"Flat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in history, Oliver Cromwell, taking his seat in the House of Commons on Monday, March Seventeenth, Sixteen Hundred Twenty-seven, making then a speech of five minutes, accusing one Reverend Doctor Alablaster of flat popery; and goes back into the silence, pulling the silence in after ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... ground is a good place for you!" growled Sergeant Kelly, knocking the stoop-shouldered stranger flat. Then, before the fellow could rise Kelly had snapped handcuffs ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... disposed to secrete the treasures, rather than despoil these sacred depositories to satisfy the cupidity of the strangers. It was unlucky, too, for the Indian monarch, that much of the gold, and that of the best quality, consisted of flat plates or tiles, which, however valuable, lay in a compact form that did little towards swelling the heap. But an immense amount had been already realized, and it would have been a still greater ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is rumored within IBM that channel cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the boas get dangerous — and it is worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... was running into pigs on the wide stretch of sand. The spur track was banked with desolate wastes of slag and rubbish; beyond them, like an enfolding arm, was the river, dark in the darkening twilight. From under half-shut dampers flat sheets of sapphire and orange flame roared out in rhythmical pulsations, and above them was the pillar of smoke shot through with flying billions of sparks; back of this monstrous and ordered confusion was the solemn circling line of hills. It was all hideous and fierce, yet in the clear ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the whites as Piros. The manner of burial by these Indians, both ancient and modern, as far as I can ascertain from information obtained from the most intelligent of the tribe, is that the body of the dead is and has been always buried in the ground in a horizontal position with the flat bottom of the grave. The grave is generally dug out of the ground in the usual and ordinary manner, being about 6 feet deep, 7 feet long, and about 2 feet wide. It is generally finished after receiving its occupant by being leveled with ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... a tall plane tree, beneath whose shade grew arbutus, and lentisk, and purple heather bushes. And there she sighed, and said, "Theseus, my son, go into that thicket, and you will find at the plane tree foot a great flat stone; lift it, and bring me ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the Fremont man. "But I know how you feel. When I was in California in Forty-six a lot of us Fremont men were sent down from Monterey to San Diego by boat. Every one of us was laid flat, and Kit Carson was the sickest of all! He vowed he'd rather cross the desert a hundred times than take another ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... violets; Though all the Gods their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower. Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring? The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow. No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The grass has ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in long hours before white papers radiant in electric light; and in short passages through fog-dimmed streets. When he came back to his work after lunch he carried in his head a picture of the Strand, scattered with omnibuses, and of the purple shapes of leaves pressed flat upon the gravel, as if his eyes had always been bent upon the ground. His brain worked incessantly, but his thought was attended with so little joy that he did not willingly recall it; but drove ahead, now in this direction, now in that; and came home laden with dark books ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... wanted to put Baptiste into costume, and make him sit for Pharaoh in his "Passage of the Red Sea." To this proposition Baptiste replied by a flat ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... own professors, its own chapel and dining-hall, and each college is complete in itself, although they all belong to one university. You would think the rules very strict! When the Cambridge men go to chapel, and at other specified times, they are required to wear their gowns and queer little flat caps, called 'trenchers' or 'mortar-boards.' At Oxford, the gates of each college are closed at nine o'clock every evening; a man may stay out later (even until twelve), if he can give a good reason for it. If he remains out all night, though, he is ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... still fit in rather well, mayn't it? But if, for any unforeseen reason, I should have to stay sizzling on the sacrificial altar longer than we expect, you mustn't come home to hot Paris to economize and mope in the flat. You must stop in Switzerland till I can meet you in some nice place in the country. Promise that you won't add to my ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... fell flat: and what I did thereafter I did in a state of existence whose acts, to the waking mind, appear unreal as dream. I must at once, I think, have been conscious that here was the cause of the destruction of mankind; that it still surrounded ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... ground tone and a sweet continuous melody above—and you have an approximate idea of his playing. No wonder that I liked best those of the etudes which he played for me, and I wish to mention specially the first one, in A flat major, a poem rather than an etude. It would be a mistake to imagine that he allowed each of the small notes to be distinctly audible; it was rather a surging of the A flat major chord, occasionally raised to a new billow by the ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... the wall was strengthened by square towers at short intervals. On looking down from the wall upon which the three pages were standing, on to the lower town, the view was a singular one. The houses were all built of stone, with flat roofs, after the manner of most Eastern cities. The streets were very narrow, and were crossed at frequent intervals by broad stone arches. These had the effect, not only of giving shelter from an enemy's fire, but of affording means by which troops could ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... ages. Down through the ages education, religion, environment, and other special influences have no doubt played a small part in influencing and determining hereditary characteristics; just as environment in the ages past changed the foot of the evolving horse from a flat, "cushiony" foot with many toes (much needed in the soft bog of his earlier existence) into the "hoof foot" of later days, when harder soil and necessity for greater fleetness, assisted by some sort of "selection" and "survival," conspired to give us the foot of our ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... I started to get out," William declared, ruefully, "somebody would stick his foot in my face, and climb all over me. Then the blessed thing dropped flat, and left me swimming all alone. Of course I thought it was some more of Ted's fine sport, and I hoped you chaps were flagging 'em. After that the water came ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... on; and, since my arrival, have learned that Natalie was at my house in less than three hours after my departure. Sumter's business will not allow him time to come here, so that I shall go there. William drives me down in his curricle, and we shall set off to-day—this morning—now. The flat is in the canal; the curricle on board; my clothes not yet packed up; so good-by. Before I finish I must tell you that I have again heard from La Greque; she is astonishingly improved in appearance, so say others, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... historically, an area of conflict because of flat terrain and the lack of natural barriers on the ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... In Figure 626 the flat-surfaces of rock, A, B, C, represent exposed faces of joints, to which the walls of other joints, J-J, are parallel. S-S are the lines of stratification; D, D are lines of slaty cleavage, which intersect the rock at a considerable angle ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... Buster, as he held on to the rope with a desperate clutch; indeed, but for the sustaining hand of the more agile Frank, the fat boy must have fallen flat on his face more than once as he tripped over obstacles ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... the fanatical patriot's enthusiasm fell flat. The Bretons were marching into danger partly from desire, but more from duty and discipline. At the very first shot these simple-minded creatures reach the supreme wisdom of loving one's country and losing one's life for it, if necessary, without ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... kite in the world, always wagging its tail, shaking its ears, breaking its string, sitting down on the tops of houses, getting stuck in trees, entangled in hedges, flopping down on ponds, or lying flat on the grass, and refusing to rise higher than a ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... demonstrations from one to another of them, kept lowering and extending forward the head and neck in the direction of each in turn.... I noticed that a female would often approach a male bird with her head and neck laid flat along the water as though in a very 'coming on' disposition, and that the male bird declined her advances. This, taken in conjunction with the actions of the female when courted by the male, appears to me to raise a doubt as to the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... generations of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year made restless movements against these parapets, as they had stood there meditating on the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable bricks and stones even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the same mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each joint; since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to wrench the coping off and throw it down the river, in reckless defiance ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... in these far Northern cities; so slow, indeed, I don't wonder every thing has a mildewed and sepulchral aspect. The houses look like slimy tombs in a grave-yard; the atmosphere, when the sun does not happen to shine—which is more than half the time—is dank and flat, and hangs upon one's spirits like a nightmare, crushing out by degrees the very germ of vitality. I am not surprised that paralysis and hip-disease ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... held an appointment, and who had worn skates almost as soon as he had shoes, did such wonderful things as set a large number of them practising figure skating. Buller was bitten by the mania; he had never tried anything before but simple straightforward running on the flat of the skate with bent knees, so he had a great deal to learn; but with his usual persistency, when he once took anything in hand he did not regard the difficulties, and only dreaded lest he should not have sufficient opportunity of practising. He began, of course, ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... tablespoonfuls of potato which has been put through a masher or sieve, mix, and let all cook for 10 to 20 minutes. As the mixture should be fairly stiff this can best be done in a steamer or double boiler. When removed from the fire add 1 egg and 1 yolk well beaten. Mix thoroughly and turn out on flat dish not quite 1/2 inch thick, and allow to get quite cold. Divide into fillet-shaped pieces, brush over with white of egg beaten up, toss in fine bread crumbs and fry in deep smoking-hot fat. Drain, and serve very hot, garnished with thin half or quarter slices ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... that word I laid him flat upon his back in our straw-yard by the trick of the inner heel, which he could not have resisted unless he were a wrestler. Seeing him down, the others ran, though one of them made a shot at me, and some of them got their horses before our men came up, and some went away without ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... know that I go to slay Salwa! I return not to the city of Dwaravati without slaying him. I will again come to ye having compassed the destruction of Salwa together with his car of precious metals. Do ye strike up the sharp and middle and flat notes of the Dundhuvi so dreadful to foes!" And O thou bull of the Bharata race, thus adequately encouraged by me, those heroes cheerfully said unto me, "Go and slay the enemies!" And thus receiving the benedictions of those warriors with glad hearts, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... caused a veil to fall between himself and external things; it was as if he was sealed into some glass cage, and had no contact with what passed round him. This lasted throughout his walk, and when he let himself into his flat it was with the same sense of alienation that he found his cousin Francis gracefully reclining on the sofa that he had pulled up in ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... some moss and withered grass, and spread it in the sun to dry, to form our beds; and while all, even little Francis, were busy with this, I constructed a sort of cooking-place, at some distance from the tent, near the river which was to supply us with fresh water. It was merely a hearth of flat stones from the bed of the stream, fenced round with some thick branches. I kindled a cheerful fire with some dry twigs, put on the pot, filled with water and some squares of portable soup, and left my wife, with Francis for assistant, to prepare ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... journey up the Darling at nine o'clock, on a course somewhat to the westward {EASTWARD in published text} of north. We passed flat after flat of the most vivid green, ornamented by clumps of trees, sufficiently apart to give a most picturesque finish to the landscape. Trees of denser foliage and deeper shade dropped over the river, forming long ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... stand alongisde the operating-table stood an extremely small, flat box, with its lid open. The pipes ended there. And as the surgeon inspected the outfit Billie saw that it comprised, in effect, a pair of diminutive air-pumps. There were two tiny dials, a regulating device, some sort of an automatic electric ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... the Old Jewry breathes nothing but this spirit through all the political part. Plots, massacres, assassinations, seem to some people a trivial price for obtaining a revolution. A cheap, bloodless reformation, a guiltless liberty, appear flat and vapid to their taste. There must be a great change of scene; there must be a magnificent stage effect; there must be a grand spectacle to rouse the imagination, grown torpid with the lazy enjoyment of sixty years' ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... been, in its origin, a mere copy of painting, its predecessor. The first attempt to represent the figures of gods, sacred emblems, and other subjects, consisted in drawing or painting simple outlines of them on a flat surface, the details being afterwards put in with color; but in process of time these forms were traced on stone with a tool, and the intermediate space between the various figures being afterwards cut ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... big flat stone lying near, a precautionary measure provided by some former governor, no doubt, and, calling on Momba to assist him, he dragged it ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... of the Memphite period—rectangular structures of bricks without mortar rising slightly above the level of the plain. The funeral chamber occupies the centre of each, and is partly hollowed out of the soil, like a shallow well, the sides being bricked. It had a flat timber roof, covered by a layer of about three feet of sand; the floor also was of wood, and in several cases the remains of the beams of both ceiling and pavement have been brought to light. The body of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... profession." He was requested by Dr. Burney to sing; rather unfortunately, it would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, "knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver." However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... another young lady who liked to pass most of the time in Boston for the sake of its advantages in music, art, and the theatre. Neither was rich, but together they had a very respectable income. They found a nice little flat of six convenient rooms in an accessible and pleasant but unfashionable street, and furnished it with exactly the things they wanted to use every day. The furnishings were thus simple, but they combined comfort and beauty, for ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... fork, and he sighed his relief. But his relief was short-lived. Without a sign or warning the trail he was on died out, and his course lay over a narrow level flat sparsely dotted with small, stubbly bush. Now he knew that the mare had been true to herself. She had passed the real trail by, and was ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... the earth as a flat surface with four corners. And in proof of their position they quoted Saint Paul, who wanted the gospel carried to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... rescind its circular letter, under penalty of instant dissolution. Otis exclaimed that Great Britain had better rescind the Townshend acts if she did not wish to lose her colonies. The assembly decided, by a vote of 92 to 17, that it would not rescind. This flat defiance was everywhere applauded. The assemblies of the other colonies were ordered to take no notice of the Massachusetts circular, but the order was generally disobeyed, and in several cases the governors turned the assemblies out of doors. The atmosphere ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... Fuselli lay flat on deck resting his head on his crossed arms. When he looked straight up he could see a lead-colored mast sweep back and forth across the sky full of clouds of light grey and silver and dark purplish-grey showing yellowish at the edges. When he tilted his head ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... ef you want to be A rugged chap agin an' hearty, Go fer wutever'll hurt Jeff D., Nut wut'll boost up ary party. Here's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat With half the univarse a-singe-in', 30 Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet Stop ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... seem to be several islands, formed by a sluggish stream in a flat meadow. (Oeroe?) must have been of that ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was no sooner aweigh, than the deck became a scene of activity. The breeze was stiff, and it enabled me to show the Wallingford off to advantage among the dull, flat-bottomed craft of that day. There were reaches in which the wind favoured us, too; and, by the time the ladies reappeared, we were up among the islands, worming our way through the narrow channels with rapidity and skill. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... a photograph enclosed in a photograph-case of sky-blue plush, in which Marianne recognized a swaggering fellow with flat face, large hands, fierce, bushy moustache, who leaned on a cane, swelling out his huge chest in outline against a mean, gray-tinted ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... ceased, we received the usual order "to make ourselves comfortable for the night," and I never remember an instance in which we had so much difficulty in obeying it; for the ground we occupied was a perfect flat, which was flooded more than ankle deep with water, excepting here and there, where the higher ground around the roots of trees, presented circles of a few feet of visible earth, upon which we grouped ourselves. Some few fires were kindled, at which we roasted some bits of raw beef on the points ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... note-case. There appeared to be little in it when Ruth picked it up, for it was very flat. Certainly there was no money in it. Nor did there seem to be anything in it that would identify its owner. However, as Ruth carried it to the window she found a newspaper clipping tucked into one compartment, and, as ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... speech with that, "so you see!" and jumping up from his seat, awaited the answer to his foolish proposal. At the last phrase he had suddenly become hopelessly aware that it had all fallen flat, above all, that he had been ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... are two in number, Steep Holme and Flat Holme, and so closely can vessels approach the latter, given favourable weather conditions, that a stone may be cast on shore from the deck. The business of landing and embarking was consequently easy, and though the islands themselves were as barren as Lundy of the three commodities the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... transparent crystals before he thought of testing his heavy glass. Here is his own clear and simple description of the result of his first experiment with this substance:—'A piece of this glass, about two inches square, and 0.5 of an inch thick, having flat and polished edges, was placed as a diamagnetic[1] between the poles (not as yet magnetized by the electric current), so that the polarized ray should pass through its length; the glass acted as air, water, or ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... out flat upon his stomach, he wriggled almost under the bookcase, while Mr. Denner rose and furtively brushed the dust ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... instant feeling of repugnance, that even after I was used to the fellow, I never quite overcame that first involuntary shudder. He was not a full-blooded negro but an octoroon. His color was a muddy yellow, his features were sharp instead of flat, and his hair hung across his forehead almost straight. But these facts alone did not account for his queerness; the most uncanny thing about him was the color of his eyes. They had a yellow glint and narrowed in the light. The creature was bare-footed ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... define the action to be taken towards this or that particular detail, such as the hundred-and-fifty-year franchise, beforehand. The platform was simply expressed as Honesty, Purity, Integrity. This, as Mr. Fyshe said, made a straight, flat, clean issue between the league and all who ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... You've met with a peasant 240 At nightfall, perchance, When the work has been finished? He's piled up great mountains Of corn in the meadows, He'll sup off a pea! Hey, you mighty monster! You builder of mountains, I'll knock you flat down With the ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... Seventeenth and Eighteenth Mississippi, and the three regiments made such an impetuous attack as to drive back the enemy to the bluff, and their leader, Colonel Baker, having fallen, a panic seemed to seize the command, so that they rushed headlong down the bluff, and crowded into the flat-boats, which were their means of transportation, in such numbers that they were sunk, and many of the foe were drowned in their attempt to swim the river. The loss of the enemy, prisoners included, exceeded the number of our troops in the action. The Confederate loss was ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... make too much of the business, Mr. Warby. Why, he is one of the best and quietest men aboard. If you hadn't kicked him and then swore at him, he wouldn't have tackled you. And I'm not going to keep him in irons—that's flat.' ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke
... doomed him to the halter. Sir John listened over the balusters to the shrieks and howls of his recovered treasure, and wisely decided to lunch at his club. But the club lunch, admirable as it was, seemed flat and unappetising after the dainty yet simple dishes he had recently tasted; and the following day he set forth to search for one of those Italian restaurants, of which he had heard vague reports. Certainly the repast would not ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... Olivier's Hoek, Bezuidenhout, and Tintwa Passes at the head-stream of the Tugela river; Van Reenen's, a steep tortuous gap over which the railway from Ladysmith to Harrismith, and a broad highway, wind upwards through a strange profusion of sudden peaks and flat-topped heights; De Beers, Cundycleugh, and Sunday's River Passes giving access by rough bridle paths from the Free State into Natal, abreast of the Dundee coalfields; Mueller's and Botha's Passes debouching on Newcastle and Ingogo; and finally ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... of his voice, decided at last to come out of her shell. First she showed the point of her little horny nose, then her black eyes, her flat-pointed tail, and finally her strong little claw-tipped feet. Seeing the melon, she made a gesture of assent, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... shoot for a considerable distance along the channel right in the wind's eye; and before she entirely lost her way she had, as Ned had calculated she would, forged past the opening giving access to the first cove or indentation in the reef. The square canvas was now thrown flat aback and the ship soon gathered stern-way, when, by a judicious and skilful manipulation of the helm and braces, a stern-board was made and the vessel backed into the indentation and to its farthest extremity, a distance of about two cables'-lengths. The yards were then braced round and ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... "Terrible flat water!" he announced. "Tastes as if it come out o' the cistern." But the others could find no fault with it, and Sereno ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... that had been thrown, struck the slates on the roof; not one had passed over the church. The longer the unsuccessful efforts lasted, the more evident became the superior smile on Ulrich's lips, the faster his heart throbbed. His eyes searched the grass, and when he had discovered a flat, sharp-edged stone, he hurriedly stooped, pressed silently into the ranks of the players, and bending the upper part of his body far back, summoned all his strength, and hurled the stone in a beautiful curve high into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at which the Manitoba stopped, did not look as if times were very prosperous with it. Two smoky little tugs lay idly at the small wharf, and the few red wooden houses built against the rocks, their flat roofs piled up with bales of goods and boxes—the ever-present blue barrels of coal-oil being most conspicuous—seemed tenantless. Leaving Silver Islet far behind, we rounded Whitefish Point, with its tall lighthouse, and saw a very distinct mirage—a ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... uncultivated parts, red partridges ran about in conveys among the brambles and tufts of junipers, and at every step of the comte and Raoul a terrified rabbit quitted his thyme and heath to scuttle away to the burrow. In fact, this fortunate isle was uninhabited. Flat, offering nothing but a tiny bay for the convenience of embarkation, and under the protection of the governor, who went shares with them, smugglers made use of it as a provisional entrepot, at ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... twice over again; "me eatee him up; me make you good laugh; you all stay here, me shew you good laugh." So down he sits and gets his boots off in a moment, and put on a pair of pumps, (as we call the flat shoes they wear) and which he had in his pocket, and gives my other servant his horse, and with his gun away he flew, swift like ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Egypt, and looking around in amazement at the neighboring windows: in fact, Kleber began his career as an architect, and there were solecisms in the surrounding structure to have turned a better balanced head than his. In the markets I saw peasants with red waistcoats and flat faces shaded with triangles of felt, and peasant-girls bareheaded, with a gilded arrow apparently shot through their brains. I traversed the Street of the Great Arcades, and saw the statue of Gutenberg, of whom, as well as of Peter Schoeffer, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... rather altered coloration. We become used to that fact, discount the change and identify the green of distant objects with the shade of green belonging to near objects. Besides, we see the landscape from the new position as a flat image, and incidentally we see clouds in right perspective and the landscape flat, like clouds when we see them in the ordinary way.'' Of course, everybody knows this. And of course, in a criminal case such ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... flat, riverless island renowned for its white sand beaches; its tropical climate is moderated by constant trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean; the temperature is almost constant at about 27 degrees Celsius ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... or tame, in which I cannot find pleasure; though the whole of Northern France (except Champagne), dull as it seems to most travellers, is to me a perpetual paradise; and, putting Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and one or two such other perfectly flat districts aside, there is not an English county which I should not find entertainment in exploring the cross-roads of, foot by foot,—yet all my best enjoyment would be owing to the imagination of the hills, colouring with their far-away memories every lowland stone and herb. ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... are provided with a round backed wedge, which is pushed in from the side of the breech, and forced firmly home by a screw provided with handles; the face of the wedge is fitted with an easily removable flat plate, which abuts against a Broad well ring, let into a recess in the end of the bore. On firing, the gas presses the ring firmly against the flat plate, and renders escape impossible as long as the surfaces remain uninjured. When they become worn, the ring and plate can be exchanged ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... council of Clarendon closed, as we have supposed it did, with no definite statement on Thomas's part of his attitude towards the Constitutions, and not, as some accounts imply, with a flat refusal to accept them, he probably left the council fully determined not to do so. He carried away with him an official copy of the Constitutions as evidence of the demands which had been made and shortly afterwards ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... was perturbed within him by these suggestions; he pulled up two young cauliflowers and reset their places with pigweeds; he hoed the nicely sloped border of the bed flat to the path, and then flung the hoe across the walk, and went off to his daily occupation with a new idea in his head. Nor was it an unpleasant one. The idea of a transition from his squalid and pinching boarding-house to the delicate comfort of Miss Lucinda's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... an electric shock to the helpers, who instantly clambered into the canoe and lay flat behind the luggage, where they were safe from the poisoned missiles that would soon be ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... (slowly and sententiously). Me shabe man you callee Diego. Me shabbee Led Gulchee call Sandy. Me shabbee man Poker Flat callee Alexandlee Molton. Allee ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... sparkling esplanade the Siwanois had now seated himself. For a while, straining my eyes where I lay flat among the taller fringing ferns, I could just make out a blot in the greyness where he sat upright, like a watching catamount ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the ditch where they were first perceived in the morning, about five hundred yards in our front. In vain did the officers call upon the men to rally and form again for another advance, striking some with the flat of their swords, and appealing to them by every incentive. They felt that it was almost certain destruction to venture again into the storm of fire that awaited them, and were insensible to everything but escape ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... Allerton the ground is a dead flat, and here the flying lake had covered a space a mile broad, doing frightful damage to property but not much to life, because wherever it expanded it shallowed ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... which was all we had at Anzac or at Helles. Here you have hedgerows just bursting into spring, and green grass, which on a fine day fairly tempts you to lie on it if you are far enough away from the lines. The country is flat and you see no sign of the enemy's trenches, or your own—the hedgerows shut them out at half a mile as completely as if they ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... wits; for, ever since, he has been stupefied and void of reason, his fits still following of him. After he had been in this kind of sickness some time, he has gone into the garden, and has got upon a board of an inch thick, which lay flat upon the ground, and we have called him; he would come to the edge of the board, and hold out his hand, and make as if he would come, but could not till he was helped off the board.... My wife has offered him a cake and money to come to her; and he has held out his hand, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... huge trade), and, clad only in a meagre shirt, so far forgot his elderliness and dignity as to cut a couple of capers after the fashion of a Scottish highlander—alighting neatly, each time, on the flat of his heels. Only when he had done that did he proceed to business. Planting himself before his dispatch-box, he rubbed his hands with a satisfaction worthy of an incorruptible rural magistrate when adjourning for luncheon; after which he extracted from the receptacle a bundle ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that my mother could bring herself to kiss a gravedigger. That accounts, maybe, for my being born rickety and with other drawbacks that only made father the fonder. Weather permitting, he'd carry me off to churchyard, set me upon a flat stone, with his coat folded under, and talk to me while he delved. I can mind, now, the way he'd settle lower and lower, till his head played hidey-peep with me over the grave's edge, and at last he'd be clean swallowed up, but still discoursing ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fix up; and Ramsey said he guessed it seemed kind o' too hot to play much. Joining friends, they organized a contest in marksmanship, the target being a floating can which they assailed with pebbles; and after that they "skipped" flat stones upon the surface of the water, then went to join a group gathered about ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... will never see them, and that unless he is incessantly pressing forward to the kingdom of heaven he will never find it—so that the kingdom does come by observation. It is with this as with everything else—there must be a harmonious fusing of two principles which are in flat contradiction to ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... already busy. He jerked the packet open flat on the table. There were many twenty dollar pieces, some fives and tens and a little bundle of bank notes. He ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... over her rolling-pin from sheer exhaustion. But then she earned far more than usual. Including tips from customers (the baker merely acted as a contractor for the families whose flour he transformed into flat, round, tasteless Passover cakes, or "matzoths") she saved up, during the period, a little over twenty rubles. With a part of this sum she ordered a new coat for me and bought me a new cap. I remember that coat very well. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... characterized the Missouri throughout it's whole course so far; it's waters are of a whitish brown colour very thick and terbid, also characteristic of the Missouri; while the South fork is perfectly transparent runds very rappid but with a smoth unruffled surface it's bottom composed of round and flat smooth stones like most rivers issuing from a mountainous country. the bed of the N. fork composed of some gravel but principally mud; in short the air & character of this river is so precisely that of the missouri below that the party with very few exceptions have already pronounced ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... did not stop. When he himself was in the city of Patrae, the temple of Hercules was struck by lightning, and, at Athens, the figure of Bacchus was torn by a violent wind out of the Battle of the Giants, and laid flat upon the theater; with both which deities Antony claimed connection, professing to be descended from Hercules, and from his imitating Bacchus in his way of living having received the name of Young Bacchus. The same whirlwind at Athens also brought down, from amongst many ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Sleep, the cousin of Death, Flat on the ground, and still as any stone, A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath; Small keep took he, whom Fortune frowned on, Or whom she lifted up into the throne Of high renown, but, as a living death, So dead alive, of life he drew ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of the compact and spongy substance varies with the different bones. In the short bones (wrist and ankle bones, vertebrae, etc.) and also in the flat bones (skull bones, ribs, shoulder blades, etc.) there is no cavity for the yellow marrow, all of the interior space being filled with the spongy substance. The red marrow, relations of which to the red corpuscles of the blood have already been noted (page 27), occupies the minute spaces ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... green-and-white-stripe wall-paper that looked as old as Rip Van Winkle. This is the same ribbon-grass paper that I afterward used in the Colony Club hallway. The woodwork was painted a soft gray-green. Finally, I had my collection of faded French costume prints set flat against the top of the wall as a frieze. The hall was so very narrow that as you went up stairs you could actually examine the old prints in detail. Another little thing: I covered the handrail of the stairs with a soft gray-green ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... support his scanty existence by giving lessons. Lemm's external appearance did not predispose one in his favour. He was small of stature, round-shouldered, with shoulder-blades which projected crookedly, and a hollow chest, with huge, flat feet, with pale-blue nails on the stiff, unbending fingers of his sinewy, red hands; he had a wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-compressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as though chewing, which, added to his customary taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... and trousers, his collar open, and his sleeves rolled right up to his shoulders. "Hooray!" he cried; and forgetting all his dignity as second officer in command of Her Majesty's ship, he indulged in a kind of triumphal dance, which ended with a flop, caused by his bringing one foot down flat on the cabin floor. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... the beaver's eye and surely the old king was troubled. That look said as plain as day to Henry that there was danger, and that he must beware. Then the beaver suddenly raised up and struck the water three powerful blows with his broad flat tail. The reports sounded like rifle shots, and, before the echo of the last one died, the great and wise king of his people sank like a stone beneath the water and did not come into view again, disappearing ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... feet. You've got flat feet, Jeff—you've got the flattest feet I ever saw. I don't understand it either. So far as I've been able to observe you've spent the greater part of your life sitting down. Somebody must have hit you on the head with an ax when you were standing on a ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back instantly to my chamber;—it was touching a cold key with a flat third to it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call'd forth my affections: —therefore, when I let go the hand of the fille de chambre, I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at every one who pass'd by,—and forming conjectures ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... open a wormy English walnut? That's what that house was like. There wasn't enough furniture in it to fill an eight-dollar flat. Some old horsehair lounges and three-legged chairs and some framed ancestors on the walls were all that met the eye. But when Colonel Allyn comes in, the place seemed to light up. You could almost hear a band playing, and see a bunch of ...
— Options • O. Henry
... seat and added impressively, "Bear one thing in mind, Al. The Sawtooth cannot permit itself to become involved in any scandal, nor in any killing cases. We're just at the most crucial point with our reclamation project, over here on the flat. The legislature is willing to make an appropriation for the building of the canal, and in two or three months at the latest we should begin selling agricultural tracts to the public. The State ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... ancients." But he did not stop at that: "Men believe that the gods are born, are clothed and shaped and speak like themselves"; "if oxen and horses and lions could draw and paint, they would delineate their gods in their own image"; "the Negroes believe that their gods are flat-nosed and black, the Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and red hair." Thus he attacked directly the popular belief that the gods are anthropomorphic, and his arguments testify that he clearly realised that men create their gods in their own image. On another main point, too, ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... decay had made of the trunk of a fallen tree but a long ridge of crumbling, brown chips, and, upon this ridge, where the sun streamed down hotly, lay something coiled in a black mass, and there was a flat, hideous head resting upon it all with beady ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... Benny Badger except at night. He seldom left his den in the daytime except to sun himself. And even then not many noticed him. Though he did not hide when anyone surprised him while taking a sun-bath, he had a trick of lying flat in the grass without moving. And it took a sharp eye to spy him when he lay low ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... see the red carcass of the moose lying in Pine Stream when nearly half a mile off. Just below the mouth of this stream were the most considerable rapids between the two lakes, called Pine-Stream Falls, where were large flat rocks washed smooth, and at this time you could easily wade across above them. Joe ran down alone while we walked over the portage, my companion collecting spruce gum for his friends at home, and I looking for flowers. Near the lake, which we were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... great public square, ten or fifteen feet lower than the rest of the city. We left our knapsacks at a cafe and sought the celebrated Cathedral, which stands in the highest part of the town, forming with its flat dome and lofty marble tower, an apex to ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... the first glance I could see that this cave was of different structure to the others. They were for the most part mere dens, rounded out anyhow; this had been faced up with cutting tools, so that all the angles were clean, and the sides smooth and flat. The walls inclined inwards to the roof, reminding me of an architecture I had seen before but could not recollect where, and moreover there were several rooms connected up with passages. I was pleased to find that the other cave-openings which Coppinger wanted me ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... thought a monstrosity, and, however true, would nearly always have given the political lawyers, his colleagues, occasion for violent repression. To-day the thing has become so much a commonplace that all appeals to the old illusion would fall flat. The presiding lawyer could not put on an air of shocked incredulity at hearing that such-and-such a Minister had been mixed up in such-and-such a financial scandal. We take such things for ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... observed, all repetition is a kind of delicate punning, bringing slight differences of application into clear relief. The practice has its dangers for the weak-minded lover of ornament, yet even so it may be preferable to the flat stupidity of one identical intention for a word or phrase in twenty several contexts. For the law of incessant change is not so much a counsel of perfection to be held up before the apprentice, as a fundamental condition of all writing whatsoever; ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... the sandy barren flats of the "geest" alternate with stretches of fertile silt deposited by the rivers or the sea,[212] and support different types of communities, which have been admirably described by Gustav Frenssen in his great novel of Joen Uhl. The flat surface of southern Illinois shows in small compass the teeming fertility of the famous "American bottom," the poor clay soil of "Egypt" with its backward population, and the rich prairie land just to the north with its prosperous ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... capacity for the enjoyment of such praise. In this she hath been kinder to most others than to thee; we know wherein she hath been kinder to thee than to most others. If thou writest good poetry many will call it flat, many will call it obscure, many will call it inharmonious; and some of these will speak as they think; for, as in giving a feast to great numbers, it is easier to possess the wine than to procure the cups, so happens it in poetry; thou hast the beverage of thy own growth, but ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... Como bosom'd deep in chesnut groves. No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps. To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain, To ringing team unknown and grating wain, 85 To flat-roof'd towns, that touch the water's bound, Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound, Or from the bending rocks obtrusive cling, And o'er the whiten'd wave their shadows fling; Wild round the steeps the little [G] pathway twines, 90 And Silence loves it's purple ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... gone. The narrow streets are broad thoroughfares, the Jews' quarter is a flat and dusty building lot, the fountain of Ponte Sisto is swept away, one by one the mighty pines of Villa Ludovisi have fallen under axe and saw, and a cheap, thinly inhabited quarter is built upon the site of the enchanted garden. The network of ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Caesar's Camp were firing steadily in spite of the twilight. What was happening? Never mind, we were nearly through the dangerous ground. Now we were all on the flat. Brigadier, staff, and troops let their horses go. We raced through the thorn bushes ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... From the fo'cas'le head above, I heard the two men commence to shout, and this died away into a loud scuffling. At that, I turned to see whether I could get away. I stared round, hopelessly; and then with two jumps, I was on the pigsty, and from there upon the top of the deckhouse. I threw myself flat, ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... with my broad, flat beak, and after a while she was able to fly with me to our nest; but it was days and days before she was out of pain. I am sure if that boy sees my story in BIRDS, he will never give such an ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... them; and underneath, sewed to the box, that they might not shake about and do mischief, were two flat parcels wrapped in tissue paper, and tied with white ribbon, in Cousin Helen's, dainty way. They were glove-cases, of quilted silk, delicately scented, one white, and one lilac; and to each was pinned a loving note, wishing the ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... to look for her maids-of-honour, she perceived that they had fallen flat on their faces (the impression remains till this day), and were struggling, making the most desperate efforts, less in consideration of their own danger than that of the queen. In fine, after four hours and a half's patient perseverance they succeeded in ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... peat, with minute alpine plants; and this again is succeeded by the line of perpetual snow, which, according to Captain King, in the Strait of Magellan descends to between 3000 and 4000 feet. To find an acre of level land in any part of the country is most rare. I recollect only one little flat piece near Port Famine, and another of rather larger extent near Goeree Road. In both places, and everywhere else, the surface is covered by a thick bed of swampy peat. Even within the forest, the ground is concealed by a mass of slowly putrefying vegetable matter, which, from being soaked ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... attempted to guess it, one might have said forty-seven, then corrected himself and said seventy-four. He was really twenty-eight. Emaciated he was; as much, perhaps, as he dared be, with a needy undertaker at Bentley's Flat and a new and enterprising coroner at Sonora. Poverty and zeal are an upper and a nether millstone. It is dangerous to make a third ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... add another word, an unlucky touch of Foster's heel laid the easel, with an amazing clatter, flat on the marble floor! Hester bounded through the doorway more swiftly than her own gazelle, slammed the door behind her, and ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... as fit occasions rise, I grudge you not, of specious lies. But long this mood thou'lt not retain. Already thou'rt again outworn, And should this last, thou wilt be torn By frenzy or remorse and pain. Enough of this! Thy true love dwells apart, And all to her seems flat and tame; Alone thine image fills her heart, She loves thee with an all-devouring flame. First came thy passion with o'erpowering rush, Like mountain torrent, swollen by the melted snow; Pull in her heart didst ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe |
