"Half-moon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... until these outlines were plainly visible to the unaided vision. The Earth appeared as a great, softly shining, greenish half-moon, with parts of its surface obscured by fleecy wisps of cloud, and with its two gleaming ice-caps making of its poles two brilliant areas of white. The returning wanderers stared at their own world with their hearts in their throats as Crane, who was at the board, increased the retarding ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... exposed to the fire of the whole fleet." To this Captain Douglas, in his report of the occurrences, adds the suggestive particular that the Carleton, by a lucky slant of wind, fetched "nearly into the middle of the rebel half-moon, where she anchored with a spring on her cable." The position was one of honorable distinction, but likewise of great exposure. Her first officer lost an arm; her captain, Lieutenant Dacres, was so severely wounded that he was about to be thrown ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... you I found these here on the floor." Here he produced from a pocket a bent and twisted piece of baling-wire, and a steel half-moon horse-collar needle. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... the night made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold, was sinking behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making the sky dull purple with its glow. Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to stir with scent, as if it ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... a gigantic bonnet like a half-moon, with her white cap visible beneath it; and Nancy Joe appeared behind her, be-ribboned out of all recognition, and taller by many inches for the turret of feathers and flowers on the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... general finish of the face has a great effect upon the eye. This old-fashioned brass-faced one we have here, with its arched top, half-moon slit for the day of the month, and ship rocking at the upper part, impresses me with the notion of its being an old cynic, elevating his brows, whose thoughts can be seen wavering between ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... upon a site for the fort, every man set to work, some to build the fort, others to pitch the tents, fell trees and make clapboards to reload the ships, others to make gardens and nets. The fort was in the form of a triangle with a half-moon at each corner, intended to mount four ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the herd from the other half-section. Emil ran from the windmill to open the corral gate. From the log house, on the little rise across the draw, the smoke was curling. The cattle lowed and bellowed. In the sky the pale half-moon was slowly silvering. Alexandra and Carl walked together down the potato rows. "I have to keep telling myself what is going to happen," she said softly. "Since you have been here, ten years now, I have never really been lonely. But I can remember what it ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... began. The wind had shifted to the north-west, a good enough wind for working up Channel on the port tack. English contemporary accounts say the Armada was formed in a half-moon, a centre and two wings slightly thrown forward. Howard had as yet only brought part of his fleet out of Plymouth, but though greatly outnumbered by the Spaniards, he had his best ships and his most enterprising captains with him, and nothing daunted by the grand array of ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... There was a half-moon in the sky, which was pitilessly clear, for cloudiness might have made it warmer; when the firelight sank, the slender spruce trunks cut sharply against the silvery radiance and the hard glitter of the snow. Everything was tinted with blue and white, and ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... horizon with his half-fevered gaze. To the south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again into vanishing and ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... the moon appears exactly as a half-moon, 90 deg. from the sun towards the east, she is in the first quarter, with ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... far to go. Inanda's Kraal was a cluster of kyas and rondavels, shaped in a half-moon, with a flat space between the houses, where grew a big merula tree. All around was a medley of little fires, with men squatted beside them. Here and there a party had finished their meal, and were swaggering about with a great shouting. The mob into which I had ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... eastern edge of Hooker's Bend, drawn in a rough semicircle around the Big Hill, lies Niggertown. In all the half-moon there are perhaps not two upright buildings. The grimy cabins lean at crazy angles, some propped with poles, while others hold out against gravitation ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... as the city of Aquileia. However, it does not always take place in the same way at every time, but when the light of the moon is faint, the advance of the sea is not strong either, but from the first[6] half-moon until the second the inflow has a tendency to be greater. So much for ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... fashionable sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the Strand, a few doors west of the residence of the celebrated Le Beck, a famous cook, who had a large portrait of himself for the sign of his house, at the north-west corner of Half-moon Street, since called Little Bedford Street. One day Mr. Fielding observed to Mrs. Hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which he thought would be his best production; and that he ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... curve of coast line in Dorset is Swanage Bay, and to see it at its best one should stroll across the rising ground of Peveril Point. To the right are the dark cliffs of Purbeck marble that encircle Durlston Bay; to the left across the half-moon stretch of water is the white chalk of Ballard Point guarded by "Old Harry's daughter," the column of detached chalk in front. At one time this was one of a family, but "Old Harry" and his "wife" have sunk beneath the waves and the sole remaining member of ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... best, it is not all. It is here to transfigure all; we must accept with it the merer things it glorifies. For life calls us, even from our love. The day is long and we must work in it; but we can meet when the day is done. In the light of this low half-moon can put off in our boat, and row across and push the prow into the slushy sand at the other side of ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... within half a rifle-shot of him; another half rifle-shot behind followed the wolves, flung out fan-shape, their gray bodies moving like specters in a half-moon cordon, and their leaders almost abreast the caribou a dozen rods ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... thus: The king sits in the middle of an half-moon, and has his council, the old and wise, on each hand. Behind them, or at a little distance, sit the younger fry in the same figure. Having consulted and resolved their business, the king ordered one of them ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline; its most rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses about its base line of the hills; the hills rose high, enclosing the town in a half-moon curve, clothed with forests from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... into my hand by an under-skinker; one that never spake other English in his life than Eight shillings and sixpence, and You are welcome; with this shrill addition, Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,—or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I pr'ythee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar; and do thou never leave calling Francis! that his tale to me may be nothing but Anon. Step aside, ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... to the assistance of the barbarians from the mountains near the river Thermodon, and fought in this battle. The Romans, among the plunder of the field, did, indeed, meet with bucklers in the form of a half-moon, and such buskins as the Amazons wore; but there was not the body of a woman found among the dead. They inhabit that part of Mount Caucasus which stretches toward the Hyrcanian Sea, and are not next ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... one of purification (dies lustricus is its alternative title), and a piacular offering was made to preserve the child from evil influences in the future. Friends brought presents, especially neck-bands in the form of a half-moon (lunulae), and the golden balls (bullae) which were worn as a charm round the neck until the attainment ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... garrisoning the fort. The advance party halted to wait until these should arrive; but at length Semple grew impatient and ordered his men to advance without them. The Nor'westers had concealed themselves behind a clump of trees. As Semple approached they galloped out, extended their line into a half-moon {97} formation, and bore down to meet him. They were dressed as Indian warriors and painted in hideous fashion. The force was well equipped with guns, knives, bows ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... before daybreak, and in the morning the little hotel had returned to its normal state of peace. The early sun blazed upon the white walls above, and upon the half-moon, beach below, and shot straight into the recess in the rocks where Clare had sat by the old black cross in the dark. The level beams ran through her room, too, for it faced south-east, looking across the gulf; and when she went to ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... you, my dear, that when Francois woke me at a very early hour on this eventful morning, while the keen stars were still glittering overhead, a half-moon, as sharp as a razor, beaming in the frosty sky, and a wicked north wind blowing, that blew the blood out of one's fingers and froze your leg as you put it out of bed;—shall I tell you, my dear, that when Francois called me, and said, "V'la vot' cafe, ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... that the Catskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings; that it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name; that his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes,—whip-snakes, thunder-snakes, pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and this monster. He lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the family, and sees them ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... could have nothing to fear. Besides, a bad man would not sing that song.—As she opened the door, a soft spring wind blew upon her full of genial strength, as if it came straight from those dark blue clefts between the heavy clouds of the cast. Away in the clear west, the half-moon was going down in dreaming stillness. The dark figure of a little man stood leaning against ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... about two o'clock in the afternoon that Barnabas knocked at the door of the Viscount's chambers in Half-moon Street and was duly admitted by a dignified, albeit somewhat mournful gentleman in blue and silver, who, after a moment of sighing hesitancy, ushered him into a small reception room where sat a bullet-headed man ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... himself to his inquiring eyes was a gallant figure in a glittering steel corselet crossed by a silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length, headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant. "Is not Crichton victorious?" asked Ogilvy of Captain Larchant, for he ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Tercera is the chief island, being fifteen or sixteen leagues in circumference, and so high and steep in many places that it is almost impregnable, and they have built forts in such places as are accessible. The only port is before the capital, named Angra, and as it is in the form of a half-moon, it is called the Half-Moon of Angra. At each horn of this half-moon there is a mountain, which are called the Brazils, which project out into the sea, appearing from a distance as if two islands; and these mountains are so high that one may see at any time ten or twelve ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... us, and from good Authority, that the DEVIL finding it for his Interest to bring his favourite Mahomet upon the Stage, and spread the victorious Half-Moon upon the Ruin of the Cross, having with great Success, rais'd first the Saracen Empire, and then the Turkish to such a Height, as that the Name of Christian seemed to be extirpated in those two Quarters of the World, which were then not the greatest ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... there lay at his door a thing calling out to be done! The thing he did not like was always the thing he had to do! he grumbled; but this thing he hated doing! It was abominable! What! send the grand head, with its horns spread wide like a half-moon, and leaning—like oaks from a precipice—send it to the man that made it a dead thing! Never! It must not be left behind! It must go to the grave with the fleet limbs! and over it should rise a monument, at sight of which every friendly highlandman would say, Feiich an cabracli mor de ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... tents of the foreign hosts pitched on the Tsiragan piazza, already see the half-moon cast down, and the double cross raised on the towers of the mosques, the khanze[6] plundered, and the faithful led forth to execution. In the Fanar quarters[7] they are already assembling the people, and saying to one ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... saving of rain Water; which they do, by casting up great Banks in convenient places to stop and contain the Rains that fall, and so save it till they have occasion to let it out into their Fields: They are made rounding like a C or Half-Moon, every Town has one of these Ponds, which if they can but get filled with Water, they count their Corn is as good as in the Barn. It was no small work to the ancient Inhabitants to make all these Banks, of which there ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... palmiste is found, the gatherer makes an incision into it with a cutlass or a hatchet. This incision is generally in the figure of a half-moon, with the base of the semicircle downwards, and the wound increasing in depth in that direction, so as to expose effectually the flesh of the tree. When this is done, the gatherer marks the locality, and leaves the tree, which he does not revisit for a considerable time. When the moon ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... middle of the afternoon, I reached Broughton Hill, and looked off upon the most beautiful and magnificent landscape I have yet seen in England. It was the Belvoir Vale; and it would be worth a hundred miles' walk to see it, if that was the only way to reach it. It lay in a half-moon shape, the base line measuring apparently about twenty miles in length. As I sat upon the high wall of this valley, that overlooks it on the south, I felt that I was looking upon the most highly-finished piece ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... in the form of a half-moon, with a sandy beach round it, and at its head a fresh-water river, having a bar across its mouth, which makes it navigable only for boats. He mentions also the height of the land which forms its sides. All these particulars are noticed by Cook. Even the name given to it by the ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... the first mild—or, at least, the first bright—day of March, in this year, I walked through what was once a country lane, between the hostelry of the Half-moon at the bottom of Herne Hill, and the secluded College ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the phases of Venus will alone supply sufficient interest for telescopic observation. The changes in her form, from that of a round full moon when she is near superior conjunction to the gibbous, and finally the half-moon phase as she approaches her eastern elongation, followed by the gradually narrowing and lengthening crescent, until she is a mere silver sickle between the sun and the earth, form a succession ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... half-moon, projected from the beach, More than four miles about, the city's port; Six hundred paces deep; and crowning each Horn of the circling haven, was a fort; On every side, secure from storm or breach, (Save only from the south, a safe resort) In guise of theatre the town extended ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... going up a slope that had been eroded concave. It was at the very top of the half-moon angle, upside down, standing Ekstrohm on his head. Since he was not strapped ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon
... she succeeded in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east: a new lamp had come, she thought, and ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... night. They are much shyer than you are, and can see you better; so that, if you blunder towards them, they mistake your blindness for courage, and take to their heels promptly. As I stepped out there was a double rush in some bushes behind my tent, and by the light of a half-moon I caught one glimpse of a bear and her cub jumping away for ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... dull, and there was an exact sufficiency about its furnishings. Yet there was a certain dignity about it; it was unmistakably a best room, and not a place where one might make a litter or carry one's every-day work. You felt at once that somebody valued the prim old-fashioned chairs, and the two half-moon tables, and the thin carpet, which must have needed anxious stretching every spring to make it come to the edge of the floor. There were some mourning-pieces by way of decoration, inscribed with the names of Mrs. Patton's departed ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... warning had come to the settlements that the Indians were about to descend upon them. Sevier set out at once to meet the red invaders. Learning from his scouts that the Indians were near he went into ambush with his troops disposed in the figure of a half-moon, the favorite Indian formation. He then sent out a small body of men to fire on the Indians and make a scampering retreat, to lure the enemy on. The maneuver was so well planned and the ground so well ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... two hours. Susanna now heard the water roaring beneath her feet. She seemed to be on the point of plunging into an abyss; all around was darkness and snow. She stood still. It was a moment of terrible uncertainty. Then parted the clouds, and the half-moon in full glory beamed forth, just as it was about to sink behind a rock. Susanna now saw the abyss on whose brink she stood; she saw the Storlie-force spread its white masses of water in the moonlight, saw the ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... free it, and he remains defenceless against another attack. But with his curved blade of temper, which will not shiver and which takes a razor's edge, the warrior of the East neither strikes nor gives point, but presents the half-moon-shaped sword at his opponent, holding it still if galloping, pushing it forward if motionless, and will so slice off limb or head, or cut deep into the body, without useless expenditure of strength, or the chance of losing even the momentary control of his weapon. I have seen an Arab meet an enemy ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... its full to-night, and one of the most beautiful sights I have witnessed was its rising above the mountain. First the sky lighted up, then a halo appeared, then the edge of the moon, not bigger than a star, then the half-moon, not semi-circular, but blazing up like a great gaslight, and, finally, the full, round moon had climbed to the top, and seemed to stop a moment to rest and look down on ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... The male of Promethea is the darkest moth of the Limberlost. The male of Angulifera is a brownish grey, the female reddish, with warm tan colours on her wing borders. She is very beautiful. The markings on the wings of both are not half-moon shaped, as Cecropia and Gloveri, but are oblong, and largest at the point next the ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... began to slope upward once more, and Raf saw a half-moon of light ahead, brilliant light which could only come from the sun. The alien was outlined there as he went out; then he himself was scuffing through sand close upon another death scene. The dead monster ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... host disposed in battle-array, aided by Dhrishtadyumna, disposed his troops in counter-array. And in opposition to that array of thine, the son of Pandu formed a fierce array after the form of the half-moon. And stationed on the right horn, Bhimasena shone surrounded by kings of diverse countries abundantly armed with various weapons. Next to him were those mighty car-warriors Virata and Drupada; and next to them was Nila armed with envenomed weapons. And next to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the big towns, if a take it should prove to be. And so all watched as the large boat was rowed steadily, its heap of net growing lower, and the row of dot-like corks that trailed from behind getting longer and longer, and gradually taking the shape of a half-moon. ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... horny wing-cases, a very wonderful pair of transparent wings is cunningly tucked away. The marvellous way in which they are folded up after use we cannot describe in detail here. In each wing there is a hinge shaped somewhat like a half-moon, in the middle of the stiff front edge (fig. 3, in the wing extended on the left). When the hinge is bent, the outer half of the wing folds over towards the tail, and the tip points forward. The further inward folding of the hinge of this rod next appears to divide the wing into two, the second ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, And trampling envy spied me ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... the living had been given to a successor, and Bedford knew the name of Flockart no more. After Winifred's marriage, however, London society—or rather a gay section of it—became acquainted with James Flockart, who lived at ease in his pretty bachelor-rooms in Half-Moon Street, and who soon gathered about him a large circle of male acquaintances. Sir Henry knew him, and raised no objection to his wife's friendship towards him. They had been boy and girl together; therefore what more natural than that they should be ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... hearts as joyous as waited while she cooked And served upon returning to their cot In hall where once far other hearts caroused. They and their tribe could never reap a tithe Of the vast harvest rustling round those ruins, And over which a half-moon soon set forth From black hills mounded up both east and south, While north-west her light played on distant summits; All the huge interspace floored with standing corn Which kings afar send soldiery to reap, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... altar in the middle, where great logs of dry wood sent myriad sparks up the dark chimney-throat; and over the front of this recess a large wooden entablature bearing this motto, finely carved in old English letters, 'Fear God and honour the King'. And beyond the party, who formed a half-moon with their chairs and well-furnished table round this bright fireplace, what a space of chiaroscuro for the imagination to revel in! Stretching across the far end of the room, what an oak table, high enough surely for Homer's gods, standing on four ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... took the road eastward between the mountains and the sea. It was a beautiful region of desolation. There were rocky glens cutting across the road, and occasionally a brawling stream ran down to the salt water, breaking the line of cliffs with a little bay and a half-moon of yellow sand. The heather covered all the hills. There were no trees, and but few houses. The chief signs of human labour were the rounded piles of peat, and the square cuttings in the moor marking the places where the subterranean ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... of girth and headstall as he fastened them. He also rode, for lightness, in a thin deerskin jacket which fitted him closely, with a rifle across his saddle, gazing with keen eyes across the shadowy waste when now and then a half-moon came out. Once he also drew bridle and sat still a minute listening, for he fancied he heard the distant beat of hoofs, and then went on with a little laugh at his credulity. The Cedar was roaring ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... long after the rest of the household had retired, three men took advantage of a fine half-moon to make a circuit of the castle, first along the counterscarp of the moat, and next along all accessible portions of the walls and battlements. They halted often, and, with much observation of the defences, held earnest talk together, sometimes eagerly contending rather ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... stood on high ground near the river, with quite a drive (in at one gate and out at the other) sweeping past the steps. Between the two gates was a half-moon of shrubs, to the left of the steps a conservatory, and to their right the walk leading to the tradesmen's entrance and the back premises; here also was the pantry window, of which more anon. The right house was the residence of ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... November afternoon, we walk into Kensington Gardens, where they join the Park on the Bayswater side, and, crossing in front of the ornamental fountain, glance at the semicircular seat let into a dismal little Temple of the Sun, we shall see a half-moon of apathetic figures. There, enjoying a moment of lugubrious idleness, may be sitting an old countrywoman with steady eyes in a lean, dusty-black dress and an old poke-bonnet; by her side, some gin-faced creature of the town, all blousy and draggled; a hollow-eyed foreigner, far gone in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... itself stands in the form of a half-moon on the banks of this mighty stream, and before it are moored craft of every description— backwood boats, keel boats, steamers and ships, brigs and schooners, from every part of the world. I may remark that directly behind the city is an impenetrable swamp, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... negro engaged to clean generally, gave it as his opinion, that the shingles were not worth the compliment. The windows were very small; more than half the glass was of the old, blue bull's-eye pattern, no longer to be found at modern glaziers, and each heavy window-shutter had a half-moon cut in its upper panel, to let in the daylight. When we add, that there was a low porch before the door, with a sweet-briar on one side, and a snowball on the other, the reader will have a correct idea of the house inhabited ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Then the two craft proceeded in company till the sun showed over the eastern skyline. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging vapors, and there, before our eyes, like a picture, lay the shrimp fleet, spread out in a great half-moon, the tips of the crescent fully three miles apart, and each junk moored fast to the buoy of a shrimp-net. But there was no stir, no sign ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... Fairman's house at Shackamaxon—otherwise Eel-Hole—and in this pleasant springtime, April 4, 1683, he met King Tammany under the forest elm, with the savage people in half-moon circles, looking at the healthy-fed and business-like Quaker. There Tammany and his Indian allies surrendered all the land between the Pennypack ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... still crowded with revellers, and many of the brethren remained there. The little band who had been told off for duty passed out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along the sidewalk so as not to provoke attention. It was a bitterly cold night, with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty, star-spangled sky. The men stopped and gathered in a yard which faced a high building. The words, "Vermissa Herald" were printed in gold lettering between the brightly lit windows. From within came the clanking of ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... flank. This long line of troops, who were visible to each other but divided by the deep broad nullahs which intersected the whole plain, fell back slowly, halting frequently to keep touch. Seven hundred yards away were the enemy, coming on in a great half-moon nearly three miles long and firing continually. Their fire was effective, and among other casualties at this time Lieutenant Crawford, R.A., was killed. Their figures showed in rows of little white dots. The darkness fell swiftly. The smoke puffs became fire flashes. Great ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... that he had made many such, he handed over his cake for manipulation. The big boy took out a mouthful, leaving a crescent with jagged edge. The little boy was not pleased by the change, and began to whimper; whereupon the big boy pacified him by saying that he would make the cake into a half-moon. So he nibbled off the horns of the crescent, and gnawed the edge smooth; but when the half-moon was made, the little boy perceived that there was hardly any cake left, and he again began to snivel. The big boy again diverted him by telling him ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... most cathedrals the form of a semicircle. There are exceptions; to mention three: at Poitiers, at Laon, and in Notre Dame du Fort at Etampes the wall is square, as in the ancient civic basilicas, and does not describe the sort of half-moon, of which the significance is one of the most ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... embroidery. This apparel, still in vogue among old people, became his face, which was not unlike that of Frederick the Great. He never put on his three-cornered hat lest he should destroy the effect of the half-moon traced upon his cranium by a layer of powder. His right hand, resting on a hooked cane, held both cane and hat in a manner worthy of Louis XIV. The fine old gentleman took off his wadded silk pelisse and seated himself in an armchair, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... the Captain's Tower is Norman, but it is mostly Decorated. A half-moon battery of three guns once defended the Tower and commanded the outer ward, but it has ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... and her green plaid waist in the middle and flanked her with purple violets and red carnations. The ear-trumpet was laid upon the orchids just where she could reach it easily. Then her escorts took positions as a sort of half-moon guard behind and each held two or three American Beauties straight up and down as if they were the insignia of his ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... not going very well with him. For one thing, the Half-Moon Trust Company had finally terminated all dealings with the gorgeous marble-pillared temple of high finance of which he was a director. For another, he had met the men of the West, and for them he had done things which he did not always care to think ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... family usually sat around them for a considerable time, until supper was prepared. On the night when the conductors of Thorgunna's funeral returned to Froda, there appeared, visible to all who were present, a meteor, or spectral appearance, resembling a half-moon, which glided around the boarded walls of the mansion in an opposite direction to the course of the sun, and continued to perform its revolutions until the domestics retired to rest. This apparition was renewed every night during a whole week, and was pronounced by Thorer with the wooden ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... chapel, watching his armor, thinking such wonderful thoughts, and dreaming such wonderful wide-eyed dreams. At such times Myles saw again the dark mystery of the castle chapel; he saw again the half-moon gleaming white and silvery through the tall, narrow window, and throwing a broad form of still whiteness across stone floor, empty seats, and still, motionless figures of stone effigies. At such times he stood again in front of the twinkling tapers that ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... twisting; as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briars and blackberries, From the memories of the birds that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, From the myriad thence-aroused words, From the word stronger and more ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... battery of six guns at daybreak in a kloof between two kopjes, in a half-moon formation, commanding the old position near Spion Kop, at about 4,500 yards, mine being in the centre. I was in charge all day and fired shots at intervals. The wind was too high for balloon reconnoitring. My first shot, a shrapnel, at the ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... home a deer with its fore-legs drawn over his shoulders and grasped in front of him. Alton jerked it into the most convenient position, and then stopped a moment, panting, and glanced about him. His burden was not especially heavy, but he was weary and his camp was far away, while, though a half-moon was now growing into brilliancy above the firs, it ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... too, to take Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbonniere, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and how all Moscow was there ... 'and the crush there ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... bazar was the noisiest, for the men were engaged - to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block - with the kukri, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the Afghan hates the half-moon blade. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... Margaret did not answer. I think the Mother dropped asleep; I sat beside her and watched. But Margaret stood still at the foot of the bed, not sitting down, and in the dim light of our one little lamp I could scarcely see her face as she stood, only that it was turned toward the casement, where a faint half-moon rode in the heavens, and the calm ancient stars looked down on us. Oh, how small a world is ours in the great heavens! yet for one soul of one little babe in this small world, the Son ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... never seen in the daytime. The quietude is profound, although a voice from an unseen fishing-boat can now and then be heard. How strange the landscape seems! It is not a variation of the old landscape; it is a new world. The half-moon rides high in the sky, and near her is Jupiter. A little way further to the left is Venus, and still further down is Mercury, rare apparition, just perceptible where the deep blue of the night is yielding to the green which foretells the sun. The east grows lighter; the birds begin to ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... out the dress with the silver moons, and put a half-moon made of precious stones in her hair. When she appeared at the festival, all eyes were turned upon her, but the King's son hastened to meet her, and filled with love for her, danced with her alone, and no longer so ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... water's edge, at the first streak under the wales; and they set light sails, hauling the tacks well out and making the sheet fast after the southern fashion, and then swaying away at the halyards, till the white canvas was up to the mast-head, bellying full, and as steady as the upper half of a half-moon. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... small half-moon bight, he let up on his oars and drifted, staring with a touch of surprise at a white cottage-roofed house with wide porches sitting amid an acre square of bright green lawn on a gentle slope that ran up from a narrow ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... nonsense is too late," said the sergeant, and with levelled bayonets his sections swept away the chance of treachery. So the story runs, and at any rate our men pushed forward without further opposition until they formed a half-moon overlooking the darkness in a deep valley that might have been full of foes. Into that darkness, therefore, they poured steady volleys for half an hour, while the engineers were trying to destroy the ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... a cab outside from the Yard," he said. "I came straight here to fetch you before going on to Half-Moon Street." ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... made a very good estimate of the height of lunar mountains, of which many are five miles high and some as much as seven. He did this simply by measuring from the half-moon's straight edge the distance at which their peaks caught the rising or setting sun. The above simple diagram shows that as this distance is to the diameter of the moon, so is the height of the sun-tipped mountain to the ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... and a few minutes' examination proved to him that this was a genuine old clock, untouched by the restorer's hand, and in an excellent state of preservation. The works appeared all right as far as he could make out, but through the narrow half-moon of glass, so often inserted in the cases of old clocks for the purpose of displaying the pendulum, that article was not to be seen, and he found that it was missing from inside the case, as were also the weights, so that it was impossible ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... population to-day must exceed a hundred and thirty thousand. The space formerly covered by rice fields and vegetable gardens is now laid out in well-built, wide thoroughfares, smoothly macadamized and faultlessly clean and neat. The town extends along the shore, which is level, but is backed by a half-moon of low, well-wooded hills, among which are the private dwellings of the foreign residents, built after the European style, on the location known as the Bluff. The two principal hotels, the club-houses, and some consular business residences, are located on ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to go in their first number. Can you do it for them?" "I guess so," said I; "what might it be about?" "Well, anything on newspapers, or perhaps what you've done yourself, starting them." And off the boys went, for we had reach'd the Philadelphia side. The hour was fine and mild, the bright half-moon shining; Venus, with excess of splendor, just setting in the west, and the great Scorpion rearing its length more than half up in the southeast. As I cross'd leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night-scene, my ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... back to the oak-trees, and there—there was not a sign of life. All was as silent and still as if nothing had ever disturbed Nature's quiet. I remember how beautiful was the night. A half-moon shone out in a clear sky, like a semicircle of pure, bright silver, the tops of the mountains were silhouetted against the sky as if they were cut out of cardboard, and all was so calm just then. You don't get such lovely nights ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... mighty bellowing. It partook of the magnitude and volume of distant thunder, and it came to us directly from leeward, rising above the crash of the surf and travelling directly in the teeth of the storm. As we passed the point the whole cove burst upon our view, a half-moon of white sandy beach upon which broke a huge surf, and which was covered with myriads of seals. It was from them that the great ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... teeth, Giuseppe! I saw him bite a fair half-moon out of the iron pipe by the fountain ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... down for a moment. These words reminded him that indeed this was his home, the land of his father, the place where perhaps he had been actually born. The magic of the desert night bewitched him; the half-moon, the few stars in the pale sky, the sense of limitless space across the sand, the water-hole and the camped cattle, the quavering voice of the chanting nigger which was now joined by another voice, wilder and more exultant—these things and the consciousness that his father ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... curious species, which is of a light brown above, white underneath; very broad and thin, and has a peculiarly shaped tail, half-moon-shaped in fact, like a grocer's ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... the carriage, the half-moon in the dark blue sky, making heavy shadows on the trees and mansions, lit her cheek and Greek-knotted hair on the side next me with a glamour so that her head and shoulders shone softly in it ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... the foot of the Red Canyon Trail, I had two most delightful swims—one on the night of the arrival of our party, the other by starlight next morning. Though there is an ugly rapid at this place, one may go up stream far enough to get away from danger, for a half-moon-shaped mass of rock affords safe shelter, and deep enough water for swimming. The night swim was so refreshing that I could not resist the allurement to take another in the morning, before we left camp. The order ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... a spare shirt, and then lay down on my blanket beside the fire to listen contentedly to the clamour of the rain upon the roof. About two in the morning the downpour ceased, the sky cleared, and a fair half-moon of silvery brightness shone out above the tops of the white gum forest. Fifty yards or so away, in front of the door, a shallow pool had formed in a depression of the hard, sun-baked soil, and ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... of the pioneer English inventors of coffee-plantation machinery, brought out in Ceylon his cylinder pulper for Arabian coffee. The pulping surface was made of copper, and was pierced with a half-moon punch that raised the cut edges ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Queenston, and includes that feature of the river bank generally known as Vrooman's Point; it was still in the possession of the Vrooman family when I last visited the place about twelve years ago. The remains of a small half-moon or redan battery on the point which had been constructed in the War of 1812, and played a considerable part in the battle of Queenston were then quite well marked. One of the Vrooraans of that time was in the militia artillery, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... houses on the Boulevard de Sebastopol at the end of the Rue de la Cossonnerie were still black; but above the sharp line of their slate roofs a patch of pale blue sky, circumscribed by the arch-pieces of the covered way, showed like a gleaming half-moon. Claude, who had been bending over some grated openings on a level with the ground, through which a glimpse could be obtained of deep cellars where gas lights glimmered, now glanced up into the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... made so many dupes, rode a good horse, and dressed both gaily and expensively. One of her saddles cost 30 pounds. It was literally studded with silver; for she carried on it the emblems of her profession wrought in that metal; namely, a half-moon, seven stars, and the rising sun. Poor woman! her sun is now nearly set. Her sins have found her out. She has been in great distress on account of a son, who was transported for robbery; but has never thought of seeking, as a penitent, refuge in the God of mercy; ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... nothing but clean gravel in the bottom of the dish. You work this off carefully, turning the dish about this way and that and swishing the water round in it. It requires some practice. The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish, by its own weight. At last there is only a little half-moon of sand or fine gravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish—you work the dish slanting from you. Presently the gold, if there was any in the dirt, appears in 'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... good half-moon, now declining in the west, I got the two bells off without much trouble, and threw them under the wagon. Then, in case the Confucian might be an earlier bird than the lad o' Ecclefechan, I put the bullocks and horse across the boundary fence, carefully replacing the brush I had ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... in the rear, which, like those of the allies, appear scarcely to have come into action. The men on board, including those of every description, were computed at not less than a hundred and twenty thousand. The galleys spread out, as usual with the Turks, in the form of a regular half-moon, covering a wider extent of surface than the combined fleets, which they somewhat exceeded in numbers. They presented, indeed, as they drew nearer, a magnificent array, with their gilded and gaudily painted prows, and their myriads of pennons and streamers fluttering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... morning he had come to the weekly market with Auld Jock, a farm laborer, and the Grassmarket of the Scottish capital lay in the narrow valley at the southern base of Castle Crag. Two hundred feet above it the time-gun was mounted in the half-moon battery on an overhanging, crescent-shaped ledge of rock. In any part of the city the report of the one-o'clock gun was sufficiently alarming, but in the Grassmarket it was an earth-rending explosion directly ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... of us, from which just then a puff of wind rolled away the mist. It was black with advancing men! As yet they were a considerable distance away—quite two miles, I should think—and coming on very slowly in a great half-moon with thin horns and a deep breast; but a ray from the sun glittered upon their countless spears. It seemed to me that there must be quite twenty or thirty thousand of them in this breast, which was in three divisions, commanded, as I learned afterwards, ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... account of it; and the many perplexities he was in, arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found in telling his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences and distinctions between the scarp and counterscarp,—the glacis and covered-way,—the half-moon and ravelin,—as to make his company fully comprehend where ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... lower towards the horizon. The green-gold rays of the morning sun rose up to meet it. The star hovered between the pale growing light below and the dark blue sky above. Then it melted away in the glow of sunrise. The half-moon still cast our shadow on the dusty track. But not for long. The zone of yellow light in the east grows rapidly larger and brighter. The brilliant edge of the god of day tips the horizon; a burst of light follows; and now the morning sun, day's harbinger, "comes dancing ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... his house, his clerk tells you that Mr. Whirler has just stept out, but will be at home exactly at two; you wait at a coffee-house till two, and then find that he has been at home, and is gone out again, but left word that he should be at the Half-moon tavern at seven, where he hopes to meet you. At seven you go to the tavern. At eight in comes Mr. Whirler to tell you that he is glad to see you, and only begs leave to run for a few minutes to a gentleman that lives near the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... And cuts me from the best of all my land, A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out. Henry ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breeches that showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-black holsters, thick as they were wi' dust. Each man had a golden helmet, and a scabbard flapping by his side, and a piece of metal like a half-moon jingling from his horse's cheek-strap. 12 D was the numbering on every saddle, meaning the ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but it has now a population of a hundred and thirty thousand, with well-built streets of dwelling-houses, the thoroughfares broad and clean, and all macadamized. The town extends along the level shore, but is backed by a half-moon of low, wooded hills, known as the Bluff, among which are the dwellings of the foreign residents, built after the European and American style. A deep, broad canal surrounds the city, passing by the large warehouses, and connected with ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... how many different shapes harlequin and columbine change their little white hats? They turn and twist them so well that they become, one after another, a spinning-top, a boat, a wine-glass, a half-moon, a cap, a basket, a fish, a whip, a dagger, a baby, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the King of England—namely, with the Indians. He consequently convened a meeting—under the wide spreading branches of an elm tree, the Indian chiefs assembled. They were unarmed; the old men sat in a half-moon upon the ground, the middle aged in the same figure, at a little distance from them; the younger men formed a third semicircle in the rear. Before them stood William Penn,—a light blue sash, the only mark which distinguished him from his friends, ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... got about half-way through Martha's appetising cake and had taken three good half-moon bites out of a slice of hot bread, thinking deeply the while, and munching mechanically with his mouth full, but quite unconscious of the flavour of that which he ate, when the door was thrown open and Bella entered, making the boy jump and ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... mountaineers lay dead or wounded. The line of spears seemed impenetrable. The Swiss began to waver. The enemy, seeing this, advanced the flanks of his line so as to form a half-moon shape, with the purpose of enclosing the small body of Swiss within a circle of spears. It looked for the moment as if the struggle were at an end, the mountaineers foiled and defeated, the fetters again ready to be locked upon ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... time that ever I saw any of this kind), where I observed how they do invite one another, and at last how they all do cry,—[To cry was to bid.]—and we have much to do to tell who did cry last. The ships were the Indian, sold for L1,300, and the Half-moon, sold for L830. Home, and fell a-reading of the tryalls of the late men that were hanged for the King's death, and found good satisfaction in reading thereof. At night to bed, and my wife and I did fall out about ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... rounded and plump, soft, white and dimpled, with tapering finger tips and filbert-shaped nails, snowing the little half-moon. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... me a few moments?' she said; and Albinia turned aside with her to the flagged terrace path between the churchyard and vicarage garden, in the light of a half-moon. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was treading softly, his head bent as if in thought. Suddenly he stayed his steps by a half-moon table on which stood a large Chinese bowl filled with pot-pourri; and into this he plunged his hands, seeming to lave them in the dry rose-leaves. Catherine felt no surprise, she was so used to his strange ways; and more than once he had hidden ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... were standing and part of the pointed roof; the rest had been carried away by shot and shell, and the wind whistled through the shattered windows. Ice and snow covered the surrounding wood, and a faint half-moon lit up the whole with ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... his small telescope to see Vulcan at all, whereas he saw the black spot very distinctly. Say Vulcan has half the diameter of Mercury, and let us compare the brightness of these two planets when at their greatest apparent distances from the sun, that is, when each looks like a half-moon. The distance of Mercury exceeds the estimated distance of Vulcan from the sun as 27 exceeds 10, so that Vulcan is more strongly illuminated in the proportion of 27 times 27 to 10 times 10, or 729 to 100—say at least ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... of it at the moment, for I had not seen the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and our sea-chests which the men bore shoreward and up the steep hill to the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued, she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common threshold to continue a discussion in which tears, lips, and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers |
