"Comet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are. In this instance, however, we think Mr. Lewes expected what was impossible. Charlotte Bronte could not harmonize with Jane Austen. The luminous and familiar star which comes forth into the quiet evening sky when the sun sets amid the amber light of an autumn evening, and the comet which started into sight, unheralded and unnamed, and flamed across the midnight sky, have no affinity, except in the Divine Mind, whence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... to tremble beneath our feet. Staring out through a quivering glass I could see a white haze rising and falling ahead as the wild gusts came down, driving an icy coldness through the vibrating cab, while, when these passed, there was only the glare of the huge head-lamp flickering like a comet down the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... Grace regarded him by the light of the candle. There was something in his look which agonized her, in the rush of his thoughts, accelerating their speed from minute to minute. He seemed to be passing through the universe of ideas like a comet—erratic, inapprehensible, untraceable. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... at you, Joe," said Willy Cameron. "You look strange to me. Ah, now I have it. You look like a comet without a tail. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... March 13th, Herschel was engaged in his usual systematic survey of the sky, a bit at a time, when his telescope lighted among a group of small fixed stars upon what he at first imagined to be a new comet. It proved to be no comet, however, but a true planet—a veritable world, revolving like our own in a nearly circular path around the sun as centre, though far more remote from it than the most distant planet ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... section was such an explosion of sweets as might fly into space should a comet collide with a confectioner's shop—nougat, fougasso, a great poumpo, compotes, candied-fruits, and a whole nightmare herd of rich cakes on which persons not blessed with the most powerful organs of digestion surely would go galloping to the country of dreadful dreams. This was prodigality; ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... afresh upon my spirit how greatly I had wandered away, and how that I stood afar in the lonesomeness of that Land of Night; as it had been that a man of this Age did wander amid the stars, and perceive a great comet to go by him very close; for then he should know in his heart how that he was far off in the Void. And this I do say to you, that you may know somewhat of the emotions of my heart in ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... afternoon. A small company of reporters, and several other men whose profession was not disclosed from their appearance, were on the spot to interview certain of the passengers. A young fellow from the office of the Evening Comet was, perhaps, the most successful, as, from the lengthy description which had been telegraphed to him from Liverpool, he was fortunate enough to accost the only person who had been seen speaking to the murdered ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it announced the knight-errant of never-ending space, a wicked comet. To Arizona gave he playthings many: the rattlesnake, hairy tarantelas and stinging scorpions, horned toads and centipedes, a scented hydrophobia-cat, the Gila monster, a Mexican and the Apache; also a ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... shot down between them wildly, and my star took lustre from it; and the star of Shagpat trembled like a ring on a tightened rope, and waved and flickered, and seemed to come forward and to retire; and 'twas presently as a comet in the sky, bright,—a tadpole, with large head and lengthy tail, in the assembly of the planets. This I saw: and that the stranger star was stationed by my star, shielding it, and that it drew nearer to my star, and entered its ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lines appear in it; for they threaten the person with sickness and a short life. A clouded moon appearing therein, threatens a child-bed woman with death. A bloody spot in the line, denotes a violent death. A star like a comet, threatens ruin by war, and death by pestilence. But if a bright sun appears therein, it promises long ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Person might have been described in all her purple Spots. The Fever might have marched before her, Pain might have stood at her right Hand, Phrenzy on her Left, and Death in her Rear. She might have been introduced as gliding down from the Tail of a Comet, or darted upon the Earth in a Flash of Lightning: She might have tainted the Atmosphere with her Breath; the very glaring of her Eyes might have scattered Infection. But I believe every Reader will think, that in such sublime Writings the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... coming from over sea was there dormant under the snow. Many nations have a tradition of a former world destroyed by a deluge of water, from the East to the West, from Greece to Mexico, where the tail of a comet was said to have caused the flood; but in the strange characters of the Zend is the legend of an ark (as it were) prepared against the snow. It may be that it is the dim memory of a glacial epoch. In this deep coombe, amid the dark oaks and snow, was the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... High Street, comet-like, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard a wall-eyed young man connected with the Fly ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... come thou, Lord of all, Unto whom the Three Worlds call; Thou, that didst in angry might, Kansa, like a comet, smite; Thou, that in thy passion tender, As incarnate spell and splendour, Hung on Radha's glorious face— In the garb of Krishna's grace— As above the bloom the bee, When the honeyed revelry Is too subtle-sweet an one Not to hang and dally ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... briefly stated, is as follows: A great many ages ago, when this globe of ours was still in the period of cataclysms, rolling through space around the sun, it came in contact with a portion of the end of the tail of some enormous comet, sweeping through the universe on its erratic course. This great boulder is a sample of the component parts of that fiery tail, which smote the exposed face of the earth so terribly with the drift deposit ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... in Syracuse, Floyd Vandecar, district attorney of the city, lived in a new house, built to please the delicate fancies of his pretty wife. His career had been comet-like. Graduated from Cornell University and starting in law with his father, he had succeeded to a large practice when but a very young man. Then came the call for his force and strength to be used for the state, and, with ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... Lee was simply matchless and superb; Jackson, a mystic meteor or firey comet; Longstreet and the two Hills, the "Wild Huns" of the South, masterful in tactics, cyclones in battle. Huger, Magruder, and Holmes were rather slow, but the courage and endurance of their troops made up for the shortcomings of ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... obedience; and I'll keep my word, even if there should be a comet. I'll go and buy the horse, and then I shall be ready to take the ring-fence as ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... A comet, beyond it infinite things, only dreamed of as yet, a world floating in an ocean and in night, beneath are two ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... of continued anxiety; thirdly, the loss of the fair fame of the Kurus; and lastly, the joy of those that are thy enemies. The wrath of Bhishma, O thou of the splendour of Indra, of Drona, and the king Yudhishthira, will consume the whole world, like a comet of large proportions falling transversely on the earth. Thy hundred sons and Karna and the sons of Pandu can together rule the vast earth with the belt of the seas. O king, the Dhartarashtras constitute a forest of which the Pandavas ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... which has bred so many intellectual and spiritual entities wrapped in the garments of isolation, robed with questioning. Her genius is in this sense essentially local, as much the voice of the spirit of New England as it is possible for one to hold. If ever wanderer hitched vehicle to the comet's tail, it was the poetic, sprite woman, no one ever rode the sky and the earth as she did in this radiant ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... was evil and base. [Sidenote:—30—] It seems to me that this occurrence had been foreshadowed more clearly, perhaps, than any previous event. A very distinct eclipse of the sun [had taken place] about that time, [and the comet-star was seen for a considerable period. And another] luminary, whose tail extended from the west to the east, for several nights caused us terrible alarm, so that this verse of Homer's was ever ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... England there rushed the bright stranger—a meteor, a comet, a fiery star! "such as no man before ever saw;" it appeared on the 8th, before the kalends of May; seven nights did it shine [235], and the faces of sleepless men were pale under the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sights of earth and skies, From flowers that glow to stars that shine; The comet and the penny show, All curious things, above, below, Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: I claim the Christian Pagan's line, Humani nihil,—even so,— And is not human life divine? When soft the western breezes blow, And strolling ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Paris that at all the street corners there they are selling a little pamphlet for a sou entitled "Le seul moyen de ne pas mourir le 13 Juin a 1'apparition de la Comete." ["The only means how not to die on the 13th of June at the appearance of the comet."] The only means is to drown oneself on the 12th of June. Much of the good advice which is given to me by the critics is very like this seul moyen. Yet we will not drown ourselves—not even in the lukewarm waters of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... are caused by evil spirits, or the moon; and a comet brings the measles. The help of the witch doctor has to be sought on all occasions, for his special work is to drive away the evil spirit that has taken possession of a sick one. This he does by rattling ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... rose-buds, stuck i'the lily-skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit, Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life. Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within? No comet need foretel his change drew on, Whose corpse ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... unknown to myself I had exposed my own deceit: was I so utterly unversed in the heavenly politics as not to know that this person described herself fully as having been born four years previous to the date I had given him, in the year of the eclipse, which was moreover a comet-year and one in which Uranus usurped the throne of reigning planets, and breaking all bounds, shadowed that fateful season? That Aquarius, drawn by him, had imposed himself, too, and affected the very Moon in her courses? ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... some white sugar into his coffee, thinking all the time about Flambeau. He remembered how Flambeau had escaped, once by a pair of nail scissors, and once by a house on fire; once by having to pay for an unstamped letter, and once by getting people to look through a telescope at a comet that might destroy the world. He thought his detective brain as good as the criminal's, which was true. But he fully realised the disadvantage. "The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic," he said with a sour smile, and lifted ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... to their ken like a comet. They'll see me with never a stain; But will they reform me?—far from it. We pay for our pleasure with pain; But the dog will return to his vomit, the hog to his ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... can our Loue annoy: Then grant to me what she denide not him; If good in her, in thee it is no sinne. The Sunne hath shin'd thus long, o let not now The Sunne be darkened by thine angry brow. But rather let each looke a Comet be That may presage my happy destinie. I could to you a short discourse impart, That would relent the direst stony hart, VVer't not offence. It's no offence quoth she. Then thus the same Ile briefely tell, quoth he: A poore ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... they received their lord and master, the august emperor, expecting a gracious greeting. But he passed on without looking at them, without even saluting them by a wave of his hand. They looked after him with wondering, angry eyes, and, like the glittering tail of a comet, followed him into the castle, up the ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... we have just quoted, "heaven and earth had given us only too many prognostics of what was to happen to him: it was in the year 1608 that a great eclipse nearly covered the whole body of the sun; in the preceding year 1607 that the terrible comet appeared; after which some three months or thereabout we had two earthquakes; then several monsters born in divers provinces of France; bloody rains that fell at Orleans and at Troyes; the great plague that afflicted Paris in ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... because his head, being perfectly bald, resembled that vegetable, and partly because he enjoyed the prefix "The Hon." before his name. Yes, I am speaking of the Hon. F. Lancaster, who appeared for a few moments like a new comet in the cricket heavens, just as the thundercloud of war blotted everything out. When the cloud should roll away, that new comet would be no ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... think thee bitter: Thou art not made o' laughter Nor love's smile Can thy vision beguile: Like a black-fiery comet Suddenly, sinisterly, thou comest; Making thy fateful journey, Littering the floor of destiny With wreckages of life, Of love, of heart— Of all visitors thou art the surest; Halting nowhere long, endlessly passest, Dragging behind thee thy train of fire That burneth all, heedless ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... will-of-the-wisp has undoubtedly been seen, as well as in a wet field in the central part of the parish; but it is a disappointing phenomenon—nothing but a misty, pale bluish light, rather like the reality of a comet's tail, and if "he" was by "Friar's Lantern led," "he" must have ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... revealing itself by volcanic eruptions, like an incipient or radiant star; he could not understand how the Congress of Frankfort, cursed by him, foreshadowed the future, as though inspired by tongues of fire; and could not avail himself of all that ether whose comet-like violence, cooled down in the course of time, was to compose the new German nationality, and was to give it a greater fatherland where its inherent genial nature should glow and expand. In his shortsightedness, in his lack of progressive spirit, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... but before she could get to the door, something flashed like a scarlet comet from across the street. It was the little girl whom Maida had seen twice before—the one who always wore ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... her eyes. They were going at a tremendous rate of speed, it seemed to her, like a comet shooting through the air. Then, suddenly, the head of the comet stood still and the tail swung around it, and Anne, who represented the very tip of the tail and who hardly reached to Julia Crosby's shoulder, felt herself carried along with such ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... fire and boil the kettle, read my portion and lie down to watch the heavens. Mother, I wish you knew how near to God one feels out in the desert with the stars. Last night about three o'clock I woke to replenish my fire and watch a while a great comet, the finest one for many years. I would tell you about it but I've already made this letter too long, and it's time Billy and I were on our way again. I love this spot beside the big rock and often come back to it on my journeys; perhaps because here I once camped with a dear ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... we have thought these revolutions likely to come, and the comet of Jerome Lalande has sent many persons ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race? On, like the comet's way through infinite space. Stretches the long untravelled path of light, Into the depths of ages; we may trace, Afar, the brightening glory of its flight, Till the receding rays are lost ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... remember a story which got abroad many years ago that a certain M. Babinet, a scientific Frenchman of note, had predicted a serious accident soon to occur to the planet on which we live by the collision with it of a great comet then approaching us, or some such occurrence. There is no doubt that this prediction produced anxiety and alarm in many timid persons. It became a very interesting question with them who this M. Babinet might be. ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as night came on, the travellers saw a prodigious comet blazing above this scene of desolation. On that night, it was chilling, with a superstitious awe, the hamlets of New England and the gilded chambers of Versailles; but it is characteristic of La Salle, that, beset as he was with perils, and surrounded ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... somewhat of the nature of a meteor, or it may have been a comet, was seen in the heavens by some soldiers and pointed out to Atahuallpa. He gazed on it with fixed attention for some minutes, and then exclaimed, with a dejected air, that "a similar sign had been seen in the skies a short time before the death of his father ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... trouble is in my foot and not in my head. On the second night out from Dekker's star, I lost my footing on the stairs from the dining hall and plunged like a comet to the bottom. I would probably have been killed but for the person of a stout steward who, at that moment, started to ascend the stairs. He took the full impact of my descent on his chest and saved my life, I'm sure. However, ...
— The Passenger • Kenneth Harmon
... have laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my harp were snapped, curled up, and could not be made to ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... to Anne of Denmark, who died on the third of March, 1619, in the forty-fifth year of her age; a woman eminent neither for her vices nor her virtues. She loved shows and expensive amusements, but possessed little taste in her pleasures. A great comet appeared about the time of her death; and the vulgar esteemed it the prognostic of that event: so considerable in their eyes are ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... reindeer, With a little old driver so lively and quick I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! now, Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Dunder and Blixen! To the top of the stoop, to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!" As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... come, for thou hast seen One of their number on its journey hither. The period may not be far remote When thine own planet, starting from its sphere, Shall fright the dwellers of the stars that skirt Its destined pathway to these silent realms! Thou'st seen the comet rushing through the sky, And, gazing on the glowing track which it Had branded on the azure breast of space, Thinking thy words were wisdom, thou hast said, "When its full term of years has been fulfilled, It shall return again." Not knowing that The light ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... type of self has indeed been set up as an ideal by such philosophers as Nietzsche and Max Stirner, who urged that the really great man should express his own personality irrespective of the weaklings whom he might crush in his comet-like career. Thus writes Nietzsche in one of ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... it the name by which it is chiefly known—the Sappho comet, or bar-tailed humming-bird. It is a migratory bird, seldom, however, found so far north. It is a native of Bolivia, where it is found in gardens, and near the abodes of men, of whom it seems to have no fear. In the ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... is exactly over thy head, Sakechak, she will draw the waters on to the hill Wecheganawaw. She is angry with me because I flogged a comet to whom she had taken a liking, and wishes to be revenged on me. I cannot prevent that unless I destroy her, which I cannot do, for she is my wife, and bore me many sons, which are the stars thou seest, and she is besides necessary ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... they approach nearest the sun—when they pass the perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific; when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five thousand ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... from a British writer, the "Comet" of Henry Bell on the Clyde in 1812, was the first example of a steamboat brought into serviceable use within European waters, and the writer incidentally added that steam navigation in Britain took practical form almost on the spot where James Watt, the illustrious ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... person unaccustomed to such navigation would have thought it folly our attempting to ascend; but a second glance would prove that our Indians had not acted rashly. In the centre of the impetuous current a large rock rose above the surface, and from its lower end a long eddy ran like the tail of a comet for about twenty yards down the river. It was just opposite this rock that we entered the rapid, and paddled for it with all our might. The current, however, as I said before, swept us down; and when we got to the middle of the stream, we just reached the extreme point of ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... flatten himself against the stones, he dropped the end of the pole to the ground and shot upward like a rocket. Kalora saw him give an upward twist and wriggle, fling himself free from the pole and disappear on the other side of the wall, the camera following like the tail of a comet. As he did so, number two, coming to a sitting posture, began to shriek for reinforcements. Number one was up on his elbow, regarding the affairs of this ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... and thence to Moorfields, and there up and down to several houses to drink to look for a place 'pour rencontrer la femme de je sais quoi' against next Monday, but could meet none. So to the Coffeehouse, where great talke of the Comet seen in several places; and among our men at sea, and by my Lord Sandwich, to whom I intend to write about it to-night. Thence home to dinner, and then to the office, where all the afternoon, and in the evening home to supper, and then to the office late, and so to bed. This night ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... fixed Comet-blazing eyes, The damned Augurs of vntimely death, Shee ends her tale, whilst from her harts caue flyes A storme of winds, no gentle sighing breath, All which, like euill spirits in disguise, Enter Iberias eares, and to her sayth, That all the substance of this damned storie, Was zealous ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... to be a hostile comminglin' of all hands, when—her ha'r streamin' behind her same as if she's a comet—Missis Bland comes chargin' up. ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... bell rang at 2.25 and the girls began to assemble in the big schoolroom, Muriel Burnitt walked in followed by a perfect comet's tail of juniors, some of whom were hanging on to her arms. Each was sucking a peppermint bull's-eye, and each wore a piece of pink ribbon pinned on to ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Times suggests that the new star may have been produced through a sun being struck by a comet. This raises the question as to whether suns ought not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... theory propounded is correct, and, as carried into practice with models, the aerial locomotive has been a great success. No doubt also it is pleasant to contemplate the possibility of traversing space like a bird, a meteor, or a comet, and the absolute impossibility of "getting off the rails;" but what, we would ask, would be the result of a hitch—ever so small—in the working of the steam-engine ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... Swinburne might find a friend in Stirling or Oliphant, but he could hardly have fancied Henry Adams rousing in him even an interest. Adams could no more interest Algernon Swinburne than he could interest Encke's comet. To Swinburne he could be no more than a worm. The quality of genius was an education almost ultimate, for one touched there the limits of the human mind on that side; but one could only receive; one had nothing to give — nothing ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... mountain, in the vale serene; 330 Can tinge the breathing rose with brighter bloom, Or hang the sombrous rock in deeper gloom; Explore the gem, whose pure, reflected ray Throws o'er the central cave a paler day; Or soaring view the comet's fiery frame 335 Rush o'er the sky, and fold the sphere in flame; While the charm'd spirit, as her accents move, Is wrapt in wonder, or dissolv'd ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... spirit of mankind at length Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's untamed strength, Or curb its swiftness in the forward race? Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, Stretches the long untraveled path of light Into the depths of ages; we may trace Distant, the brightening glory of its flight, Till the receding rays ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... is no written law for him. He moves in his own eccentric orbit. He will come when most unexpected, suddenly, like an eagle from the clear blue depths of the sky, or as a comet from out the ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... naive person and the sophisticated person, for the child and the philosopher; the new experience derives its significance from the character and organization of the previous experiences. To the peasant a comet, a plague, and an epileptic person may mean a divine portent, a visitation of God, a possession by the devil; to the scientific man they mean something quite different. The word "slavery" had very ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... there; "didn't we see you with your heads together a lot, and wasn't we wise to what was in the wind. Bobolink was awake, and it was my turn to snooze. He gave me a kick in the seventh rib that made me think a comet had dropped on me. But we showed up game. Now, what's doing, fellows; and do we get a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... think Master Percival might have let me stay to see the fun;" and Jeffy's eyes rolled to and fro in their orbits, as if anxious to strike against some wandering comet. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the temporal. That which we call reason and science changes like the coats and ties of men. Material science talks loud, its eyes empty, clutching at one restless comet and missing the universe. That thing known as psychology taught to-day in colleges will become even for your generation a curio, sacred only for the preservation of humour. No purpose that confines itself to matter can become a constructive effect, for matter breaks ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... bow, but in a cloud Still lodged, where all thy unseen arrows shroud; I will on thee as on a comet look, A comet, the sad world's ill-boding book; Thy light as luctual and stained with woes I'll judge, where penal flames sit mixed and close. For though some think thou shin'st but to restrain Bold storms, and simply dost attend on rain; Yet I know well, and so our sins ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... there was a great wonder and mystery in life. Man walked in fear and solemnity, with Heaven very close above his head, and Hell below his very feet. God's visible hand was everywhere, in the rainbow and the comet, in the thunder and the wind. The Devil too raged openly upon the earth; he skulked behind the hedge-rows in the gloaming; he laughed loudly in the night-time; he clawed the dying sinner, pounced on the unbaptized babe, and twisted ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of so large a comet as is now interesting the astronomical world, almost contemporaneously with our victory in Egypt, would have been looked upon as an omen of great portent, and it is a curious coincidence that the first glimpse Sir Garnet Wolseley had ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... mild day. The other, an old discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe to the school, when he made his morning appearance in his passy, or passionate wig. No comet expounded surer.—J.B. had a heavy hand. I have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah, do you presume to set your wits at me?"—Nothing was more common than to see him make a head-long entry into the school-room, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... of city damsels, whilst in thy faithful history thou intermingledst the gravest counsels and the purest morals. Nor less acute and piercing wert thou in thy search and pompous descriptions of the works of nature; whether in proper and emphatic terms thou didst paint the blazing comet's fiery tail, the stupendous force of dreadful thunder and earthquakes, and the unrelenting inundations. Sometimes, with Machiavelian sagacity, thou unravelledst intrigues of state, and the traitorous conspiracies of rebels, giving wise counsel to monarchs. How didst thou move our terror ...
— English Satires • Various
... THE MATHEMATICIAN (Maupertuis lately dead). An excellent Treatise, this you have sent me, Monsieur! "Your war with the Geometers on the subject of this Comet appears to me like a war of the gods in Olympus, while on Earth there is going on a fight of dogs and cats.... Would to Heaven our friend Moreau-Maupertuis had cultivated his art like you! That he ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Moon said because she knew that none of the stars had given a true reason for twinkling so gayly that night. The truth was, they were filled with envy, and were trying to be as brilliant as possible, to compete with a flaming Comet which had just appeared in ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... aforesaid girls happened to answer the summons, it was with the greatest difficulty that I could restrain myself from taking refuge in flight. And after I had got in, and made known my business, I knew no more what was told me in return than we know why the comet of last summer had a ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... for her, giving the half-English, half-German parentage, the shadow-like mother, the Bavarian father, Sylvia's sudden and comet-like rising in the musical heaven, while her brother, seven years her senior, had spent his time in earning in order to give her the chance which she had so brilliantly taken. Now it was to be his turn, the shackles ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... discoveries in spectroscopic analysis at his private garden observatory, and had also an instrument of superior power and capacity, invented, or at least much improved, by himself; and this instrument it was that he and I were arranging for an examination of the comet then flaming in the heavens. William sat by apparently uninterested. Finally we had our arrangements for an observation completed, and Ben said: "Now ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... train was leaping out of the darkness toward the lights of the great city, racing toward its haven, rushing like a falling comet, some one blundered. The world called it a disaster; the official statement, an accident, an open switch; the press called it an outrage. Pessimism called it fate—stern mother of the unsavory. Optimism called it Providence. At all events, the train jammed ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... return to the old novels. What curious pranks time plays with tastes and vogues. Forty years ago N. P. Willis was just faded. Yet he was long a great comet of literary glitter and obscured many men of much greater ability. Everybody read him; the annuals hung upon his name; the ladies regarded him as a finer and more dashing Byron than Byron. The place he filled was much like that ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... Governor, "where art thou? Come down to the town and hear the fortune of the races. Alvarado Street streams like a comet. Why should the Star of ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... passed, and Grant, who held a watch in his hand, glanced at the engineer as the blaze whirled like a comet along the clean-cut edge ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... face of our globe shall be about to perish, he will return to it in visible form, thence to withdraw the good, transplanting them, it may be, into the sun, and to punish here the wicked with the demons that have allured them; then the globe of the earth will begin to burn and will be perhaps a comet. This fire will last for aeons upon aeons. The tail of the comet is intended by the smoke which will rise incessantly, according to the Apocalypse, and this fire will be hell, or the second[134] death ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... useful to refer to an estimate by Newton, based upon doubtful data, but repeated by various astronomers of eminence since his time. The comet of 1680, when nearest to the sun, was only a sixth of the sun's diameter from his surface. Newton estimated its temperature, in this position, to be more than two thousand times that of molted iron. Now ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... Mr. Herschel, by the king's command, came to exhibit to his majesty and the royal family the new comet lately discovered by his sister, Miss Herschel; and while I was playing at piquet with Mrs. Schwellenberg, the Princess Augusta came into the room, and asked her if she chose to go into the garden and look at it. She declined the offer, and the princess then made ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... death, and immortal books, And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls, Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles; Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word; Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard; Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day, Mighty, and genial, and just alway, Owning no difference, doing no wrong, Loving the orbs and the least bird's song, The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden rod, Bright with the smile ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... period, and then seek some convenient opportunity of retiring. But as to his own real views of his mistake, and of his unfitness for the post, there never was any doubt, and they found expression when, in the midst of a family gathering, he exclaimed: "Up to this I have been an independent comet, now I ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... sent presents of food and wine, etc., to the Portuguese, who expressed their thanks verbally, saying "they had no paper or ink." They promised to do no wrong to the natives, at the request of Goyti, "because they were vassals of his majesty, and our friends." A comet seen next day "nearly above the town of Zebu," was taken by the soldiers as an omen of war and bloodshed. Affairs with the natives continued to improve steadily, and several chiefs came to offer themselves as vassals to the governor, promising ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... other the heart of Italy. As head and heart made up the perfect life, so death was not complete until Heaven welcomed both. It seemed also strange, that on the night after Mrs. Browning's decease an unexpected comet should glare ominously out of the sky. For the moment we were superstitious, and believed in it as a minister ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... influence of comets he sets down several instances which had evidently been brought to his notice during his sojourn in Scotland: how in 1165, within fourteen days of the appearance of a great comet, Malcolm IV., known on account of his continence as the virgin king, fell sick and died. Again, in 1214 two comets, one preceding and the other following the sun, appeared as fore-runners of the death of King William after a reign of forty-nine years. Perhaps the most interesting ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Catholic treatise, entitled "The Church of England truly represented," begins by informing us that "the ignis fatuus of reformation, which had grown to a comet by many acts of spoil and rapine, had been ushered into England, purified of the filth which it had contracted among the lakes ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... own, and regular motions. For, non pereunt, sed minuuntur et disparent, [3091]Blancanus holds they come and go by fits, casting their tails still from the sun: some of them, as a burning-glass, projects the sunbeams from it; though not always neither: for sometimes a comet casts his tail from Venus, as Tycho observes. And as [3092]Helisaeus Roeslin of some others, from the moon, with little stars about them ad stuporem astronomorum; cum multis aliis in coelo miraculis, all which argue with those Medicean, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... When everything had melted into one gorgeous fire, and we were still helpless before all that glory, the colours faded away to the most delicate combinations of half-tones; soon the stars came out glittering on the deep sky, first of all the Southern Cross. Halley's comet ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name— "Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer! Now, Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blixen! To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall! Now, dash away! Dash away! Dash ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... and see what good old Brownie's put by for us," said Norah, disappearing towards the house like a small comet. ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... to the movements of so many bodies differing as they do in magnitude, in form, and in their distances from the centre of attraction. He imagined that he had discovered such a physical cause by making this triple supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed before it a torrent of fluid matter; this substance, transported to a greater or less distance from the sun according to its density, formed by condensation all the known planets. The bold hypothesis is subject to insurmountable ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... never met me, but they say Deville is a choice mackerel, for a Frenchman. I was about to say, I went down to Cinc'natti on the Enterprise last December. Best boat on the river, Captain Shreve says, and the fourth one built. I have saw the Orleens, the Comet and the Vesuvius, but the Enterprise knocks 'em all. Keelboats and barges is ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... excessive remoteness of the sun from the nearest fixed star suggests that the constitution of the stellar universe is such that an accident of this kind is extremely improbable. As for comets, the earth's atmosphere has already encountered a comet, even during the brief period of astronomical observation. This thick overcoat of ours protects us from the danger ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... [Sidenote: Matth. Paris. An earthquake, a long frost, a comet.] On the 27. daie of March was a generall earthquake in England, and in the winter following a frost that continued from the first of Nouember vntill the middle of Aprill. A blasing starre appeered on palme sundaie, beeing the sixteenth daie of Aprill, about six of the clocke, when the aire was ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed
... the stage here," said Frederick. "Yes, truly, this new and great work shall announce, like a flaming comet, Voltaire's arrival in Berlin. At the same moment in which the Berlinese see that you are at last amongst them, shall they acknowledge that you are worthy to be honored and worshipped. In four weeks, Voltaire, shall your new tragedy be ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... chauffeur let the machine out. Over the deserted plains it tore, comet-like, a meteor preceded by a streamer of light. It swung to the banked curves with no slackening of momentum; it devoured the tangents hungrily; the night wind roared past, drowning all other sounds. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... together and seemingly hanging in mid-air. And in the Seine there shone the nocturnal splendour of the animated water of cities; each gas-jet there cast a reflection of its flame, like the nucleus of a comet, extending into a tail. The nearer ones, mingling together, set the current on fire with broad, regular, symmetrical fans of light, glowing like live embers, while the more distant ones, seen under the bridges, were ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the village streets. And once out of sight I kissed my hand quickly over my shoulder till my face burned. For had you not promised to attend me? "I will wrap you about with fancies and dreams," you said. I was like a young-lady comet drawing after me a luminous trail of love. I began to comprehend the advantages of my position, to rejoice in my sacrifice. I caught the finer aspiration of love, like one who lays down his life and finds it again in nobler forms. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More |
