"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not going to crack up the same people as the other papers," said De Haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. We must dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very scrupulous to give ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... air, working his lungs like a bellows. A long jump down, he thought dizzily. If he didn't crack his skull open on a reef he might well be clawed under by the sea. But there was no other place for him ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... it was. The sky was blood-red. At first it was black, a somber black. Not a coal-black but a slate black. Then suddenly just at the edge of the horizon a crack began to appear. It was a slit of blood. It looked more like a wound than anything else I ever saw. The slit of blood grew larger and larger in ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... by the sense of sight The wing of a partridge (the remainder of the brace fell to Barton's lot) was disposed of by the patient; and then, over the wine, which he did not touch, and the walnuts, which he tried nervously to crack in his thin, white hands, Maitland made ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... all along—the old man, the boys, the mother and the bride. Then[advances to the pastor at the door], as a preliminary celebration we'll crack a bottle of my oldest Johannisberger. But what is the matter out there? Who ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... pious Puritans would lock themselves up in one of these cells, say their prayers and go to bed. In the morning they would devoutly return thanks for the "preservation of their lives" during the night, and nobody had better reason to be thankful. Probably some big crack in the window, or in the door, let in a little fresh air, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... Christ's death in us, to see that all His deeds are done in us. Christ's will must become our will, Christ's peace our peace, Christ's sufferings our sufferings, Christ's cross our cross, and then we may know "the eternal Sabbath," and keep "quiet, even if the whole fabrick of heaven and earth crack and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... themselves the name of the Whip Club, because each member drove his own team of four horses. The chief tutor of these titled Jehu's in the art and mystery of driving, was no less a personage than the celebrated Tom Moody, driver of the Windsor Coach, and by that crack coach it was intended to proceed as far as Slough, on the intended excursion to Stoke, and then turn off to the left; but as the Whip Club, at the period in question, attracted a large share of public attention in the metropolis, perhaps a short notice of it may be here permitted, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... crowned the hill which overlooked Deep-mead Farm—broad acres of land that the Seviers had had granted them from Virginia—dead, his pistol under his shoulder and a smile on his face. Just so he had looked as he rode at the head of our crack gray regiment in that hell-reeking charge at Perryville, and it was such a smile we had followed into the trenches at Franklin. Stalwart, dashing, joyous Andrew, how we had all loved ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... for the start, but the driver had a great many last words with the public, which the interest in our proceedings had gathered about us. Presently with an air of triumph he took his seat, gave a loud crack or two with his whip, and off we started at a good swinging trot, just to show what ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... on the point of stepping out into the road again when a horseman rode into sight between the two rocks. In the same instant of his appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun, saw the rider jerk backward in the saddle, throw up one hand—and then the darkness ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... floor. 'He deserves to escape, for he fought like a devil for it. D—n him, he's a brave fellow! There's no use in chasing him, I suppose; you and I ain't cut out for running. If that last crack had hit me on the nose, it would have smashed it. Come, let's see after the other fellow; perhaps he's playing possum, and may be off. If you don't stop the barking of that d——d dog of yours, I'll kill him.' Groping their way back to the upper floor, from which ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... replaced the barrel-vault, though the oblong plan of the vaulting-bays, due to the nave being wider than the pier-arches, led to somewhat awkward twisted surfaces in the vaulting. But even here the vaults had insufficient lateral buttressing, and began to crack and settle; so that in the great ante-chapel, built thirty years later, the side-aisles were made in two stories, the better to resist the thrust, and the groined vaults themselves were constructed of pointed section. These seem to be the ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... grenadiers charged across the bridge, led by Captain Fordyce. He proved himself a good soldier, but he found the colonials good soldiers too. They held back their fire till the grenadiers were across the bridge and less than fifty yards away. Then the crack of rifles was heard and a line of fire flashed out all along the low breastwork. And it came from huntsmen who knew how to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... eyes sall I see my Redeimer: yea not only is sonus quid materiale, but further something much more grossely material then the objects of the rest of the senses, as for instance in the discharging of a canon being a distance looking on we would think it gives fire long before it gives the crack, tho in wery truth they be both in the same instant. The reason then whey we sie the fire before we hear the crack is because the species Wisibiles that carries the fire to our eyes, tho material ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... pitch out a fact or two—not too many—or a couple of round sums of figures first of all, just to give them confidence in you, and then go straight for your opponent. No rapier play—it's lost then—but crack him on the top-knot with a bludgeon. They'll want to hear his skull ring before they'll believe that you have touched him. Phrases! Those are the things to get you in, not arguments. Pin a label on his ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... snow on the stormy blast. The sails are scattered abroad like weeds; The strong masts shake like quivering reeds; The mighty cables and iron chains, The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,— They strain and they crack; and hearts like stone Their natural, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... doctor and the slender Obtyosov walked in. Now she could get a view of them. The doctor was corpulent and swarthy; he wore a beard and was slow in his movements. At the slightest motion his tunic seemed as though it would crack, and perspiration came on to his face. The officer was rosy, clean-shaven, feminine-looking, and as supple as an ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the loud crack of a musket rang upon the still night air. At the same instant Dick Dare fell sprawling upon his face on ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... bemoaned our hard fate, mutually, in being attached to such a regiment: 'A damnable corps this,—low, vulgar fellows, practical jokes; not the kind of thing one expects in the army. But as for me, I've joined it partly from necessity. You, however, who might be in a crack regiment, I can't conceive your ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... indifferently hard, are fit to bear Weight; but there are some sorts of them, that easily crack with ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and showed, by their ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... cried Scraggs, with a grin; "I do believe they're going to pitch a fellow over that cliff. What a crack he'll come down into the water with, to be sure. It's to be hoped the poor man is dead, for his own sake, before he takes that flight. Hallo!" added Scraggs, with an energetic shout and a look of surprise; "I say, that's one of our ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... cold and brilliant waiting-room which was Henry James at its highest and Wilde at its worst, there broke in two positive movements, largely honest though essentially unhistoric and profane, which were destined to crack up the old Victorian solidity past repair. The first was Bernard Shaw and the Socialists: the second was Rudyard Kipling and the Imperialists. I take the Socialists first not because they necessarily came so in order of time, but ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... to the right spot," said he to himself. "He must have seen the track. It is just fifty feet from there that the chamois springs across a crack in the ice to get to the pasture higher up; and when he once gets sight of him, father won't let him escape. But, first and foremost, I must find the game, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... great ragged fragments from the rooks' nests up in the tower. The trees themselves so toss and creak, as this tangible part of the darkness madly whirls about, that they seem in peril of being torn out of the earth: while ever and again a crack, and a rushing fall, denote that some large branch has ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... hide behind my temporary rank," I answered hotly. "I waive it, gladly. Anything, for a chance to puncture that rotten carcass of yours or to get a good fair crack at your smooth face." ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... moisture enough to permit a heavy frost on the windows in zero weather. The absence of frost under such conditions is positive proof of an entirely dry atmosphere, and this is a piano's most dangerous enemy, causing the sounding board to crack, shrinking up the bridges, and consequently putting the piano seriously out of tune, also causing an undue dryness in all the action parts and often a loosening of the glue joints, thus producing clicks and rattles. To obviate this difficulty is ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... gave you the last drop of his jollity. He inspired Newman with something of the same kindness that our hero used to feel in his earlier years for those of his companions who could perform strange and clever tricks—make their joints crack in queer places or whistle at the back ...
— The American • Henry James
... such a hard nut for the opponents of the canal theory to crack, that I am quite prepared to learn that all these careful observations ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... continually, mustard by whole shovelfuls. Immediately after that he drank a horrific draft of white wine for the ease of his kidneys. When that was done, he ate according to the season meat agreeable to his appetite, and then left off eating when he was like to crack for fulness. As for his drinking, he had neither end nor rule. For he was wont to say, that the limits and bounds of drinking were when the cork of the shoes of him that drinketh swelleth up half ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... indignation when circumstances required it. He was never on the lookout for trouble, but was always ready to meet it half way, and his courageous character together with his vigorous physique had made him prominent in the sports of the boys of his own age. He was a crack baseball player and one of the chief factors of the high school football eleven. No one in Clintonia was held ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... every sense of the word an arduous training, for the first regiment of Guards being considered all the world over as the crack corps of the German army, and as the embodiment of military perfection in every sense of the word, its officers, realizing that it is, so to speak, the star phalanx of Germany, are engaged, morning, noon and night, in maintaining it at its ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... and sent up to the doctor. But the case was far more terrible than that! For Mr Parrett had been fearfully and wonderfully mixed up in the whole affair. A few weeks ago the Parrett's juniors had done their best to drown him; now they had done their best to drown him and break his neck and crack his skull all at one onslaught; and as if that wasn't enough, the Welchers had stepped in at the same moment and added poison and suffocation to the other crimes of which the unlucky master ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... the tumult moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork—a big rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it a little from its fatal end? He was strong enough to do it, if he only ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was going out again from here; he was coming out of the yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, but he wasn't in the best of humors, I could see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he only meant to put me out of his way, as if he'd say, 'Let me go, do!' but he fetched me such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that—oh! oh!" And Stepan, who could not help laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the back of his head. "Yes," he added; "he has got a fist; it's something like a ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... Soviet Union has surrounded itself with captive and sullen nations. Like a crack in the crust of an uneasily sleeping volcano, the Hungarian uprising revealed the depth and intensity of the patriotic longing for liberty that still burns ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... suddenly that I recognized the speakers in spite of the whispers. It was Marilyn and Shirley. They were together. Now I recollected the figured chintz which covered the wall and was to be seen through the crack made by the open door. It was her room. They had not heard my hand on the knob, nor the catch, did not know that anyone ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... thus agreed on, all hearty and hale, The lord and his party, at crack of the dawn, With hounds at their heels canter'd over the lawn. Arrived, said the lord in his jovial mood, 'We'll breakfast with you, if your chickens are good. That lass, my good man, I suppose is your daughter: No news of a son-in-law? Any one sought ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... From the crack of the rifle and baying of hound, Takes the poor panting bondman his flight; His couch through the day is the cold damp ground, But northward he runs ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... bring you up to the point where I began to suspect," Ren continued. "I described the feeling I had that was something like watching a large chunk of the bank of a stream break away, starting first as a jagged crack in the turf, with it widening slowly at first, then faster, until the broken chunk becomes a separate THING, dissociated from the bank. It breaks away, drops into the stream—and vanishes; while the bank itself remains, enclosing and containing the ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham
... request, having first tied a knot in the end of the rope and fixed it firmly in a crack in the rocks, I went carefully down as far as it reached, when, with a back-handed fling, I sent the pick sliding ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... STATION training to adequately fit a man to pronounce definite judgment on the availability or non-availability of country. One of Warburton's suggestions to the South Australian Government was to explore the interior-which had proved such a difficult nut to crack—by means of the POLICE. One has to know the country well to fully appreciate the exquisite humour of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... resisted; the old quarrel with the Jansenists was revived, and soon Church and Crown were convulsed by an agitation that shook society to its very base. During the popular ferment the king was attacked in 1757 by a crack-brained fanatic named Damiens, who scratched him with a penknife as he was entering his coach at Versailles. The poor crazy wretch, who at most deserved detention in an asylum, was first subjected to a cruel ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... was perfect; the utter stillness of the air at the time when the final congelation of the waters had taken place had resulted in the formation of a surface that for smoothness would rival a skating-rink; without a crack or flaw it extended far beyond the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... "Answerest thou back thy betters so pertly, sirrah? By my soul, I have a mind to crack thy head with this clog for ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... do your work far better than I could have done it. What an intellect we have lost in Newman—so delicately capable of adjustment that it could crush a Hume or crack a Kingsley! And what an example both in literature and in life. But that ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... his hand raised to strike when something happened. A lithe, muscular form glided under the upraised fist, and the next moment there was a sharp crack as the newcomer's fist collided with the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... behind. In an instant the surrounding air became full of innumerable tiny, brilliant flames, passing me at an incredible speed like minute streaks of lightning, each one giving forth a curious staccato whistling crack as it plunged through or beside the tormented machine, leaving in its wake a thin curling line of blue smoke. I was in the middle of a relentless storm of burning tracer bullets, vying one with the other for the honour of passing through the petrol tank, thereby ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... all further pursuit. Hastily kicking off his loose boots, the merchant plunged into the water, rather than encounter the princely whip, which already began to crack and snap in fierce anticipation. Prince Alexis kicked off his boots and followed; the pond gradually deepened, and in a minute the tall merchant stood up to his chin in the icy water, and his short pursuer likewise but out of striking ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... lived for sixty years, and been known for nothing but good butter and a godly conversation, was to be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried, dead and naked, to that far-away city that she had always honoured with her Sunday's best; the place beside her family was to be empty till the crack of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to be exposed to that last curiosity of ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... travelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite pour l'amour de Dieu! ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... ready writer. Coming from New Zealand, through the War, to England, his natural talents were at once recognised, and he won a position for himself on the staff of The Times. In the leisure moments spared from the service of the Old Lady of Printing House Square, he would crack a jest, now and then, with the Old Sage of Bouverie Street. Mr. EDWIN ARNOLD now publishes a collection of his writings under the title, Noel Ross and His Work, and Mr. Punch confines himself to commending the volume to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... animal's back and throws the poor thing over; it saves argument. If he gets cross and puts his shoulder to the massive oaken door, we know there is going to be work next morning for the carpenter. Maybe he is a party belonging to the Middle Ages. Then when he reluctantly challenges the crack fencer of Europe to a duel, our instinct is to call ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... that, too, but Juli's agonized face came between me and the picture of disaster. I clenched my fist around the chair arm, not surprised to see the fragile plastic buckle, crack and split under my grip. If ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... of the biggest came upon me and pulled hold of my coat. I could not let this pass, the hooting I don't care about. So I fetched some people to have the biggest fellow taken to Jabour. This we did to frighten them, for after one of my friends gave him a crack over the head, he was let off, promising to do so no more. The lower Moors and Touaricks, both here and at Ghadames, teach the slaves to call Christians kafer, "infidel." The blacksmiths, near Hateetah's house, mostly salute me as I pass by them, with "There's ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... long-horned oxen, the Tartars brought barrels of frozen honey, quarters of killed lambs, poultry and game, and returned heavily laden with bags of flour and rolls of sole leather. The whole day long the crack of whips and the curses of the drivers rent the icy atmosphere. Whatever their destination, the carters were in a hurry to reach human habitation before nightfall—before the dreaded time when packs of wolves came out to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... would bob against the canvas roof. This was suggestive. Procuring a stick of proper size, I crossed over to the rear street, and stood back of the tent watching my opportunity. Presently Dunn's head came bobbing against the canvas, and I brought the stick down on it with a good, sharp crack. The effect was all that could be desired. There came an unearthly bellow, accompanied, I grieve to say, with many exclamations suggestive of the future prospects of the culprit who had cracked the head of the festive dancer. Out they poured through the little door ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... last, and the lovers have, as the poet says, "moonlight [actually] and sleep [possibly] for repayment." But with the morning a worse thing happens. The lover, waking, sees at the foot of the bed, flowing sluggishly from the crack under the Englishman's door, a dark brownish-red fluid. It is blood, certainly blood! and what on earth is to be done? Apparently the Englishman (they have heard a heavy bump in the night) has either committed suicide or ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... youngest Rover, as he turned again to the lesson he had been studying. "He tries to keep up a brave front, but that crack he got on the head some weeks ago was a worse one than most folks imagine. I'm thinking he ought to be home and under the doctor's care instead of trying to rack his brains making up lessons he missed while we ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... the articles from Banneker's pen was 'A Plan of Peace Office for the United States,' for promoting and preserving perpetual peace. This article was concise and well written, and contains most of the ideas set forth today by advocates of peace. Banneker took a 'crack' at European military ideas, and advocated the abolishment in the United States of military dress and titles and all militia laws. He laid down laws for the construction of a great temple of peace in which hymns were to be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... yards or so away from his transit to call something to Dave, when the crack of a rifle sounded from the hillside and a bullet whined near by. The engineer pivoted about. Another shot followed, and he beheld a spurt of dust close by his instrument. The hidden rifleman was not seeking to murder him, but to ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... "Discovery." The humor was in my hands. I was obliged to keep a covering on them for months at a time, changing the covering morning and night. The stinging, burning and itching sensation would be so intense that at times it seemed as if I would go crazy. When I bent the fingers the flesh would crack open and bleed. It is impossible for me to describe the intense pain and suffering which I endured night and day. After taking six bottles of the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... her cloth and showed it to him through the crack of the door and at the sight of this he was convinced; then he reflected on the advice of his teacher and repented, because he had nearly killed his sister through not ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... as an extinct controversy; and, unlike the Ossian puzzle, which was a harder nut to crack, this Rowley controversy was really settled from the start. It is not essential to our purpose to give any extended history of it. The evidence relied upon by the supporters of Rowley was mainly of the external kind: personal testimony, and especially the antecedent unlikeliness that a boy of Chatterton's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... these, when the air was filled with the shouts and yells of attackers and besieged, when the crack of the muskets and the intermittent reports of the cannon almost deafened her, Lady Cholmley was assiduously attending to the wounded and the many cases of scurvy, which was rampant among the garrison. One of her maids who shared these labours crept out of the castle one night ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... listening again, but when she heard a short groan mingled with the sobs, she immediately tapped on the door. Instantly the sobs ceased and the room became still. Kate put her lips to the crack and said in her off-hand way: "It's only a school-marm, rooming next you. If you're ill, could I get ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... belonged was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling down. The house stood—if anything so old and feeble could be said to stand—on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... cavities, so likely to be forced by such pressure into the skull. They were particularly anxious to detect linear fractures. One of their methods of negative diagnosis for fractures of the skull was that if the patient were able to bring his teeth together strongly, or to crack a nut without pain, then there was no fracture present. One of the commentators, however, adds to this "sed hoc aliquando fallit—but this sign sometimes fails." Split or crack fractures were also diagnosticated by the method ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... rules the royal martyr drew; The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place. And Prussia's monarch show'd his lampblack face. The morn was cold: he views with keen desire A rusty grate unconscious of a fire; An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, And five crack'd ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... rain and hail, so much could not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I could not come—are impossibilities nothing—be they abstractions of the intellects or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte pendentes? Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. Observe ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... we really started at the hour named, and at four o'clock, with a crack of the whip, our ponies galloped out of the yard of the most delightful majatalo we had ever slept in. On we drove through the early hours of the morning, everything looking fresh and bright, the birds singing, the rabbits running across the road. As we passed fields where the peasants ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... slaves on the large plantations began work at sunrise, and toiled to the crack of the whip on the great plantations until sundown. Women and children, only half grown, were compelled to do their share in the fields. In Brazil conditions generally were easier for the slave. The Portuguese planter was perhaps less anxious to "drive" the work out ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... may possibly be mistaken in his measures," answered De Retz. "He will find Paris a hard nut to crack." ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the right man came along. He was Sidney Shallet, a writer for The Saturday Evening Post. He seemed to have the prerequisites that were desired, so his visit to ATIC was cleared through the Pentagon. Harry Haberer, a crack Air Force public relations man, was assigned the job of seeing that Shallet got his story. I have heard many times, from both military personnel and civilians, that the Air Force told Shallet exactly what to say in his article—play down the UFO's—don't ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... away, his swift feet slowing to a walk as he neared the bit of woods where he delivered his message in an undertone. Ethel Blue meanwhile, had rushed into the house to tell Moya to heat plenty of water and to crack some ice, and Margaret had opened Mrs. Schuler's closet of simple remedies and found the bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia. Ethel Brown and James ran to meet Mrs. Tsanoff, Ethel taking the baby from her and James ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... a saucepan two and one-half cupfuls of sugar and one-half cupful of water. Stir until it is dissolved. Then wash the sides of the pan and let it boil without touching a few moments, and add a tablespoonful butter and let boil until it will crack when tested in cold water. Add a teaspoonful vanilla and turn in onto a tin to cool. Mark it off into ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... gardens by the lake The sleeping peacocks suddenly wake; Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn, Each of them sounds his mournful horn: Shrill peals that waver and crack and break. What can have ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... some day," Anthea was saying, dreamily looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long straight chestnut-leaves. But at that moment the Lamb, struggling gaily with Cyril, thrust a stout-shod little foot against his brother's chest; there was a crack!—the innocent Lamb had broken the glass of father's second-best Waterbury watch, which ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... To inform. His pall nosed and he was twisted for a crack; his confederate turned king's evidence, and he ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... us to his home and sat us down to a steaming breakfast, while a few of the chosen were invited in to watch us polish it off. The crowd remained outside, choking the road. Some of the bolder of the children crept slyly in the door, others peered shyly at us from the crack of it. And one little chap, braver than his comrades, clumped sturdily up to my knee, where he stood clutching it in round-eyed wonder and saying never a word for the rest of the ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... adventure in London has given the reader some short notice of his friend, Mr Macshane. Neither the wits nor the principles of that worthy Ensign were particularly firm: for drink, poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was over, there was a social upheaval known as "the great beard movement." Leech was very keen upon all this question of moustaches, and held with many others that no one had a right to them save the crack cavalry regiments. One day it happened that Leech, Tenniel, and Pritchett were riding together, and, agreeing on the subject, they arrived at cross-roads, where, holding their crops together, they cried "We Swear!"—not to wear ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... clothed herself in the white robes and the thick head-dress that hid her face, all except a little crack left for the eyes to peep through, whilst Betty, with the help of Inez, arrayed herself in the wondrous wedding robe beset with jewels that was Morella's bridal gift, and hid her dyed tresses beneath the pearl-sewn veil. ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... think me very queer, Each unennobled guest: I munch my chop, I quaff my beer At meal-times unrepressed, I laugh a laughter rude and loud; My little jokes I crack; The parlour-maid with mirth is bowed— Oh, bring ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... down to open the furnace door a crack, "this is mair than murder ye're comin' at; it's a buitchery—or else it's juist a ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter, there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I did not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over my head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me, "In case of a pogrom." Yes, there were ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... had taken our leave of Master Churl, we were conducted into the apartment of Mr. Pug, a chattering young monkey, who, as soon as he saw us whipt his little hat under his arm in a crack, and seating himself upon his backside, welcomed each of us into the room by several ceremonious nods, which were intended to supply the place of a bow, and were accompanied by such a noisy affected ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven hours' ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... found was the missing one, and although apparently hidden with intent, the fact of its never having been opened seemed to suggest that Anna was innocent, and that the envelope had, by some extraordinary accident, fallen unnoticed by Anna through the crack between the boards. Anyhow, its discovery put an end to the disturbances and the apparition of the unfortunate suicide—whether guilty or innocent, and the Judgment Day can alone determine that—has ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... of it (the Body being to be buried by and by) and the croud of People was a further hindrance. But if any thing had been considerably out of order to the view, it would surely have been by some of them discover'd. Some of them thought, they discern'd a small fissure or crack in the skull; and some who held it, while it was sawing off, said, they felt it Jarring in their hands, and there seem'd to the eye something like it, but it was so small, as that by candle-light we could not agree it ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... door a little wee crack, and in they came. And one took one of her little hands, and the other took her other little hand, and they ran, ran, ran with her, right up to the top of the ground. Then ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... tight, Mame," jeered the boy. He opened a solid door behind him. Through the crack Susan saw busily writing at a table desk a bald, fat man with a pasty skin and a veined ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... I would rather live with others," Oswald said. "I am used to it, and to live in a hut on the moors would in no way be to my fancy; and if I cannot get a place where I have comrades to talk to, and crack a joke with, I would rather cross the seas, take service with an Irish chieftain, or travel to Wales, where I hear men ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... been made, by placing a stuffed bear near the house, probably in imitation of the Zoological Gardens; but the idea is rather a failure, and would appear more suitable over the door of a perfumer's shop, to intimate the presence of bear's grease. A little gim-crack model of a wooden house is also visible, by way of an ornament, stuck on the summit of a wooden pillar, but the effect is disproportioned to all surrounding objects, even more than the designs on Chinese paper; where men of six feet high ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... an improving book was prepared for children concerning a Peasant and a Camel. The Peasant was depicted as having a Hut, and a Fireside, and as loafing lazily in its warm glow. Then, in the crack of the door, appeared the appealing nose of a Camel—might he warm that nose? The lazy Peasant wouldn't take the trouble to get up and shut him out. The appealing nose became an insinuating neck, then intrusive shoulders, and presently ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... like the membrane of some huge lobster, invisibly manipulated by thirty thousand men or women, of whom each individual occupies a space of six square feet, but has a kitchen, a workshop, a bed, children, a garden, little light to see by, but must see all. Imperceptibly, the articulations begin to crack; motion communicates itself; the street speaks. By mid-day, all is alive; the chimneys smoke, the monster eats; then he roars, and his thousand paws begin to ramp. Splendid spectacle! But, O Paris! he who has not admired your gloomy passages, your gleams and flashes of light, your deep and silent ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... his partner did not comfort Jim. He was suspiciously near a breakdown. "Why didn't I take another crack at him when I had the chance?" he whimpered. "I been waitin' all ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... there," pointing out of the window in the direction of the capitol, "called the Congress, and if they would only give me the four battleships I want, I'd be perfectly willing to have any one take a crack at me." Then, for the first time recognizing the existence of the parents, the President said: "And I don't know but if they did pick me off I'd be pretty well ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... is in this old chest," she said. "I believe it really should be opened. The moths may have got into it through that crack in the lid." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the greater part of this day by a tribe of ragged beggars, whose importunity was really disgusting. The men were in general old, flat-headed, and pot-bellied. The women skinny and flap-eared. To these garrulous ladies and gentlemen they were obliged to talk and laugh, shake hands, crack fingers, bend their bodies, bow their heads, and place their hands with great solemnity on their heads and breasts. They had not indeed a moment's relaxation from this excessive fatigue, and had Job, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... induction mostly," answered Hooker. "And when I want a rest I take a crack at the fourth dimension—spacial curvature's my hobby. But I'm always working at radio stuff. That's where the big things are going to ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... at the sleeping youth, and then knelt beside him. The colonel briskly brought his pistol to bear on him, and with great satisfaction noted that Tom's muzzle occupied a crack in the front walls, and that he himself ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... as simple a chasm between Lord Curzon and Lord Milner. But I am afraid that the chasm will become almost imperceptible, a microscopic crack, if we compare it with the chasm that separates either or both of them from the ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... Lee, whom Clinton had faced at Boston, now met him at Charleston. Lee, and the gallant garrison there, made a brilliant and most successful resistance. The fort on Sullivan's Island, which we attacked, was a nut we could not crack. The fire of all our frigates was not strong enough to pound its shell; the passage by which we moved up to the assault of the place was not fordable, as those officers found—Sir Henry at the head of them, who was always the first to charge—who attempted ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sheep were still huddled on the edge of the ravine when there came the thud of horses' hoofs and the crack of revolvers, accompanied by hoarse, triumphant yells and cries. Melissy knew instantly what it was—the attack of cattlemen upon her defenseless flock. They had waited until the sheep were on the edge ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... reinforced and on its guard, was not an easy nut to crack. But Panama? Panama meant a risky march inland and a still riskier return by the regular treasure trail. But with the help of the Maroons, who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing might yet be done. Ranse thought the game not worth the candle ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... an insolent stare, as at one who had dared him. He told the same boy who had told him what Maria had said, that he thought Amy Long was the prettiest girl in school, and Maria was homely enough to crack a looking-glass, and that came back to Maria. Everything said in the school always came back, by some mysterious ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... success of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in the December 1991 balloting spurred the Algerian army to intervene and postpone the second round of elections to prevent what the secular elite feared would be an extremist-led government from assuming power. The army began a crack down on the FIS that spurred FIS supporters to begin attacking government targets. The government later allowed elections featuring pro-government and moderate religious-based parties, but did not appease the activists who progressively widened their attacks. The ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... just reseated himself, turned his chair round at that question with such vivacity that Mrs. Mivers heard it crack. Her chairs were not meant for such usage. A shade fell over her rosy ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... greedy ears to every word which fell from my lips, as, seated directly fronting him, my back supported by the binnacle, I read in a clear and distinct voice, and with due emphasis, the crude absurdities of a crack-brained religious enthusiast. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... fifth glass you will weep over yourself—you will be foolishly happy, or become stupidly noisy. From this glass will spring Prince Carnival, flippant and crack-brained. He will entice you to accompany him; you will forget your respectability, if you have any; you will forget more than you ought or dare forget. All is pleasure, gaiety, excitement; the maskers carry you off with them; ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... refugees out and killed them, nearly all, and those of them who died were still buried beneath our feet in as hideous a sepulcher as ever was digged. There was no getting them out from that tomb. The Crack of Doom will find them still there, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... home, past the back yard, in the nick of time. We couldn't hear what the fellow was saying to Mrs. Brown, but his attitude was enough to make us pull up, and as we did so we saw him try to shove her aside. She was plucky enough and banged the door in his face, but he got his foot in the crack, so that it couldn't shut, and began to ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... and parades galore, with sham battles in which the sharp crack of rifle fire was punctured by the louder, steadier booms of field artillery. There were gun-pointing contests aboard the monitors ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... curtain it was traveling eastward at the rate of sixty miles an hour. In one minute we were all as wet as if we had fallen off the dock at home. We abandoned the car and ran for the shelter of a big tree near-by. We were no sooner under its spreading branches when, with a sound like the crack of doom, lightning struck it and it went crashing to earth in the opposite direction from us. We didn't stop to reflect what would have happened to us if it had fallen in our direction, but made for the open road where there was nothing but the sky to fall ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... staircase. Arrived at the top, the soft wind was murmuring through the great iron railings, the cages of the bells. From the centre of the vault hung the famous "Gorda," an immense bronze bell, with all one side split by a large crack; the clapper, which was the author of the mischief, lay below it, engraved and as thick as a column, and a smaller one now occupied the cavity. The roofs of the Cathedral, dark and ugly, lay at their feet, and in front on a hill rose the Alcazar, ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... table, the two smugglers, opposite each other, yielding to insistence and eating absent-mindedly the frugal things, on a cloth as white as the walls. Their broad shoulders, accustomed to loads, lean on the backs of the little chairs and make their frail wood crack. Around them come and go the Sisters, ever with their discreet talk and their puerile laugh, which escape, somewhat softened, from under their veils. Alone, she remains mute and motionless, Sister Mary Angelique: standing near her brother who is seated, she places ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... in France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms, All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... hounds, to be sure," continued Benson: "there is a dead silence till pug is well out of cover, and the whole pack well in: then cheer the hounds with tally-ho! till your lungs crack. Away he goes in gallant style, and the whole field is hard up, till pug takes a stiff country: then they who haven't pluck lag, see no more of him, and, with a fine blazing scent, there are but few of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... in a twinkling he climbed up the nearest nut-tree, and shook it with all his might. The large nuts fell like a shower of hail, and the hungry Prince began to crack and eat them with all speed; and he did not feel quite revived until ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... amusement of places blessed with sea or river space, but introduced to us (Aug 2, 1879), on the Reservoir, by the Y.M.C.A., whose members had to compete with some crack rowers from Evesham, Shrewsbury, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... M'riar commented as she took the brush and started to do Anna's painfully accomplished task all over, from the big crack by the door where she had started. "'Ow's 'e hever goin' to know w'ere we 'ave moved to?" she asked ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... trek!" he repeated, making his vast whip crack like a pistol; "yes, baas, I'll inspann;" and, having satisfied himself that his "voor-slag" was properly adjusted, Swartboy rested the bamboo handle against the side of the house, and proceeded to the kraal to ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... guessed why, and smiled to herself at Eleanor's blushing shyness. "Poor child, her hands were all trembling too," she said in her thoughts. They were broken off by a low summons to the cabin door, which Eleanor held slightly ajar. Through the crack of the door ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... dinner, which is getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses—the strong, submissive beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed such a hint! 3. See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home. 4. Look at ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... might provoke—he must, at least, ask me as a favour to retain the name I have temporarily adopted—a name in my family, sir. A Losely married a Hammond, I forget when—generations ago—you'll see it in the Baronetage. My grandfather, Sir Julian, was not a crack lawyer, but he was a baronet of as good birth as any in the country; and my father, sir"—(Jasper's voice trembled) "my father," he repeated, fiercely striking his clenched hand on the table, "was a gentleman every inch of his body; and I'll pitch any ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... But me no ambition fires: I have no longing either to rise or to shine. I don't desire to be a colonel, nor an admiral, nor a member of Parliament, nor an alderman; I do not yearn for the fame of a wit, or a poet, or a philosopher, or a diner-out, or a crack shot at a rifle-match or a battue. Decidedly, I am the one looker-on, the one bystander, and have no more concern with the active world than a stone has. It is a horrible phantasmal crotchet of Goethe, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them. After this is done you will force the expander into the flues driving it well up, in order to bring the shoulder of expander up snug against the head of the flue. Then drive the tapering pin into the expander. By driving the pin in too far you may spread the flue sufficient to crack it or you are more liable, by expanding too hard, to spread the hole in flue sheet and thereby loosen other flues. You must be careful about this. When you think you have expanded sufficient, hit the pin a side blow in order to loosen it, and turn the ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard |
