"Straight line" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bowling Green. From this point it extends in a straight line to Fourteenth street and Union Square. Below Wall street it is mainly devoted to the "Express" business, the headquarters and branch offices of nearly all the lines in the country centring here. Opposite Wall ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... leave only a small garrison in the city itself and go outside it for his main defence. Now, from the eastern bank of the mouth of the St. Charles, just below the city, there extends in an almost straight line along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence a continuous ridge, the brink, in fact, of a plateau, at no point far removed from the water's edge. Six miles away this abruptly terminates in the gorge of the Montmorency River, which, rushing tumultuously toward the St. Lawrence, makes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... heads as well as hearts. Goodness and earnestness appeal to the heart alone. The intellect is left out in the cold. However good and earnest, and eloquent one of these great preachers may be, the reason we go to hear him is not only because of that, but because he appears to be thinking in a straight line, because he seems to recognize the long-resisted claim of the intellect, and we hope he will have a word to say to us. He promises well, but listen to him a little longer, follow his thought, and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... way. Commander Peary took his sights from the time our chronometer-watches gave, and I, knowing that we had kept on going in practically a straight line, was sure that we had more than covered the necessary distance to insure our arrival at the top ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... long time, with rapid and irritated step, elbowing the passers-by that he need not deviate from a straight line, his great fury against her began to change into sadness and regret. After he had repeated to himself all the reproaches he had poured upon her, he remembered, as he looked at the women that passed him, how pretty ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... densely in a wall irregularly striped here and there by the white line of an aerial root, coming straight down into the water from some upper branch as straight as a plummet, in the strange, knowing way an aerial root of a mangrove does, keeping the hard straight line until it gets some two feet above water-level, and then spreading out into blunt fingers with which to dip into the water and grasp the mud. Banks indeed at high water can hardly be said to exist, the water ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... out then; and after he had gone a hundred miles in a straight line, he came to the first castle, and there was a copper crown over it.' (At this, we all looked up at the whitewashed boards of the shed, as if we expected to see the copper crown.) 'And there was a young lady looking out of the window, and she saw him ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... enormous rings in ears that were bushy with tufts of hair. His sparse and grizzled whiskers were called in 1799 "fins." His jolly red face was rather discolored, like those of all who had lived to tell of the Beresina. The lower half of his big, pointed stomach marked the straight line which characterizes a cavalry officer. Gouraud had commanded the Second Hussars. His gray moustache hid a huge blustering mouth,—if we may use a term which alone describes that gulf. He did not eat his food, he engulfed it. A sabre cut had slit his nose, by which his speech ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... form its burrows in such admirably straight lines, is not an easy problem, because it is always done in black darkness, and we know of nothing which can act as a guide to the animal. As for ourselves and other eye-possessing creatures, the feat of walking in a straight line with closed eyelids is almost an impossibility, and every swimmer knows the difficulty of keeping a straight course under water, even with ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... together there are several points to be noticed. First, the planes of the lenses, negative, projecting lenses and screen must all be parallel; second, the centers of all these should be in a single straight line, and third, either the light or the condensers should be so mounted as to easily slide backward or forward, since every time the projecting lens is racked backward or forward it necessitates a corresponding motion of the condensers to ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... we Frenchmen rather conceitedly call a mountain, at the foot of which lies the village of Conches (the last post-house), I had seen the long valley of Aigues, at the farther end of which the mail road turns to follow a straight line into the little sub-prefecture of La Ville-aux-Fayes, over which, as you know, the nephew of our friend des Lupeaulx lords it. Tall forests lying on the horizon, along vast slopes which skirt a river, command this rich valley, which is framed in the far distance by the mountains of a lesser ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... trees. The more distant view ranged over the flat eastward country beyond, speckled with its scattered little villages; crossed and recrossed by its network of "back-waters"; and terminated abruptly by the long straight line of sea-wall which protects the defenseless coast of Essex from invasion ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... sections, so that, should one portion suffer capture, the others may be held intact; while often enough such works are constructed so that one portion of the fortress commands by its fire the works immediately surrounding and attached to it. That gallery, then, did not run in a straight line for long: it curved abruptly to the left just as it had done before at the point where the German contrived to evade our heroes. It dropped down a flight of steps, and opened into a wide hallway much like that other in which Jules and Henri had already seen some adventure; and from this hall galleries ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... call upon the lady of his heart and demand an explanation. After some rehearsal of what he wanted to say, Ambrose betook himself to the tenement in which the Tate family dwelt. At sight of her cast-off swain, Miss Aphrodite showed the whites of her eyes and narrowed her lips to a thin straight line—perhaps an inch and a half thin. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... Pilgrim "replete with the deepest knowledge of the passions of early adolescence" The series culminates in Sonnet 116, which makes love the sole beacon of humanity. It might be said that it is connected by a straight line with the best teachings of Plato, and that here humanity picked up the clue, lost, save with some Italian poets, in the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... our minds off our enemies, and keep our thoughts on our purpose; we will make up our minds what we want to do. We will mark a straight line on the log ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... to himself, Iktomi had not gone far when he chanced upon a bunch of long slender arrows. One by one they rose in the air and shot a straight line over the prairie. Others shot up into the blue sky and were soon lost to sight. Only one was left. He was making ready for his flight when Iktomi rushed upon him and wailed, "I want to be an arrow! Make me into an arrow! ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... convey it to Tent House. As I did not know where to meet with them, I proceeded with Francis on the ass to commence his favourite work. I drew my plan on the ground first. At the distance of twelve feet from the rock which formed the front of our house, I marked a straight line of fifty feet, which I divided into ten spaces of five feet each for my colonnade; the two ends were to be reserved for the two pavilions my sons wished to build. I was busy in my calculations, and Francis placing stakes in the places where I wished to ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... agreed upon. The horses had been put out to pasture at a farmer's up the river about twelve miles. In going that twelve miles the river took a great turn, so that in fact the farm where the horses were pastured was not, in a straight line, more than four miles from Mr. Forester's house. But the intermediate country was a desolate and almost impassable region of forests and mountains. There was, indeed, a sort of footpath by which it was possible for men to get through, but this ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... country. Far to the south were the mountains; all around was forest, broken here and there by patches of open rocky ground. Beneath him the trees were so densely packed that a whole army might have been encamped among them without giving a sign of its presence. He sped in a straight line west-north-west of the fort, at a speed of between forty and fifty miles an hour; to go faster would have rendered careful exploration of the country difficult. Having completed ten miles without passing over a single ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... that he would finish his journey to Farmer Green's place by land, he started briskly across the cornfield, travelling in a straight line between two ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... valuable cargoes and thousands of valuable lives, moving on its waters, with few shelters from the storm, except what is furnished by the havens created, or made useful, by the aid of government. These great lakes, stretching away many thousands of miles, not in a straight line, but with turns and deflections, as if designed to reach, by water communication, the greatest possible number of important points through a region of vast extent, cannot but arrest the attention of any one who looks upon the map. They lie connected, but variously placed; and interspersed, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... followed the trail of the stolen sled to the end of Firefly Lake with ease. The track was clearly to be distinguished, and it pursued its course in almost a straight line. ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... to make the half-mile, then stop and change our directions and go a quarter-mile southeast and then stop again and go a quarter of a mile north northeast. I wonder why old Sime didn't make it a straight line anyway." ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... people and Government of the colony of Victoria determined to despatch an expedition to explore Central Australia, from Sturt's Eyre's Creek to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria at the mouth of the Albert River of Stokes's, a distance in a straight line of not more than six hundred miles; and as everything that Victoria undertakes must always be on the grandest scale, so was this. One colonist gave 1000 pounds; 4000 pounds more was subscribed, and then the Government took the matter in hand to fit out the Victorian Exploring ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... after-part, or stern, ending abruptly or perpendicularly, with a small knob on the top; but the fore-part is lengthened out, stretching forward and upward, ending in a notched point or prow, considerably higher than the sides of the canoe, which run nearly in a straight line. For the most part they are without any ornament; but some have a little carving, and are decorated by setting seals' teeth on the surface, like studs, as is their practice on their masks and weapons. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... tire of squares draw circles (with compasses); and then draw straight lines irregularly across circles, and fill up the spaces so produced between the straight line and the circumference; and then draw any simple shapes of leaves, according to the exercise No. 2., and fill up those, until you can lay on colour quite evenly in ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... we conceive it to fill space. The idea of which filling of space is,—that where we imagine any space taken up by a solid substance, we conceive it so to possess it, that it excludes all other solid substances; and will for ever hinder any other two bodies, that move towards one another in a straight line, from coming to touch one another, unless it removes from between them in a line not parallel to that which they move in. This idea of it, the bodies which we ordinarily handle ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... the reply. But the precise idea they had formed of these opposite and important determinations was more than either of them could explain; even though they had been ever so certain upon these points, to proceed in a straight line in any direction was impossible, without some object by which to direct their course. Ever and anon was heard a heavy plunge into the stream, but even this token had ceased to avail them, for its course could not be ascertained. The tide was now arresting its progress, and the water moved to and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... that is, Chichen Itza. The writer composed his chronicle at that place, so he does not think it necessary to name it specifically. The distance in a straight line from Chichen Itza to Itzamal is ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... lips opened, then closed in a thin, straight line. Obediently she reached into the show case and took out the tray of pink bows; but her eyes flashed, and her hands shook visibly as she set the tray down on the counter. The young woman whom she was serving picked up five bows, asked the price of four ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... tempted to lie down and go to sleep again, but this might be to run no little risk. It was impossible to decide whether I was still on Mr. Baker's land or not, for, although I had covered some miles last night, there was no proof that I had run in a straight line, and it seemed quite likely that I had described ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... closer they were to it the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it was calm weather or stormy, I found myself always immediately between the moon and the earth. I was convinced of this for two reasons-because my birds always flew in a straight line; and because whenever we attempted to rest, we were carried insensibly around the globe of the earth. For I admit the opinion of Copernicus, who maintains that it never ceases to revolve from the east to the west, not upon the poles ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the meadow, he went through his flying repertory. He cut clashing diagonals through the air; he rose and fell in undulations like music; he shot about, gleaming white against the blue sky; and finally he came down to her from the very zenith of the dome in a sizzing straight line which opened, almost at her feet, in a white ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller and more slender than the mus domesticus medius of Ray; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour: their belly is white, a straight line along their sides divides the shades of their back and belly. They never enter into houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves; abound in harvest, and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... diagonal, his hind legs tucked well under his flanks. The road itself was a mere cutting through the miniature woods, winding to right or left for the purpose of avoiding a log-end or a boulder, surmounting little knolls with an idle disregard for the straight line, knobby with big, round stones, and interestingly diversified by circular mud holes a foot or so in diameter. After a mile and a half we came to the corner of a snake fence. This, Dick informed me, marked ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... my Lord Chief-Justice, or Sir Edmond Godfrey. The truth is, in short, and let Bayes make more or less of it if he can, Bayes had at first built-up such a stupendous magistrate as never was of God's making. He had put all princes upon the rack to stretch them to his dimension. And as a straight line continued grows a circle, he had given them so infinite a power, that it was extended unto impotency. For though he found it not till it was too late in the cause, yet he felt it all along (which is the understanding of brutes) in the effect. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... golden-crested wren, and I found myself thinking, of course, in a tiny little island like Great Britain, where one cannot go in an express train at fifty miles an hour from east to west or from north to south in a straight line for more than fifteen hours without falling into the sea, the only song we could have in common with a great continent like this would be the ...
— Recreation • Edward Grey
... to retreat, and, seeing that the animal was very hungry and determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and placed her back against a small tree, holding her knife close to her breast, and in a straight line with the bear. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... "I'm going to get him, and get him good. Jockeying me into a pocket! Conceited young ass! And I'd have been square with the world, and paid off that infernal note, and had four ... thousand ... dollars left over." His lips made a straight line. "And he'd have brought fifty thousand dollars' worth of business into this office—he'd have had to—he'd have had to hold up his friends—to protect his ante. Yes, sir, I'm going ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... myriads of light-yellow butterflies, mostly skimming along the surface, dipping and oscillating, giving a curious animation to the scene. The beautiful, spiritual insects! straw-color'd Psyches! Occasionally one of them leaves his mates, and mounts, perhaps spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the air, fluttering up, up, till literally out of sight. In the lane as I came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, where more than a hundred had collected, holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or butterfly good-time, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... danger demanded more attention to be paid to external objects than to the motives by which my future conduct should be influenced. My post was on a circular prefecture, in some degree detached from the body of the hill, the brow of which continued in a straight line, uninterrupted by this projecture, which was somewhat higher than the continued summit of the ridge. This line ran at the distance of a few paces from my post. Objects moving along this line could merely be perceived to move, in ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... around those ledges and boulders," he said to himself; "I got off the straight line. This time I'll take the straight line and ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... prowling unsuccessfully about Monks Barton since dusk, took the opportunity to leave his hiding-place above the ducks' pool, cross the meadows, and get him home to his earth two miles distant. He slunk with pattering foot across the snow, marking his way by little regular paw-pits and one straight line where his brush roughened the surface. Steam puffed in jets from his muzzle, and his empty belly made him angry with the world. At the edge of the woods he lifted his head, and the moonlight touched ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... there they had no idea, but his eyes were full upon them; and they realized that at last he knew truly for whom it was that Helga, Gilli's daughter, had fled from home. His lips were drawn into a straight line, and his brows ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... days they continued their course in nearly a straight line for the missionary establishment. On the second evening, just about dusk, as they were crossing a woody hill, by the elephants' path, being then about 200 yards in advance of the wagons, they were saluted with one of the most hideous shrieks that could be conceived. Their horses started ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... at last," Donald muttered, as he leaped the fence close to the house, and made a straight line for ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... no reply, and the two lads stepped out, giving up in despair all efforts to keep on in a straight line, for they had to turn to right or left every minute to pass round the huge ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... on Thursday afternoon. "But he certainly ruined some of the tomato plants in the garden. He just doesn't seem to hoe in a straight line. Are you certain it's the ...
— Weak on Square Roots • Russell Burton
... spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any sound of the Hintocks floated near, though she had wandered probably between one and two hours, and began to be weary. She was vexed at her foolishness, since the ground she had covered, if in a straight line, must inevitably have taken her out of the wood to some remote village or other; but she had wasted her forces in countermarches; and now, in much alarm, wondered if she would have to pass the night here. She stood still to meditate, and fancied that between the soughing of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Gordon's line; thence to the corner of Sewell and L. S. Abbott on the new cut road; thence to the corner of A. A. Freeman and Mrs. Henry J. England on the Falls Church and Fairfax Court House road; thence along centre of said road to centre of bridge over Holmes Run; thence easterly in a straight line to the northwest corner of the colored Methodist church on the road leading to Annandale; thence easterly to the crossing of the Alexandria and Georgetown roads at Taylor's corner; thence along the north ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... is so bulky from this same reason that you cannot see over him. You are obliged to crane your neck to one side. His head is covered with a Tartar cap. He wears his hair down to his collar, and then chopped off in a straight line. His pelisse is of a bluish gray, fits tightly to the waist, and comes to the feet. But the skirt of it is gathered on back and front, giving him an irresistibly comical pannier effect, like a Dolly Varden polonaise. The Russian idvosjik guides his horse curiously. He coaxes it forward by calling ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... just driven from its ground with considerable loss and in retreat to Lovejoy's, the main body leaving Atlanta and stretched along the road toward McDonough; while Sherman's whole army, except Slocum's corps, was in compact order about Jonesboro', nearly in a straight line between Atlanta and Lovejoy's. This seemed exactly the opportunity to destroy Hood's army, if that was the objective of the campaign. So anxious was I that this be attempted that I offered to go with ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... regard the weapon with detestation. This unlucky shot was my first; but I have always known a straight line, and my hand has ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... burn us," said Catharine, with a shudder. "I know the path that leads direct to the 'Happy Valley,' (the name she had given to the low flat, now known as the 'lower Race-course,') and it is not far from here, only ten minutes' walk in a straight line. We can conceal ourselves below the steep bank that we descended the other day; and there are several springs of fresh water, and plenty of nuts and berries; and the trees, though few, are so thickly covered with close spreading branches ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... distended wire, propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light, at least, incomparably swifter then that, which at the same time was propagated through the Air; and this not only in a straight line, or direct, but in one bended ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... of the promontory the rocky wall broke down to a low easy shore, which stretched off easterly in a straight line for half a mile, to the bottom of what was called the north bay. Just beyond the point, a rounded mass of granite pushed itself into the water out of reach of the trees and shewed itself summer and winter barefacedly. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line. ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... heaven's unclouded brow, And like transparent glass did lie Open to ev'ry searcher's eye, Look foully stirr'd and—though desir'd— Resist the sight, because bemir'd. So often from a high hill's brow Some pilgrim-spring is seen to flow, And in a straight line keep her course, 'Till from a rock with headlong force Some broken piece blocks up the way, And forceth all her streams astray. Then thou that with enlighten'd rays Wouldst see the truth, and in her ways Keep without error; neither fear The future, nor too much give ear To present joys; ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... flight was nearly in a straight line, slanting up in the direction of the kite—for that was the object that had started him. He was evidently bent upon robbing the latter of ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... would nowhere enter it more than a quarter of an inch: here was no built wall, he believed, but one smooth stone. He found nothing like a joint till he came near the edge of the recess: there was a limit of the stone, and he began at once to clear it. It gave him a straight line from the bottom to the top of the recess, where it met another at ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... in a straight line; a term proposed by Prof. James Thompson. The words "backward" and "forward" indicate ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... start. To a casual observer his fence was less graceful than his antagonist's, his lunges less daring, his parries less brilliant. But as the old Prince watched him he saw that the point of his foil advanced and retreated in a perfectly straight line, and in parrying described the smallest circle possible, while his cold watery blue eye was fixed steadily upon his antagonist; old Saracinesca ground his teeth, for he saw that the man was a ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the game is gone. I do not ask my Great Father to give me anything. I came naked, and will go away naked. I want you to tell my Great Father I have no further business. I want you to put me on a straight line. I want to stop in St. Louis to see Robert Campbell, an old friend." Red Cloud then pointed to a lady in the room, saying, "Look at that woman. She was captured by Silver Horn's party. I wish you to ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... wanting. Only the Mongols themselves know where the next villages are situated, and so at every village a fresh retinue of Mongols is provided. And because the villages are being constantly moved you can only travel in a straight line between them, and cannot follow any determined route. You drive along over desert and steppe, and usually see no vestige of an old ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Gloucester lay nearest the shore; the Vixen was opposite in a straight line, and to the eastward of her about five miles. A mile or less from the Gloucester, to the seaward, was the Indiana. Nearly as far from the latter ship, and southeast of her, lay the Oregon. The Iowa ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... boat was twenty yards away at least, and still paying out. By the way, where was the rope? With a cry of horror Tubbs sprang to the anchor and began hauling in. The rope came in gaily, but not the "Eliza." She danced merrily cut to sea in a straight line for the North Pole, with the six brown- paper parcels on board, leaving her poor custodian to console himself as best he could with a loose end of rope, which had never been ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... attained, by the same let us walk.' The various points to which the men have reached are all points in one straight line; and the injunction of my text is 'Keep the road.' There are a great many temptations to stray from it. There are nice smooth grassy bits by the side of it where it is a great deal easier walking. There are attractive ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... which its tributaries run; the numberless canyons tributary to the tributary canyons; the canyons within canyons, that, upon the word of no less an authority than Major Powell, I assert that if these canyons were placed end for end in a straight line they would reach over twenty thousand miles! Is it possible for the human mind to conceive a canyon system so vast that, if it were so placed, it would ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... with the string, and assisted his brother in fastening a stake in the ground where the path was to begin, and then, tying the string to it, drew it along in a straight line to the place where the path was to end, at which they stuck in another stake, ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... I suspect, what little we do see of the country is seen quite amiss, because it was never intended to be looked at from any point of view in that straight line; so that it is like looking at the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. The old highways and foot-paths were as natural as brooks and rivulets, and adapted themselves by an inevitable impulse to the physiognomy of the country; and, furthermore, every ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... radii, r1, r2, &c., to be drawn with the means at the draughtsman's disposal. Draw a curve as shown in fig. 72 with arcs of the length l1, l2, l3, &c., and with the radii r1, r2, &c. (note, for a length 1/2l1 at each end the radius will be infinite, and the curve must end with a straight line tangent to the last arc), then let v be the measured deflection of this curve from the straight line, and V the actual deflection of the bridge; we have V av/b, approximately. This method distorts the curve, so that vertical ordinates of the curve are drawn to a scale b times ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... to God is a right line; the shortest road from earth to Heaven is absolutely straight. The Czar of Russia, when railways were introduced into that country, was asked to determine the line between St. Petersburg and Moscow. He took a ruler and drew a straight line across the map, and said, 'There!' Our Autocrat has drawn a line as straight as the road from earth to Heaven, and by the side of it are 'the crooked, wandering ways in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... I was always partial to the straight line'—thoughtfully regarding the want of line in Mrs. Twymley's person—'though trying to them as is of too friendly ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... a Whele may be geuen which shall moue ones about, in any tyme assigned. Two Wheles may be giuen, whose turnynges about in one and the same tyme, (or equall tymes), shall haue, one to the other, any proportion appointed. By Wheles, may a straight line be described: Likewise, a Spirall line in plaine, Conicall Section lines, and other Irregular lines, at pleasure, may be drawen. These, and such like, are principall Conclusions of this Arte: and helpe forward many pleasant ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... stretching away south. Once round that, we shall be beyond the one from which we see the smoke rising, and can come down on its southern side. The course will be double the distance that it would be if we took a straight line, but except when we cross from island to island we shall not be exposed to their view, and may fall upon their ships before the crews have returned from their ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... enabled the gunner to swing the cradle at high speed in any direction except straight down. A simple, illuminated optical sight was all the gunner needed. Since there was no gravity and no atmosphere in space, the missiles flashed out in a straight line, continuing on into infinity if they missed their targets. Proximity fuses made this a remote possibility. If the rocket got anywhere near the target, the shell ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... very much more destructive to birds, since it preys exclusively on them, and, as a rule, merely picks the flesh from the head and neck, and leaves the untouched body to its jackal, the carrion-hawk. When the peregrine appears speeding through the air in a straight line at a great height, the feathered world, as far as one able to see, is thrown into the greatest commo-tion, all birds, from the smallest up to species large as duck, ibis, and curlew, rushing about in the air as if distracted. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... in the town, for the road led through extensive advanced works, presenting, as in the case of the Laufer Thor outwork, a regular "place d'armes." Further, the road was so engineered as not to lead in a straight line from the outer main gates to the inner ones, but rather so as to pursue a circuitous course. Thus the enemy in passing through from the one to the other were exposed as long as possible to the shots and projectiles of the defenders, who ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... recovered from postwar depression. The fact is that economic progress never marches forward in a straight line. It goes in waves. One part goes ahead, while another halts and another recedes. Everybody wishes agriculture to prosper. Any sound and workable proposal to help the farmer will have the earnest support of the Government. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... offices and warehouses, and the native shops or bazaars. This extends northwards for more than a mile, gradually merging into native houses often of a most miserable description, but made to have a neat appearance by being all built up exactly to the straight line of the street, and being generally backed by fruit trees. This street is usually thronged with a native population of Bugis and Macassar men, who wear cotton trousers about twelve inches long, covering only from ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... it will make my land lopsided, I must hurry back in a straight line now. I might go too far, and as it is I have a great ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... fat landlady. When she sat down there was a straight line from her chin to her knees. She was usually sitting down. When she moved she groaned, and her apparel creaked. She groaned and creaked from bed to breakfast, and ate five griddle-cakes, two helpin's of scrapple, an egg, some rump steak, and three cups of coffee, slowly and resentfully. ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... for my eyes were glued to the track, which now showed plainly that a body had been dragged along through the tender herbage in a perfectly straight line; and I was not long in perceiving that the track went in the direction of the little wood where Lilla had had her terrible adventure ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Sedgehill, which is in the middle of Mershire, which is in the middle of England, there lies a narrow ridge of high table-land, dividing, as by a straight line, the collieries and ironworks of the great coal district from the green and pleasant scenery of the western Midlands. Along the summit of this ridge runs the High Street of the bleak little town of Sedgehill; ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... a herd of buffalo and began to call them, and the buffalo started toward him and followed him, until they were inside the arms of the V. Then he ran to one side and hid, and as the people rose up the buffalo ran on in a straight line and jumped over the cliff and some of them were ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... towards the side on which the hand and knee are approximated. The exercises, for a case of dorsal curvature with the convexity to the right, for example, are graduated as follows: (1) The child crawls in a straight line till he has acquired the "quadruped gait"; (2) with each step forward the head is inclined towards the side on which the hand and knee are approximated; (3) at each step the hand and knee which are wide apart are brought over and cross the limbs on the other side; (4) to open out the concave ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... What, man! within five minutes of seeing me you would have smitten me on the head with an oar, and ever since you have been like a bandog at my heels, ready to hark if I do but set my foot over what you regard as the straight line. Remember that you go now among men who fight on small occasion of quarrel. A word awry ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thrust in the earth and the upturned blade used as a stationary knife, on which the Igorot cuts meats and other substances by drawing them lengthwise along the sharp edge. The bit of the ax is at a small angle with the front and back edges of the blade, and is nearly a straight line. The axes are kept keen and sharp by whetstones collected and preserved solely for the purpose. Besao, near Sagada, quarries and barters a ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... from one side to the other in a straight line when about to shoot It is barred in ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... through the darkness, looking vainly for the ship, and from Mr Gregory's manner it soon became evident that he was doubtful as to whether they were going in a straight line towards it, for after a few minutes he made the men cease rowing, and bent down to take counsel with Morgan, who sat in the bottom of the boat resting his back against one ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... above its mouth; thence to a point on the North Fork of the South Fork of the Clearwater 1 mile above the bridge on the road leading to Elk City (so as to include all the Indian farms now within the forks); thence in a straight line westwardly to the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... the door. There was an exclamation, the sound of hasty steps, the turning of a key in the lock, and the door was flung open. Facing them stood a young woman no taller than Anne, whose heavy eyebrows met in a straight line, and who looked ready for battle ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... males to be driven off by her mate. This is a circumstance that we so often witnessed, that I speak of it with certainty. These combats last sometimes for a long time, because the stranger only turns off, without going in a straight line from the nest; nevertheless, the others never quit until they have chased ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... ball must be sent through a goal; to strike it so that it goes over or around the goal does not count. The ball must be made to take a straight line, to "make a straight path" through a goal, then the game is won. When a good shot is made, all on the side of the one who made the stroke should send up a shout. When the goal is won the winning side should give the victory cry ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... close about a bullet head, which was set on his broad shoulders with an arrogance that gave him a peculiarly aggressive air. The narrow black moustache he wore emphasised rather than concealed the thin straight line of mouth. Plainly a fighting man this, and one, moreover, accustomed to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... as a swelling on this straight line. It varies in size. A recent curb is usually hot and firm, or may feel soft if enlargement is formed by fluid, hard if formed by bone. Lameness seldom occurs, but if present, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... to tell you, but inasmuch as the canes were secured by a forgery I shall certainly tell you all I know of the matter. If you go down to that little valley," and as he spoke he pointed in a direction in the rear of the barn, "you will find a pathway that leads beside the brook almost in a straight line to what we call the ford. It saves between three and four miles to Winthrop, and whenever I walk I take the ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... attention was paid to what I said. Notice was served on me to take the little thing off visiting, and I had to obey. But I tell you I was thankful she didn't do anything worse than to bump her nose, though she did scream murder, and we followed her out in a straight line." ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... buzzard "banked" for a sharper turn; and the engineer saw, by the perspective of its apparent speed, that the aircraft whose use he was enjoying was likewise on the move. Apparently it was flying in a straight line, keeping the sun—an object vastly too ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... fixed upon poor Tom, and having retreated but a few feet, he now stood as though rooted to the spot. Slowly the form of the snake was lowered, until only the end of its tail kept it up on the tree branch. Then the head and neck began to swing back and forth, in a straight line ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... justice in pursuit of the wealthy. For a couple of miles the way lay across a flat rich land of cornfields, pink with cosmos flowers. Then the train began to creak and grind upward at dog-trot pace, covering four or five times what would have been the distance in a straight line and uncovering broad vistas of plump-formed mountains shaggy with trees, and vast, hollowed-out valleys flooded with corn. Soon there were endless pine forests on every hand, with a thick, oak-like undergrowth. A labyrinth of loops one above another brought us to Ajambaran ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... would but have shewn me patiently, instead of saying, 'Why, Helen, cannot you draw a straight line?' I should have understood her.' Then she continued, while taking out India-rubber and pencil to rectify the mistake, 'I used to draw a great deal at dear Dykelands; we had a sketching master, and ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lively in this vale of human tears; An' may I live a thousan', too,—a thousan' less a day, For I shouldn't like to be on earth to hear you'd passed away. And when it comes your time to go you'll need no Latin chaff Nor biographic data put in your epitaph; But one straight line of English and of truth will let folks know The homage 'nd the gratitude 'nd reverence they owe; You'll need no epitaph but this: "Here sleeps the man who run That best 'nd brightest ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... Apollonius as the erect side (ορθια πλευρα {orthia pleura}) of a certain rectangle in the case of each of the three conics?[3] The word ordinate can hardly convey anything to one who does not know that it is what Apollonius describes as 'the straight line drawn down (from a point on the curve) in the prescribed or ordained manner (τεταγμενως κατηγμενη {tetagmenôs katêgmenê})'. Asymptote again comes from ασυμπτωτος {asymptôtos}, non-meeting, non-secant, and had with the Greeks a more general signification as well as the narrower ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... encouraged his steed with voice and hand, urged it on with whip and spur, and it seemed as though he carried the big animal between his legs, and raised it from the ground at every leap it took. The horse went at an inconceivable speed, keeping a straight line regardless of all obstacles; and Jeanne could see the two outlines of the husband and wife diminish and fade in the distance, till they vanished altogether, like two birds chasing each other till they are lost to sight beyond ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... and termination." Ainsworth derives it from the Hebrew [Hebrew: SGLH], which denotes whatever is peculiar or singular. It occurs to me to suggest whether it may not be derived from sine angulis. The term denotes unity—one person, one thing. Now the Roman mark for one is a straight line, and that is "that which lies evenly between its extreme points;" it is emphatically a line without bend, angle, or turning—"linea sine angulis:" angulus, like its Greek original, denoting any bend, whether made by a straight or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... would have deemed them black, but for the soft and humid languor which is never seen in eyes of that color. The rest of her features were as near as possible to the Grecian model, except that there was a slight depression where the nose joins the brow, breaking that perfectly straight line of the classical face, which, however beautiful to the statue, is less attractive in life than the irregular outline of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... more effect upon him than water, and yet he had felt now and then as if he were drunken, and the whole festal hall turned round with him. Even now he would be quite incapable of walking forward in a given straight line. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a pleasant pastime," said Flemming; "and I perceive you are very skilful. I am delighted to see, that you can draw a straight line. I never before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all the towers did not resemble the leaning Tower of Pisa. I always tremble for the little men ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... excitedly, shading his eyes with his hand. "There are two trees out there in a straight line from this very cannon that—that I should know again, Bovey! Do look where I point now like a good fellow. Don't you see there, following the chimney of that big red place, factory or other, right in a line with that at the very top of the hill at its highest point, two trees that stand a ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... represented by a corresponding length set off from left to right, and let its density (as measured by its specific gravity) be represented by a corresponding length measured downward. Fixing in this way a point corresponding to opal, and another representing the character of zircon, draw a straight line from the one to the other. It will then be found that the points which, by their position on the diagram, represent the specific gravity and refractive index of the various minerals will be very ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... that they may be easily grasped and appreciated. In the diagram opposite, the comparative variations of the different organs of this species are given by means of variously bent lines. The head is represented by a straight line because it presented (apparently) no variation. The body is next given, the specimens being arranged in the order of their size from No. 1, the smallest, to No. 14, the largest, the actual lengths being laid down from a base line at a suitable ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... It was much faster, at all events, than the Apaches were likely to travel, unless something new should stir them up. By keeping well away from the stream, they were not compelled to follow its windings, and could ride more nearly in a straight line, only turning out for clumps of trees and similar obstructions and paying no attention to game, although they now saw gang after gang of deer and a respectable ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... before, that the screen they had noticed had been erected as much to concentrate the flashes and make them more easily visible to a receiving station as to conceal the operator. So they turned and figured a straight line as well as they could from the spot where the flashes were made. Harry had a map with him, and on this he marked, as well as he could, the location of the house. Then he drew a line ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... only the priest knows what beside. A man may at any moment be bewitched, so that his silk-worms die and his children go blind and he gets the devil-sickness. So living is difficult. But Heaven has providentially decreed that these evil spirits can travel only in a straight line. Around a corner their power evaporates. So my neighbor has built a wall that runs before his door. Windows of course he has none. He cannot see his vegetable garden, and his toilet pots, and the dirty canal. But he ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... new generations of men through old and worn-out ruts of knowledge that future ages shall never have need of, . . and concerning even the progress of science, I confess to a certain incredulity, seeing that to my mind Science somewhat resembles a straight line drawn clear across country but leading, alas! to an ocean wherein all landmarks are lost and swallowed up in blankness. Over and over again the human race has trodden the same pathway of research,—over and over again has ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Geometry gives the following proposition: "Two perpendiculars to the same straight line are parallel." The evidence given is: "If they are not parallel, they will, if sufficiently produced, meet at some point, which is impossible, because from a given point without a straight line but one perpendicular ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... the Tower by a path of a quarter of a mile on the Down, along a walk parallel to the wall of the public road, gently curved to take off the appearance of formality, yet so slightly that you can go on in a straight line. On our right hand venerable bushes of lavender, great plants of rosemary, and large rose trees perfume the air, all growing as if indigenous to the smooth turf. In one place clusters of rare and deeply crimsoned snapdragons, in another patches of aromatic thyme and wild strawberries ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... its larger generalization, progress may move in a straight line, but it has such a variety of expression and so many tributary causes that it is difficult to reduce it to any classification. Owing to the difficulties that attend an attempt to recite all of the details of human progress, philosophers and historians have approached ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... pencil, made a rapid calculation based on the doctrine of chances, and proved to my own satisfaction that at some time or another within the following two weeks those birds would doubtless be sitting in a straight line and paddling about, Indian file, for an instant. I resolved to await that instant. I loaded my gun with the pearl and a sufficient quantity of powder to send the charge through every one of the ducks if, perchance, ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... they rode slowly to give their horses time to recover wind. When they had done so, they rode more rapidly, and, keeping a straight line—they had before ridden a devious course in pursuit—they arrived in an hour at the castle. Here they found that most of the horsemen had already returned. Two hundred bodies lay dead on the ground over which they had charged so often; and when notes were ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... from Algiers, the railway stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat. When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage, straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... fifty feet of plain back-bone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals. To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber. The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... with here and there an axe-cloven skull. Proceeding down the Hauraki Gulf, the same scenes presented themselves, until at last a little smoke was noticed on the Coromandel coast. A fortnight's travel brought them to Kopu at the head of the gulf—175 miles in a straight line from the Bay of Islands. Here they entered the Thames or Waihou River, and were carried up it by the tide. On their left was a wooded range of hills, and on the right a flat forest that extended as far as the eye ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... the night a few miles short of the north end of the lake. Next morning; the 6th, they set out again in time to land about noon within four miles of Ticonderoga in a straight line. There were two routes by which an army could march from Lake George to Lake Champlain. The first, the short way, was to go eastward across the four-mile valley. The second was twice as far, north and then east, all the way round through the woods. Since the valley road led to a bridge which Montcalm ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... had become grim and inscrutable, and his mouth had settled into a hard, straight line. Johnny's interest had at first centred in the mob, but after a few curious glances at his companion he transferred it entirely to him, Johnny Fairfax was a judge of men and of crises; and now he was invaded with a great curiosity ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... to be made from Dorjiling, is that to the summit of Tonglo, a mountain on the Singalelah range, 10,079 feet high, due west of the station, and twelve miles in a straight line, but fully thirty by the path.* [A full account of the botanical features noticed on this excursion (which I made in May, 1848, with Mr. Barnes) has appeared in the "London Journal of Botany," and the "Horticultural Society's Journal," and I shall, therefore, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... before dark were as usual crushed. The dusk found us still floundering in the mud on wayside paths. It began to pour. The hills above us became white—a straight line being drawn between snow and rain—and our guides wanted us to spend the night at an inn two hours before we reached Jabooka. But it looked very uninviting—we remembered the cheery hostess of Jabooka, the woman who ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... these stakes. If you have only one stake before you, you will have no steadying point for your vision, but you can wiggle about without knowing it and make your furrows as crooked as a serpent's coil; but if you have two stakes and ever keep them in line, you cannot deviate an inch from a straight line, and your furrow will be an arrow ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson |
