of the United States (1926) • United States Tariff Commission
... would repent of it; whereupon he was taken with ...[A], whereof he was ill for twelve days; they also found forty-four witches' spells in her child's pillow, some of which were made like hedgehogs, others round like apples, and others again flat like the palm of the hand; and they were of hempen thread twisted ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... bind them together was lost and so we are unable to judge them fairly. Among the fragments is a brilliant aria on Eurydice which is rather ridiculous, while another on Eurydice dying is charming. We also find music for mysterious English horns; it is written as for clarinets in B flat and reaches heights which are impossible for the instrument we now know as the English horn. There is also a beautiful bass part. This has been provided with Latin words and is sung in churches. This aria was assigned to a Creon who does not appear in the other fragments. ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... O'Sullivan Og takes our dues for us—and a trifle over? And, sorra one of you doubt it, if Mounseer comes jawing here, it's in the peat-hole he'll find himself! Or the devil the value of a cork he gets out of me; that's flat! Eh, Phelim?" ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... green-black cashmere skirt seemed very long, as she strode with big strides before the young man, himself so graceful. She went to her seat at the narrow end of the room, where the window opened on to chimney-pots. Paul watched her thin hands and her flat red wrists as she excitedly twitched her white apron, which was spread on the bench in ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... been a shipmate on the voyage out. The principal neighbours of this family were tigers and baboons. There was a minor population of deer, hyenas, hares, coneys, monkeys, and moles, but no human beings of any kind. Their dwelling was low and flat-roofed, the walls being coated with mud, so that its aspect outside was not imposing, but inside we found substantial comfort if not luxury, refinement, and hospitality. This is not an infrequent combination in the ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... the hour drove everything else from him. The street climbed straight into the sky, a broad flat sheet of gold, and on its height the monument, perched against the quivering air, was a purple shaft, its gesture proud, haughty, exultant. Suddenly he saw in front of him, moving with quick, excited steps, Mrs. Brandon, an ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... was startled by a sharp explosion. He looked to the street. There was the black car, bumping along with one flat tire. The girl threw on the brakes and came to ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... this powdered rock is washed by rain into the lakes and ponds; in time these cut their exits down, and drain, leaving each a broad mud-flat. The climate mildens and the south winds cease not, so that wind-borne grasses soon make green meadows ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... men will work the same notion! Imagine this world to be a flat board accurately parcelled out into squares, and you have the basis at once of Alice through the Looking-Glass and of Les Rougon-Macquart. But for the mere fluke that the Englishman happened to be whimsical and the Frenchman ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for the task. This feeling I find strengthened by his poem called An Equal Sacrifice, the only one of his pieces where anything like a ballad is attempted, and the only one in all three books which seems to be an undeviating failure. It is as flat as a pancake, and ends with flat moralizing. Mr. Frost is particularly unsuccessful ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... he opened fire. Nor did he cease when the knife-edge was bare. He emptied his magazine, reloaded, and emptied it again. He kept on shooting. All his wrongs were blazing in his brain, and he was in a fury of vengeance. All down the goat-trail the soldiers were firing, and though they lay flat and sought to shelter themselves in the shallow inequalities of the surface, they were exposed marks to him. Bullets whistled and thudded about him, and an occasional ricochet sang sharply through the air. One bullet ploughed a crease through his scalp, and a second ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... Bacon, "like darts, fly abroad and make impressions, while long discourses are flat things, and not regarded." And Seneca has remarked that "even rude and uncultivated minds are struck, as it were, with those short but weighty sentences which anticipate all reasoning by flashing truths upon them at once." Wise men in all ages ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... venture to look upon you as belonging to the race of Mus?" I inquired, looking doubtingly at his large size, soft fur, and long flat tail. ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... the ceiling by a wire, and from which large flakes of the melted grease lay cone-like on the pine floor, discloses the gloom, and discovers hanging from the walls, grim with smoke, sundry curious caps, cords, leathern cats, and the more improved paddles of wood, with flat blades. The very gloom of the place might excite the timid; but the reflection of how many tortures it has been the scene, and the mysterious stillness pervading its singularly decorated walls, add still more to increase apprehension. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... I strolled over the house and its grounds. Large, ancient and well-built, the hermitage was surrounded by a massive-pillared courtyard. Outer walls were moss-covered; pigeons fluttered over the flat gray roof, unceremoniously sharing the ashram quarters. A rear garden was pleasant with jackfruit, mango, and plantain trees. Balustraded balconies of upper rooms in the two-storied building faced the courtyard from three sides. A spacious ground-floor hall, with high ceiling supported ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the expert use of safes and strong-boxes. My other papers the world can read if it choose to waste its time; at any rate, I am not going to lock them up and have the worry of a key preying on my mind. I should only lose it as I lost the other one. Now, by a freak of fortune, the key of Jaffery's flat remained in the suit-case wherein I had flung it at Havre, until it was fished out by Franklin on ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... an old lady his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the solemnity, and in whose house it was kept, suspecting his rival would offer foul play by these sorceries. Which fear she communicated to me. I bade her rely upon me: I had, by chance, about me a certain flat plate of gold, whereon were graven some celestial figures, supposed good against sunstroke or pains in the head, being applied to the suture: where, that it might the better remain firm, it was sewed to a ribbon to be tied under the chin; a foppery cousin-german ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... pug nose, his curiously flat and twisted face, and his querulous, plaintive chimpanzee eyes, had been moved by some unlucky whim to venture an insolent remark under the cover of darkness on the main deck. But Mr. Pike, from above, at the break of the poop, had picked the offender unerringly. This was when ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... bank of the Isonzo, which is crossed close by at Peteano by a magnificent broad wooden bridge, the work of Italian engineers. Gradisca had not been badly damaged, the Austrians having made no great resistance here against the Italian advance in May 1915, but Peteano had been laid absolutely flat by Austrian twelve-inch guns. It had been utterly destroyed in half an hour's intense bombardment some months before, and many Italian hutments in the neighbourhood had been destroyed at ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... "Lie flat, all of you; we are dead men!" thundered Spieghalter, as he himself fell prone on ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... One side, please, in Barscheit, when an officer comes along, or take the consequences. If you carelessly bumped into him, you were knocked down. If you objected, you were arrested. If you struck back, ten to one you received a beating with the flat of a saber. And never, never mistake the soldiery for the police; that is to say, never ask an officer to direct you to any place. This is regarded in the light of an insult. The cub-lieutenants do more to keep a passable sidewalk—for the passage of said cub-lieutenants—than ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... romance in your Teutonic composition, Von Glauben,—and I can quite sympathise with your admiration for the 'Glory-of-the-Sea' as you call her. From a man's point of view, I admire her myself. But I know nothing of her moral or mental qualities; though from her flat refusal to give me her husband's name yesterday, I judge her as wilful,—but most pretty women are that. And as for my line of conduct, it will, I assure you, be perfectly 'straight,'—in the direction of my duty as a King,—apart altogether from sentimental ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the flat sky sharply, and he laid his priest's clothes in the middle of a patch of white sand where they could be easily seen. Placing the Roman collar upon the top, and, stepping from stone to stone, he stood on the last one as on a pedestal, tall and gray in the ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... area of cross section of culvert in square feet. A area in acres of the drainage area above culvert. C a factor varying from 1 for flat country to 4 for mountainous country or rocky soil, the exact value to be selected after an ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... o'clock that night a man stood outside the door of Mrs. Bellew's flat in Chelsea violently ringing the bell. His face was deathly white, but his little dark eyes sparkled. The door was opened, and Helen Bellew in evening dress stood there holding a candle ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Manta in that province, had sent an express to Gonzalo giving his opinion that these vessels seemed hostile, as they had not called at the port for refreshments. He at the same time sent some Indians on board, in their ordinary rafts or flat boats, to inquire the purpose of their voyage; by means of which Indians Aldana transmitted letters to D'Olmos, urging him to quit the insurgent party, with copies of all the papers connected with the mission of the president. After perusing these papers, D'Olmos transmitted them to Gomez Estacio ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... you chose is full of humps and hollows, and won't do. We want a level spot, where the net will lie flat; and we must have a good place near by, where we can hide. What's the matter with that open place over there, with the big clump of bushes ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... who with well-founded hopes of the fulfilment of the purest and fairest desires of his heart, hastens to meet the woman of his choice, first dawned upon him when he had left the city behind and was dashing at a rapid trot toward the south-east across the flat, well-watered plain ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is rumored within IBM that channel cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the boas get dangerous — and it is worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Terrain: flat-to-rolling sandy desert with dunes rising to mountains in the south; low mountains along border with Iran; borders ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Cosmopolitan Hotel drifting into the Baptist church, and dragging in its tail of wreckage two saloons and a blacksmith's shop; while the County Court-house was stranded in solitary grandeur in a waste of gravel half a mile away. The intervening flat was still gashed and furrowed by the remorseless ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... Those who have seen a panther in liberty know there is nothing so graceful, so quick, so lithe and noiseless in animal life. And Deulin was like a panther at that moment. He leaped across the pavement to give one man a stinging switch across the cheek with the flat of the blade, and was back on guard in front of Cartoner like a flash. He ran right round the two men, who stood bewildered together, and did not know where to look for him. Once he lifted his foot and planted a kick in the small of his adversary's ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... soft-flowing rivers with curlew-haunted reed beds, and fields where quails cluck in the furrows; the fertile plain studded with clumps of ash and alder, and a rare farm-habitation standing amid orchards and hemp-fields, or a rarer hamlet of a dozen cottages grouped together. The country is flat, and, viewed from the rail or high road, unimpressive. But those fruitful fields have a placid beauty, and it needs but to penetrate the sequestered lanes and explore the thicket-bound courses of the streams, to meet with plenty of those pleasant solitudes ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... standing by the side entrance; behind the waggonette was a pony-cart, a good deal the worse for wear. The pony, whose name was Shag, stood very still and flicked his long tail backwards and forwards to keep the flies away. Nell saw Miss Macalister and two of the servants come out with those flat delicious picnic baskets which she knew so well, and which had so often made her lips water in fond anticipation; they were placed with solemnity in the waggonette. Then Molly and Nora, in their white sun-bonnets, took their places, and Hester and Annie sat opposite to them, and Mrs. Lorrimer took ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their mother's directions given from a distance, nor will your approach make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them. I have held ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... conditions on the only other part of the frontier where the hostile forces can well come to grips. The Alps gradually fall and break up into separate ridges as we pass east; and beyond Udine there is a flat gap, 50 miles wide, beyond which lies Trieste, with its fine harbor and predominantly Italian population. Further north, where the main line for Vienna passes the border at Pontebba, to penetrate the double barrier of the Carinthian and Styrian Alps, there can be little temptation ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and Neanticut was—and is, as I trust it will always be—propelled by wind power. No plodding horses to distract one's eyes from the surrounding peace,—no puffing steam to break with its discord the sweet rush of the water,—but a large, flat-bottomed boat, a white sail, and a Yankee steersman. The only evil attendant upon these advantages is, that the establishment cannot be upon both sides at once—and that the steersman, like other mortals, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... ears—they stuck out like sails from the side of his head, "trimmed flat across the masts"—and said nothing. He could not retort in his present condition of mind and body. But his schoolmates talked on, ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Pen opened a flat locket she always wore. A folded bit of paper and a tiny photograph fluttered into her lap. She gave both to Jim. The picture was a snapshot of Jim in his football togs. The bit of paper, unfolded, showed in Pen's handwriting ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to wait to be told what it was. But there was no chance of that until the evening was over, and they had bade farewell to the Hunts, arranging to have tea with them next day: after which a taxi bore them to the Kensington flat, and they gathered in the sitting-room while Norah brewed ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... most flat-nosed will be side by side with the most charming, and to win the latter's favours, a man will first have ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... that are chiefly recommended when attention to diet is necessary are stale bread, beef, mutton, poultry, fresh game, fish, chiefly cod and flat fish, avoiding mackerel, &c., eggs and oysters. Rice, sago, tapioca, and arrowroot are permitted, as are also potatoes, carrots, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, French beans, and broad beans. Water, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Sir J. Jervis, one 70 and two 64-gun ships, several frigates, sloops of war, bomb-ships, and transports with troops. We saluted the admiral, which he returned. All now was life and bustle, and in a short time the gun-boats were ready; each man-of-war received two flat boats to tow astern. In the latter end of February, 1794, we finally bid an affecting adieu to our yellow and black legged female friends at Bridge Town, who remained on the shore waving handkerchiefs much whiter than themselves until the fleet cleared the harbour. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... over which the army had to operate, from the Rapidan to the crossing of the James River, is rather flat, and is cut by numerous streams which make their way to the Chesapeake Bay. The crossings of these streams by the army were generally made not far above tide-water, and where they formed a considerable ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... rattling sound startled him. Then he remembered. A skiff was moored there, and he had brushed against the chain that led from the bow of the boat to the stump of a willow higher up on the bank. The man had seen the skiff,—a rude, flat-bottomed little craft, known to the Ozark natives as a John-boat,—just before sunset that evening. But there had been no boat in his thoughts when he had come to answer the call of the river, and in the preoccupation of his mind, as he stood there in the night beside the stream, he had not noticed ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... to refuse, takes a large, flat gum drop from the paper, and looks at it in embarrassment.] Ah! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gaze at a sunset of singular and striking splendour, whose gorgeous clouds and ruddy mists were reeling and boiling over the West-End. Borrow came up and stood leaning over the parapet, entranced by the sight, as well he might be. Like most people born in flat districts, he had a passion for sunsets. Turner could not have painted that one, I think, and certainly my pen could not describe it; for the London smoke was flushed by the sinking sun, and had lost its dunness, and, reddening every moment as it rose above the roofs, steeples, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... day of country clubs there used to be a very fine tennis court at Tudor Place, on the flat part to the north of the house not far from Congress (31st) Street, and it was much used. The Peter boys were champions of the District several times. In the first administration of President Cleveland, Mrs. Cleveland, a bride, used to drive her husband in from Oak View or, ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... the sea-shore. Hymir launched the skiff, and Thor, sitting down in the after-part, rowed with two oars so that Hymir, who rowed in the fore-part, wondered to see how fast the boat went on. At length he said they had arrived at the place where he was accustomed to fish for flat fish, but Thor told him they had better go on further. So they rowed till Hymir cried out that if they proceeded further they might be in danger from the Midgard serpent. In spite of this, Thor said he would row further, and so he rowed on, disregarding Hymir's words. When he laid ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... outside in the afternoon, while the other two boys and the rest of the family took a snooze. Here comes a man across the south flat a-horseback. ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... down flat on the sand. It takes a clever girl to do that and retain the respectful deference due her from men. It takes a graceful girl to accomplish it triumphantly when a man ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... it afterwards exchanged for that of Fort Lydius, and later still for that of Fort Edward, which the town that occupies the site owns to this day.[130] Thence he cut a rough roadway through the woods to where Wood Creek, choked with beaver dams, writhed through flat green meadows, walled in by rock and forest. Here he built another fort, which was afterwards rebuilt and named Fort Anne. Wood Creek led to Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain to Chambly and Montreal,—the ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... on her side, hugging her pillow, and Violet was flat on her back, blissfully unconscious of the ray of sunshine that fell ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... have been some hours afterward that he heard footsteps and voices outside the door. In sudden desperation he climbed up and lay flat on the wide shelf where he had hidden the uniform. Someone opened the door of the closet, glanced inside and ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... his destination, with his eyes fixed upon the point of light, when he was discovered by some horse that belonged to the stranger, or strangers, which gave out a loud neigh, as a signal to his friends of the approach of danger. At that moment, Tom dropped flat upon his face, as he had done before at the approach of the Apaches, and the luxuriant grass gathered about his form in such a way that he could not be seen by anyone at a moderate distance. But close upon the heels of the neigh came a low, tremulous whistle, scarcely uttered when Tom replied ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... think so," Hector replied. "I am sure that the viscount is as eager for action as we are, and winter here is not the same thing as in Holland or on the Rhine. From what I hear there is very little snow in the plains; and as the country is generally flat, an army could march almost as easily as in summer, and in some respects ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... those formidable German rockets, which seemed as though they would never go out and shed a pallid and yet blinding light. We knew that as soon as they were lighted everybody who happened to be within range of the enemy's rifle fire had at once to lie flat on the ground, and not move or raise his head so long as the light was burning. Otherwise shots would be fired from all directions, mowing down the vegetation and cutting up the earth all around him. This time we were well outside the range, and we watched the ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... some of them of leather, some of satin, some black, some red, some white. They touched him with an indescribable tenderness and he turned his eyes away. Under the lamp lay a pair of white gloves. One of them was flat and had not been worn, but the other was filled out with the impression of a little hand. He took it up and laid it across his own big palm, and another wave of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... meditation, if it is to bear its richest fruit, must be accompanied by a constant play of the imagination, than which there is no faculty more readily cultivated or more constantly neglected. Some readers see only a flat surface as they read; others find the book a door into a real world, and forget that they are dealing with a book. The real readers get beyond the book, into the life which it describes. They see the island in "The Tempest;" they hear the tumult of the storm; they mingle with ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... and left to avoid the flying boulders. When midway up this slope we reached a place where the granite rose in perfectly smooth bluffs on either side of a gorge,—a narrow cut, or walled way, leading up to the flat summit of the cliff. This we scaled by cutting ice steps, only to find ourselves fronted again by a still higher wall. Ice sloped from its front at too steep an angle for us to follow, but had melted in contact with it, leaving a space three feet wide between the ice and the rock. We entered ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... below our mountain road lay a valley so flat that it might have been levelled on purpose for the tilting of knights in great tournaments. Above and around us (for suddenly we were in as well as under it) was a ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... things is the flat, stale, unprofitable stuff we hear about," he added. "You've been sick, too, they ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... nothing here that resembled that. Kielland could see a group of little wooden shacks that looked as though they were ready at a moment's notice to sink with a gurgle into the mud. Off to the right across a mud flat one of the dredges apparently had done just that: a swarm of men and natives were hard at work dragging it up again. Control Tower was to the left, balanced precariously at a slight tilt in a sea ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse
... placed in flat piles in the barnyard in January, and allowed to lie until April, lost one third of its value. Under the conditions prevailing on many farms the loss suffered by exposure of manure ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... forth. But lest the reader should expect a more accurate description of his person when dressed, we shall endeavor at all events to present him with a loose outline. In the first place, his head was surmounted with a hat that resembled a flat skillet, wanting the handle; his coat, from which avarice and penury had caused him to shrink away, would have fitted a man twice his size, and, as he had become much stooped, its tail, which, at the best, had been preposterously long, now nearly swept the ground. To look ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... been considerably exhilarated before, and he was in a fair way to strengthen the ally of the loyalists by carrying his powerful influence to the head of the commander of the intending blockade-runner. The captain seated himself at the table, and Christy saw that he had a flat ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... thereafter she kept her house and brooded. Then one day she sallied forth all dressed in deepest mourning and attended by a train of servants, and, embarking upon a flat-bottomed barge, was borne up the river Scheldt towards Antwerp. Bruges was her ultimate destination, of which she left no word behind her, and took the longest way round to reach it. From Antwerp her barge voyaged on to Ghent, and thence by canal, drawn by four stout Flemish ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Selma entered it as a bride. Her coming signified the breaking up of the household and the establishment. Pauline had thought that out in her clear brain over night since receiving Wilbur's telegram. Wilbur must move into a modern house, and she into a modern flat. She would keep the very old things, such as the blazer and some andirons and a pair of candlesticks, for they were ancient enough to be really artistic, but the furniture of the immediate past, her father and mother's generation, should be sold at auction. Wilbur and she must, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... not open to flattery. The advance of the fore-legs became more decided, the lean backward more pronounced, the ears went flat down, and incipient ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... in Fig. 11; but different groups of events may present figures or surfaces in which the slopes of the curves are very different, namely, more or less steep; and if the curve is very steep, the figure runs into a peak; whereas, if the curve is gradual, the figure is comparatively flat. In the latter case, where the figure is flat, fewer events will closely cluster about the average, and the deviations will ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... sat quietly, elbows resting on the arms of his chair and his fingers interlocked against his stomach as he listened with a grim face to the story of the lynchings.... When I finished, the President exclaimed in his flat, midwestern accent, "My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... was a giant wood-beetle two inches long. Its two battling pincers were jet black, and curved like hooks of iron. It was a rich brown in colour and in the sunlight its metallic armour shone in a dazzling splendour. Neewa, squatted flat on his belly, eyed it with a swiftly beating heart. The beetle was not more than a foot away, and ADVANCING! That was the curious and rather shocking part of it. It was the first living thing he had met with that day that had ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... tangles of his defence. They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky That hastens over them where they endure Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, And foundered trench-lines ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... support. Before long the enemy, it was found, were approaching in order of battle, with 20,000 infantry, the same number of cavalry, and 40 guns. The country over which the two armies were advancing to the conflict is a dead flat, covered at short intervals with a low but thick jungle, and dotted with sandy hillocks. The enemy screened their infantry and artillery behind this jungle and such ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... as a femme sole with her large trunks, and having to wait while a vehicle was being got from the large-sized lantern called the Railway Inn, Gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room, the dusty decanter of flat water, and the texts in large letters calling on her to repent and be converted, were part of the dreary prospect opened by her family troubles; and she hurried away to the outer door looking toward the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... shore. The autumn lightning shot out from the sky, veering to the north and unmasking the black, raging lake and the distant city. A heavy roll of awe-inspiring thunder followed the flash. The man and woman did not speak until the flat ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... snow. The pretty clusters of the wild yam, seen climbing over the hazelbrush in the rich winter woods, have two ways of navigating in the wind; either the three-sided, papery capsule floats as a whole, or it splits through the winged angles and then the flat seeds with their membranaceous wings have a chance to flutter a foot or two away where haply they may find a square inch of unoccupied soil. The desmodium, the bidens, the agrimony and the cocklebur, which stick to your clothes even as late as February, are only using ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... dramatic moments of life are very apt to fall singularly flat. We manage to discount all their interest beforehand; and are amazed to find that the day to which we have looked forward so long—the day, it may be, of our marriage, or ordination, or election to be Lord Mayor—finds us curiously unconscious ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once—for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ringbolt near the foot of the foremast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done—for ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm. Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought it revolutionary, and made common cause with the Tories to defeat it. As it was introduced into the House of Commons, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... Crack, my boy," the other said. "I can't write a good book, but I think I can make a pretty good one on the Derby. What a flat Clavering is! And the Begum! I like that old Begum. She's worth ten of her daughter. How pleased the old girl was ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... glazed earthenware, bluish-green in hue, and belonged to the kind which has been called "slipper-shaped." [PLATE VI. Fig. 1.] They varied in length from three feet to six, and had a large aperture at their upper end, by means of which the body was placed in them, and a flat lid to close this aperture, ornamented like the coffin, and fixed in its place by a fine lime cement. A second aperture at the lower extremity of the coffin allowed for the escape of the gases disengaged during decomposition. The ornamentation of the coffins ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... six cuts appeared to have been inflicted with the cutting edge of a chopper, and the seventh with the flat part of the end of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... my intelligent companion. His intelligence, his courage and agility in attending to the fire, enchanted me. Turning round, I could behold the Boulevards, from the gate of St. Antoine to that of St. Martin, all covered with people, who seemed to me a flat band of flowers of various colours. Glancing at the distance, I beheld the summit of Montmartre, which seemed to me much below our level. I could easily distinguish Neuilly, St. Cloud, Sevres, Issy, ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... flat, baking, quivering expanse of alkali the crawling splotch of black showed up as plainly as a blot of ink on a sheet of clean white blotting paper. Peering over the edge of the chassis they all ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... one of his comrades to go below and bring up an anvil and four hammers, and when these had been brought, one of the ghosts blew up a fire and threw the young man upon it. When he was heated to a glow they laid him upon the anvil and beat him with hammers until he was as flat as paper. But with all this he was not ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top) and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an old practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... gun-cotton in the keg, it would have sent us all through the roof. But the smaller explosion would have touched off the two tons and a half of gun-cotton in those Whitehead torpedoes. That would have laid the whole shipyard flat. In fact, after the torpedoes went up, there wouldn't have been much left of any part ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... twenty days, while all who could handle tools were employed in building four large flat-boats for the transportation of the troops across the stream. On the second day of the encampment several natives from some tribe disposed to be friendly, on the eastern side of the river, visited the Spaniards. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... convenient (I thought so myself when I lived in one some days ago), but they have their disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that you are never in complete possession of the flat. You may think that the drawing-room floor (to take a case) is your very own, but it isn't; you share it with a man below who uses it as a ceiling. If you want to dance a step-dance, you have to consider his plaster. I was always ready enough to accommodate myself in this matter ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... live creature exposed to its mercy for its food. If a kid, hare, lamb, porker or what not is turned into one of Nemestronia's walled gardens and the leopard let in, she will, at first sight of the game, crouch belly-flat on the ground and give out a really appalling series of screams or whatever they should be called, entirely unlike any other noise she ever makes. Her hunting- squall, as Nemestronia calls it, rises and falls like a tune on an organ, and besides changing from shriller to less shrill ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... themselves.' I said that because I didn't want Mrs. Vyse to think us old-fashioned. She goes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a thick layer of flue under the beds, and the maid's dirty thumb-marks where you turn on the electric light. She keeps that flat abominably—" ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... lot he had to do besides! There were bills to accept, journeys to the banks and interviews with tradespeople and artisans; a flat had to be found and curtains had to be put up. He saw to everything. Of course he had to neglect his work; but once he was married, he would soon ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... repetition of the same political thoughts is apt to produce weariness. The main cause of the recurring swing of the electoral pendulum seems to be that opinions which have been held with enthusiasm become after a year or two stale and flat, and that the new ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... the prince, who was drowned. I swam for some minutes in the water; but by good fortune, or rather miracle, I soon felt ground. I went towards a black place, that, so far as I could discern in the dark, seemed to be land, and actually was a flat on the coast. When day came, I found it to be a desert island, lying about twenty miles from Balsora. I soon dried my clothes in the sun; and as I walked along I found several sorts of fruit, and likewise fresh water, which gave me some ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... his arm, on his thumb, on his forehead, and finally in his mouth, after which he tossed the plate up, threw the pole aside and caught it as it came down. The old manager standing by received the pole, but as he saw the plate tossed up, he fell flat upon the earth, screaming ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... few paces nearer, stealthily, flat on his belly, with his head slightly elevated, like a dark reptile ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... bosom of the ice-field, we had eyes for little else. Its forms were a surprise, so varied and so beautiful. I had supposed that field-ice was made up of flat cakes,—and cake of all kinds is among the flattest things I know! But here if was, simulating all shapes, even those of animated creatures, with the art of a mocking bird,—and simulating all in a material pure as amber, though more varied in color. One saw about him cliffs, basaltic columns, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... singular structure which here connects the shores of the stream. Every one has seen a row of stepping-stones across a shallow brook; now pile other stones on each of these, forming buttresses, and lay flat stones like unhewn planks from buttress to buttress, and you have the plan of this primitive bridge. It has a megalithic appearance, as if associated with the age of rude stone monuments. They say its origin is doubtful; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... there for a month or two. I was considered an interesting case, and had all sorts of distinguished fellows to come and look at me, and I lived like a fighting-cock all the time. I found, as long as I lay flat, and didn't get knocked about, I was really pretty comfortable, and what was more, I could use my hands. That was no end of a blessing. I had picked up a few ideas about drawing you know, at Bolsover, and found now that I could do pretty well at it. I believe some of my sketches at the Middlesex ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... resided in them, and the prayers and praises offered up before them were thought to be as acceptable as if addressed to the gods themselves. That those altars or stones might be as near as possible to the objects of worship represented, they were generally placed on the tops of mountains, or, in flat countries like Egypt, on high structures, the works of men's hands. Many have attributed the building of the pyramids to the worship of gods; but whether that was the purpose to which those majestic ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... aside, and the box opened. Out came a pair of cuff-buttons, a gold watch-chain, a flat pocket-book, two inkstands, and several ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield |
