"Specter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... discovery of the degradation in which Rebecca had lived. There was no question of that between mother and son. There was no question of anything but the fearfully-exact resemblance between the living, breathing woman and the specter-woman ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... my sojourns in Russia, my thoughts naturally dwell upon the two sovereigns Nicholas I and Alexander II. The first of these was a great man scared out of greatness by the ever recurring specter of the French Revolution. There had been much to make him a stern reactionary. He could not but remember that two Czars—his father and grandfather—had both been murdered in obedience to family necessities. At his proclamation as emperor he had been welcomed by a revolt which ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... forward, the donkey still protesting. A scurrying in the underbrush, and several dogs appeared, barking furiously. Their offensiveness went no further than this, however, and in a moment Markham made out the bulk of a roulette in the shadows of the wood, the shaggy specter of a horse, a camp-fire, and a party of caravaners. There was a strip of carpet laid out near the fire upon which a small figure, clad only in an undershirt and a pair of faded red trunks, was busily engaged in wrapping its legs round the back of its neck. The cause of Clarissa's unhappiness ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... to Habbies How. We went out by the Links, and up steep rises over a white and dusty road, with a flaring stone dyke on each side, and neither tree nor bush to shelter us from the scorching sunlight till we came to Woodhouseleigh, the haunted walk of a white specter, who, it seems, was fond of the shade, for her favorite promenade was an avenue overarched with the green arms of noble old elm trees; and we blessed the welcome shelter of the Ghost's Haunt.... A cloud fell over all our spirits as we rode away ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... windfall revenue tax on foreign oil companies, leading to the suspension of free trade negotiations with the US. These measures, combined with chronic underinvestment in the state oil company, Petroecuador, led to a drop in petroleum production in 2007. PALACIO's successor, Rafael CORREA, raised the specter of debt default - but Ecuador has paid its debt on time. He also decreed a higher windfall revenue tax on private oil companies, then sought to renegotiate their contracts to overcome the debilitating effect of the tax. This generated economic uncertainty; private investment has dropped ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to roll in snow-banks or stand around in mud puddles. She didn't kick over chairs or slam doors or leave him alone. When Mr. Bowser shed tears, she wiped them away. When he moaned, she held his hand. When he said he felt that the grim specter was near, and wanted to kiss the baby good-by, she cheered him with the prediction that he would be a great deal better ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... do? Find her. And then, what? Marry her? He refused to consider that for a moment. He drove the thought fiercely away. That would be impossible now. The horror of what had been would always stand as a repellent specter between them.... Yes, he had loved her—he knew that now more assuredly than ever; and he tried to place that love away from him by a play upon words in the past tense; but deep down in his heart he knew that ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... in short, an individual, by the side of whom the most atrocious of Salvator Rosa's brigands would be as one of Watteau's shepherds. Never did a man's vanity enjoy such a treat! This charming person added that I had threatened her, and that I had jumped at her horse's bridle like the specter of the forest ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... of the water and in an hour expired, regaining his consciousness before death, and blessing his devoted wife with his last breath. Ten days later the brave woman had succeeded in reaching Techichipa in so wasted a condition that she looked like a specter risen from the grave. Here by careful nursing she was at length restored to health. The gold-dust which had cost so dearly was found after a long search, beneath the carcass of the mule, twenty ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... conversation, and began to quarrel with my mother so bitterly that she was obliged to leave him; so that, while you have a jealous husband to deal with, I shall have perpetually present before me a specter of jealousy with swollen eyes, a cadaverous face, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... looking object in my embrace, and with nothing with which to conceal him. There were settlements ahead, daylight was approaching, and what a figure we would cut! It was too much for me, and I said, "No, get on behind," feeling that the specter might retard the pursuing foe. But my tall horse solved the difficulty. Withdrawing my foot from the stirrup, Brown would put his in and try to climb up, when suddenly the horse would "swap ends," and down he'd ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... Cave of Terrible Things, like some magnificent tigress hedged with foes. Beyond those portals Red Jabez, Sultan of pirates, arbiter of life and death over the motley community, lay at grips with the grim specter to whom he had consigned scores far more readily than he now yielded up his own red-stained soul. Red Jabez was dying a death as hard as his lurid life ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... wouldn't stand there looking With a face of livid white Like the specter of the prairie That I saw one horrid night, Riding through the endless darkness Like a being doomed from birth Just to roam outside of heaven And denied a place on earth. Say one word to me! Speak, Nancy, If you have a voice and live! Tell the worst, e'en though you ask me To be patient ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... with her, on the threshold of the study door, stood the mistress of the house. She held her old music-book clutched fast mechanically in both hands. She stood, the specter of herself. With a dreadful vacancy in her eyes, with a dreadful stillness in her voice, she repeated the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... as she sat opposite her mother in the living-room trying to read one of the books she had received for Christmas the incident of the missing bracelet and Mignon's accusation suddenly loomed up in her mind like an unwelcome specter. Suppose Mignon had been right, after all. Jerry had openly asserted that she did not believe Mignon had really lost her bracelet, and in her anger Marjorie had secretly agreed with the stout girl. Suppose Constance had taken it. What if she were one of those persons one reads of in books ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... closed his eyes and awaited the end. He knew that he would suffer, for he recalled the faint memories of past burns. He knew that he would suffer and die; but he did not flinch. Death is no great adventure to the jungle bred who walk hand-in-hand with the grim specter by day and lie down at his side by night through all the years of their lives. It is doubtful that the ape-man even speculated upon what came after death. As a matter of fact as his end approached, his mind was occupied by thoughts of the pretty ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... might be disposed of in the same way. In this instance "F'' saw the white-robed specter open the door, walk around the room and finally, taking his position as if to depart, say: "I have taken all you have.'' No doubt this vision took place at the exact moment ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... chief prelates and princes of Germany, a seventh army; brought it down to Como across the Spluegen, put himself there at its head, and in the early spring of 1176, the fifteenth year since he had decreed the effacing of the name of Milan, was met at Legnano by the specter of Milan. ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... eyes fell on Lilias and Dulcie, his expression changed to one of utter consternation and amazement, and he colored to the roots of his fair hair. They on their part gazed at him as if they had encountered a specter. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... on the specter of Napoleon for a different purpose. Early in January, 1865, Francis P. Blair made a journey to Richmond and proposed to Davis a plan of reconciliation involving the complete abandonment of slavery, ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... girls were, their strange story fascinated my imagination. What possible tragedy lay before them in the years? what horrible revelation to wrench them asunder? to change in a single instant the quiet current of their lives? About them, unseen as yet, lurked a grim specter, waiting only the opportunity to grip them both in the fingers of disgrace, and make instant mock of all their plans. In spite of every effort, every lurking hope, some way I could not rid myself of the thought that ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... the world began has ever associated "learn" with "Rest." Learn of me, says the philosopher, and you shall find Restlessness. Learn of Me, says Christ, and ye shall find Rest. Thought, which the godless man has cursed, that eternally starved yet ever living specter, finds at last its imperishable glory; Thought is complete in Him. The second question is sent up from the moral nature, Who will show us any good? And again we have a contrast: the world's verdict, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" and Christ's, "There is none ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... another mood, made away with insignificant rooms that consumed no more space than would have filled a remote corner of this great hall of the theater—the motive was ever the same: to banish for the time-being the hovering specter of boredom and melancholy. "Louis XV," comments the author of "France Under Louis XV," "was not a man that sought relief from ceremony and adulation in any useful work; but, on the other hand, this dull grandeur was not dear to his heart; he did not derive from it the ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... ate their breakfast in a fair humor with the world. One grows accustomed to the thought of sickness, even when it strikes close to the affections, and, with the resilience of youth and hope, life adjusts itself to make room for the specter of fear, so that it does not crowd unduly, but stands half-forgotten in the background of one's thoughts. For that reason they no longer spoke soberly because of the Old Man lying hurt unto death in Chicago. And, when they mentioned the Dot sheep and ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... was not there! She might have been intercepted. He would not see her. The disappointment, the sudden relaxation, was horrible. Then a white, slender shape flashed from beside the black tree-trunk and flew toward him. It was noiseless, like a specter, and swift as the wind. Was he dreaming? He felt so strange. Then—the white shape ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... sparsely settled communities, a money system that penalized them for being debtors, or taxes levied for the support of a church which they never entered. And so, before the Revolution opened, the Western imagination had conjured up the specter of a corrupt and effete "East": land of money-changers and self-styled aristocrats and a pliant clergy, the haunt of lawyers and hangers-on, proper dwelling-place of "servants" and the beaten slave: a land ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... girl, who had learned a love of nature in all its forms, which never left her. She had also grown stronger, which satisfied her mother that the experiment had been successful. But now there was education to be thought of, and when news came of the death of that father, who had been the haunting specter of the mother's life, they went back at once to Cleveland, where the mother obtained employment, and the growing daughter was sent to a public school. But at best it gave a meager course of study to one who had always been a reader of every book on which she could lay her hands. To make the dreary, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... "I know you have the money, but, my dear little girl, you are going to need every cent of it and more too before you get rid of this specter. But I couldn't charge David anything if he were a millionaire. Don't you understand,—this is the only way we doctors have of showing what we think of the big work these preachers are doing here and there around ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... women who have made the world better, happier or wiser for their having lived in it, have done so by working diligently and persistently. Yet, I am certain that not even one of these, when "looking backward from his manhood's prime, saw not the specter of his mis-spent time." Now, don't suppose I am so foolish as to think that all the preaching in the world can make anything look to young eyes as it looks to old eyes; not a bit ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... to watch him, and, if necessary, to prevent his escape?" But he noticed nothing of the kind; the clerks were all hard at work, and the other people paid him no kind of attention. The visitor began to become reassured. "If," thought he, "this mysterious personage of yesterday, this specter which had risen from the bowels of the earth, knew all, and had seen all, would they, I should like to know, let me stand about like this? Would they not rather have arrested me, instead of waiting till ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... terrible figure, like that of a man, but of unusual stature and severe countenance. He was somewhat frightened at first, but seeing it neither did nor spoke anything to him, only stood silently by his bed-side, he asked who it was. The specter answered him, "Thy evil genius, Brutus, thou shalt see me at Philippi." Brutus answered courageously, "Well, I shall see you," and immediately the appearance vanished. When the time was come, he drew up his army ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... visions wild, Such as might suit the specter's child. 150 Where with black cliffs the torrents toil, He watched the wheeling eddies boil, Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes Beheld the River Demon rise; The mountain mist took form and limb, 155 Of noontide hag, or goblin grim; The midnight wind came wild ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the present dead! Life in Surrey must be dull. How could I forget or enjoy? I put the curtains down, and told Temperance, who was wandering about, not to call me to dinner. I determined, if possible, to surpass my dullness by indulgence. But underneath it all I could not deny that there was a specter, whose aimless movements kept me from stagnating. I determined to drag it ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... curious species are—the slow lemurs of South India, small tailless nocturnal animals, somewhat resembling sloths in appearance, and almost as deliberate in their movements, except when in the act of seizing their insect prey; the Tarsier, or specter lemur, of the Malay islands, a small, long tailed nocturnal lemur, remarkable for the curious development of the hind feet, which have two of the toes very short, and with sharp claws, while the others have nails, the third ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... crest of the mountain, and gazing down into the lovely valley which had been the favorite home of his tribe, upon the fields where he grew his corn, and the sparkling stream whence he drew his fish. John used to fancy at times, as he sat there, that he could see that red specter gliding among the trees on the hill; and if the tombstone suggested to him the trump of judgment, he could not separate it from the war-whoop that had been the last sound in the ear of Phineas Arms. The Indian always preceded murder by the war-whoop; and this was an advantage ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to surmise that Tasso's conscience was really burdened with a guilty secret touching Leonora d'Este. On the contrary, everything points to a different conclusion. His mind was simply giving way. Just as he conjured up the ghastly specter of the Inquisition, so he fancied that the duke would murder him. Both the Inquisition and the duke were formidable; but the Holy Office mildly told him to set his morbid doubts at rest, and the duke on a subsequent occasion coldly wrote: 'I know he thinks I want to kill him. But if ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the mist there arose a tall, gaunt specter. A junk. Perhaps a collision was decreed by the evil spirit of the Whang-poo. But the usual shriekings of doomed river men were absent. The gray bulk floated idly with the steamer. The silence of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... courage to frame. There might have been some other woman in my set whom I could have fallen in love with and asked to marry me without a word of explanation; but the more I knew this girl, the less could I find it in my heart to deceive her. And yet, in spite of this specter that was constantly looming up before me, I could never have believed that life held such happiness as was contained in those dream days ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... and exactly as on the night before, the feverish excitement swept Helen on until the bedtime hour arrived. Then she went up into her room alone, to wrestle with the same dreadful specter as before. ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... the shadowy pile, it was struck with the dimly seen figure of a man on horseback, near a distant altar. I touched my companion, and pointed to it: "The specter statue!" ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... was not strong enough to sustain a shock of joy! I ought not to have given you this surprise! But try now to compose yourself, and give me welcome. I am here; alive, warm, loving, hungry even! a woman, and no specter risen from the grave, although you look at me just as if I were one! Dear Herman, kiss me! I have come a long way to join you!" she said, in a voice softer than the softest notes of ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... San Francisco though they stormed the stokers lustily when aroused. Their life is so simple in these beloved islands that the dangers of the mainland are exaggerated in their minds, and to the old the civilization of a big city appears as a specter of horrible mien. The electric cars, the crowds, the murders they read of and are told of, the bandits in the picture-shows, the fearful stranglers of Paris, the lynchers, the police, who in the films are ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... discover myself to them, and learn something of their condition; immediately I marched toward them, my man Friday at a good distance behind me, as formidable for his arms as I, but not making quite so staring a specter-like figure as I did. I came as near them undiscovered as I could, and then, before any of them saw me, I called aloud to them in Spanish, "Who ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... able to contemplate the present with equanimity, the future with fortitude, and the past without regret. Every thinking man, however, knows that this is not so. The true zero hour, desolate, gloom-ridden, and specter-haunted, occurs immediately before dinner while we are waiting for that cocktail. It is then that, stripped for a brief moment of our armor of complacency and self-esteem, we see ourselves as we are,—frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right; a gray world in which, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... this time he was really interested in other things beside the landscape. He had wondered how long Miss Chatterton would keep it up. He watched her, as one haunted guest watches another, to know if she too has seen the specter of the house, observing her manner and her appetite at breakfast, the expression of her face at bedtime, her voice in saying good-morning and good-night. On the third day he thought he could detect a slight flagging; Miss Chatterton was a shade less buoyant, less talkative than before. By the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... for Forty-Mile Canyon. The red star is Hi Lang's beacon. Hippy Wingate mourns at missing a meal. Emma comes a cropper in a mountain stream. "The last spot made when the world was built." In camp in the Specter ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... of fools himself, I guess. I am looking for a kind of ghost, a specter in black that leaves the palace early in the evening and returns late, whose destination ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... terrified and hid her face in her hands, murmuring: "Oh! Good Heavens!" And seeing this stranger who seemed to be threatening his mother, George sprang up, ready to seize him by the collar, while Limousin, who was thunderstruck, looked at this specter in horror, who, after panting for a few moments, continued: "So now we will have an explanation; the proper moment for it has come! Ah! you deceived me, you condemned me to the life of a convict, and you thought that I should ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant |
