"Skull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moved further from the road, the back of his head was more directly exposed, presenting a most ghastly sight. The thick brown locks were matted together in a mass of gore, and large drops of blood slowly trickled down upon his coat; the whole back of the skull seemed to be crushed in, while the deadly pallor of his face gave him the ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... more puzzled. He looked from one to the other, lifting the little short hat from the back of his head, and scratching that somewhat thick skull of his, as his habit was when engaged in what he called thinking, conscious that somebody ought to be tackled, and that he, the keeper, was being mystified, but quite at sea as to how he was ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... closed ranks of his opponents. Whether it was that he did not think that his head was worth defending, or that he was too busy in breaking the heads of others to look after his own this is certain, that a tomahawk descended upon it with such force as to bury itself in his skull (and his was a thick skull too). The privateer's men were overpowered by numbers, and then our hero was discovered, under a pile of bodies, still breathing heavily. He was hoisted on board, and taken into his ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... rain-water in the midst of it. We encamped here at sunset. Plenty of buffalo skulls were lying around, bleaching in the sun; and sprinkled thickly among the grass was a great variety of strange flowers. I had nothing else to do, and so gathering a handful, I sat down on a buffalo skull to study them. Although the offspring of a wilderness, their texture was frail and delicate, and their colors extremely rich; pure white, dark blue, and a transparent crimson. One traveling in this country seldom has leisure to think of anything but the stern features of the scenery ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... with perfect magnanimity. The latter was, for the moment, an evil against which it required no small powers of endurance to contend; for the jolts of the waggon were dreadful, and every shake caused a throb in my brain which I thought would have split my skull. As the morning dawned, I saw that the man next me, a gaunt yellow-haired creature, in black, had a cushion of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the long hill west of Chadd's Ford, Gilbert noticed how the meadow on his right had been torn by the flood gathered from the fields above. In one place a Hessian skull had been snapped from the buried skeleton, and was rolled to light, among the mud and pebbles. Not far off, something was moving among the bushes, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... it. That's where Thomas Burton was found dead of a crushed skull," replied the old resident. "That's the house of his son and daughter. I see the father taken away to be buried, and I see the son taken away to be put in jail. And I see the daughter's doctor coming to see ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... skull has marked differences from that of any known races in the upper world, though I cannot help thinking it a development, in the course of countless ages of the Brachycephalic type of the Age of Stone in Lyell's 'Elements of Geology,' C. X., p. 113, as compared with the Dolichocephalic type of the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the hour-glass which stood by the great Bible, commenced his discourse. He was now well stricken in years, a man of pale, thin countenance, and his gray hairs were closely covered by a black velvet skull-cap. In his younger days he had practically learned the meaning of persecution from Archbishop Laud, and he was not now disposed to forget the lesson against which he had murmured then. Introducing the often-discussed subject of the Quakers, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a skull a human skull, the whole road was paved with them as far as the eye could reach, there were thousands ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... apartment; and I was informed that they had many more in their possession; all however, the heads of enemies, chiefly of the tribe of Sazebus. On enquiring, I was told that it is indispensably necessary a young man should procure a skull before he gets married. On my urging that the custom would be more honoured in the breach than in the observance, they replied, that it was established from time immemorial, and could not be dispensed with. Subsequently, however, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Balmawhapple, who, mounted on a horse as headstrong and stiff-necked as his rider, pursued the flight of the dragoons above four miles from the field of battle, when some dozen of the fugitives took heart of grace, turned round, and cleaving his skull with their broadswords, satisfied the world that the unfortunate gentleman had actually brains, the end of his life thus giving proof of a fact greatly doubted during its progress. His death was lamented by few. Most of those who knew him agreed in the pithy observation of Ensign Maccombich, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... ossification commences is the lower jaw. This bone is consequently sooner completed than the other bones of the head, and acquires a predominance, which, as is well known, it never loses in the Negro. During the soft pliant state of the bones of the skull, the oblong form which they naturally assume, approaches nearly the permanent shape of the Americans. At birth, the flattened face, and broad smooth forehead of the infant, the position of the eyes rather ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... a correct idea. The enamel was still perfect on the bones of the seals which strewed the rocks, the flesh of which had been used for food. On opening one of the graves, I found the skeleton of an old man, with a good deal of the cartilage adhering to the bones, and in the skull there was still symptoms of decaying flesh; nothing, however, was seen to denote a recent visit of these interesting denizens of the north. Each cache, or rather, circle of stones, had a flat slab for a cover, with a cairn near it, or else ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... of hammered iron blade and skull-pecker, with ash handle four feet long and deer-sinew grip. Eagle feathers and fur ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... tenanted (where Fashion wanes) Here in the sorrowful suburban lanes When first these gables rose against the sky. Relic of a romantic taste gone by, This stately monument alone remains, Vacant, with lichened walls and window-panes Blank as the windows of a skull. But I, On evenings when autumnal winds have stirred In the porch-vines, to this gray oracle Have laid a wondering ear and oft-times heard, As from the hollow of a stranded shell, Old voices echoing (or my fancy erred) Things indistinct, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... as to the agencies at work in producing the taps so constantly heard at Spiritualistic Seances. "You don't use spirits to produce taps," she said; "see here." She put her hand over my head, not touching it, and I heard and felt slight taps on the bone of my skull, each sending a little electric thrill down the spine. She then carefully explained how such taps were producible at any point desired by the operator, and how interplay of the currents to which they were due might be caused otherwise than by conscious human volition. It was in this fashion ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... of the horrible. Lockhart reports him, on the authority of Sir Alexander Wood, as reading his "William and Helen" over to that gentleman "in a very slow and solemn tone," and then looking at the fire in silence and presently exclaiming. "I wish to Heaven I could get a skull and two crossbones." Whereupon Sir Alexander accompanied him to the house of John Bell, surgeon, where the desired articles were obtained and mounted upon the poet's bookcase. During the next few years, Scott continued to make translations of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... succeed as a jester, you'll need To consider each person's auricular: What is all right for B would quite scandalise C (For C is so very particular); And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull Is as empty of brains as a ladle; While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp, That he's known your best joke from his cradle! When your humour they flout, You can't let yourself go; And it DOES put you out When a person says, "Oh! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... up out of the ground, surrounded by a quality of air that one could not breathe with comfort, was as beautiful a garden as anyone could wish to wander through, and at its centre there stood a retort, but not one that looked like a great iron skull cap painted red. On the contrary the Municipally Owned retort had architecturally all the classic beauty of ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... lifted the lieutenant's head to the light, discovering a hideously bruised swelling at the base of the skull, blood darkly ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... unworldly Emerson, and upon the captious Carlyle, whose respect was not willingly accorded to any contemporary, much less to a representative of American democracy. Webster's looks and manner were characteristic. His form was massive, his skull and jaw solid, the underlip projecting, and the mouth firmly and grimly shut; his complexion was swarthy, and his black, deep set eyes, under shaggy brows, glowed with a smoldering fire. He was rather silent in society; his delivery in debate was grave ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... party in quest of this monster, we at length found his trale and persued him about a mile by the blood through very thick brush of rosbushes and the large leafed willow; we finally found him concealed in some very thick brush and shot him through the skull with two balls; we proceeded dress him as soon as possible, we found him in good order; it was a monstrous beast, not quite so large as that we killed a few days past but in all other rispects much the same the hair is remarkably long fine and rich tho he ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... submission; he used to rob his father, a poverty-stricken cane-weaver, so that he might have money enough to visit some low brothel of Las Penuelas or on Chopa Street, where he found rouged dowagers with cigarette-stubs in their lips, who looked like princesses to him. His narrow skull, his powerful jaw, his blubber-lip, his stupid glance, lent him a look of repellant ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... keen sight for many reasons. To begin with, its eyes are set too prominently on the skull, and the eyelids are clipped and blear, (41) and afford no protection to the pupils. (42) Naturally the sight is indistinct and purblind. (43) Along with which, although asleep, for the most part it does not enjoy visual repose. (44) Again, its very fleetness of foot ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... on and he still lay perfectly quiet, for he did not feel the slightest inclination to move after his late efforts, which had produced a sensation of the interior of his skull beginning to bubble up with fire or hot lead rolling about. But as that pain declined he felt cold, and after a great deal of hesitation he suddenly stretched out his hands to pull up ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... ancient Saxon tomb, which the monks moved here from the Norman Chapter House and called by the name of King Sebert, their traditional founder. We can see this better from the ambulatory, also the curious skull and cross-bone ornament which is all that is left of the tomb of Anne of Cleves, Henry {62} the Eighth's repudiated wife, the only one of all his wives who was buried in the Abbey. She was interred here with a pompous funeral service by order of her ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... rolled them up with a pen-knife and pencil-case, and some small coin, and rammed them all down into the two barrels together—a regular charge of langrage. I knew that none of this was likely to go through his skull, and I feared that my gun might burst, but it was my only chance. If it failed—the full horror of my situation flashed across me. How I blamed myself for having engaged in the useless, I might say senseless and cruel sport. I knew that Nowell must be a long way off, but I ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... ill; furious neuralgia bored his temples like a gimlet; he tried to stop it with antipyrine, but this medicine in a large dose put his stomach out of order without abating the strokes of the machine which penetrated his skull. He wandered about his rooms, changing from one seat to another, coiling himself up in an arm-chair, getting up to lie down again, jumping from his bed in fits of sickness, upsetting his furniture from time ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... stick. The winner in turn offers something for the others to try for. It is perfectly fair, because unless one wins it costs him nothing. They are very fond of this game, and play almost incessantly. Another similar game is played by placing a prize in a bowl made out of a musk-ox skull, the players standing in a circle around the bowl, which is then set twirling rapidly. The one toward whom the handle points when the bowl stops moving is the winner, and replaces the prize with another. This game, like nu-glew-tar, has no end, and the players only stop when they get hungry ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... fetish houses, containing the skulls of the ancestors and some idol or other, seen by Du Chaillu, in African towns, in the small huts constructed at the entrance of all the villages in Yucatan. These huts or shrines contain invariably a crucifix; at times the image of some saint, often a skull. The last probably to cause the wayfarer to remember he has to die; and that, as he cannot carry with him his worldly treasures on the other side of the grave, he had better deposit some in the alms box firmly fastened at the ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... farther they found the huge trunk cut to slivers, and, just beyond, the body of the unfortunate beast with three of its feet gone, and the thick hide cut and slashed like so much paper. It still breathed, and Ayrault, who had a tender heart, sent an explosive ball into its skull, which ended its suffering. The three hunters then surveyed the scene. The largest and most powerful beast they had believed could exist lay before them dead, not from the bite of a snake or any other poison, but from mechanical injuries of which those they had ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... far before we recognise the appropriate name of this terrible journey. Scattered along the path we see the bones of many animals. There are human bones too! That white spheroidal mass, with its grinning rows and serrated sutures, that is a human skull. It lies beside the skeleton of a horse. Horse and rider have fallen together. The wolves have stripped them at the same time. They have dropped down on their thirsty track, and perished in despair, although water, had they known it, was ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... proved his blade on bucklers, South went through the land to whet Brand that oft hath felled his foeman, 'Gainst the forge which foams with song;[48] Mighty wielder of war's sickle Made his sword's avenging edge Hard on hero's helm-prop rattle,[49] Skull of ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... beginning at the feet. It passed through the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was beating like a thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the carotids to the brain, whence it emerged by the fissures of the skull into the outer air. No sooner was it free (though still attached, as I felt with some uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to the pia mater) than it gathered itself together (into what form I could ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... struggled vainly to dislodge an enormous panther, which had fixed its great claws in its flanks. The rider had lost all control over it; blood and foam poured from its mouth and nostrils. Kalif sprang boldly out, with a mighty stroke split the panther's skull, and, flinging away his sword, ran to the horse's head, thereby enabling the rider to dismount. Having calmed the trembling animal, the horseman begged his rescuer ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... apartments contain some modern upholstery, but serve only to show what ought to have been there. They are now digging round the cloisters for a traditionary cannon, and in their progress, about five days ago, they discovered a corpse in too decayed a state to admit of removal. I saw the drinking-skull [Footnote: When the father of the present Mr. Murray was a student in Edinburgh, he wrote to his father (April 10,1827): "I saw yesterday at a jeweller's shop in Edinburgh a great curiosity, no less than Lord Byron's ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... head of the hippopotamus, I found that the shell had struck exactly beneath the eye, where the bone plate is thin. It had traversed the skull, and had apparently exploded in the brain, as it had entirely carried away the massive bone that formed the back of the skull. The velocity of the projectile had carried the fragments of the shell onwards after the explosion, and had ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... one fine deer, and paddled towards it. I might have shot the animal, but my Indian companion made signs to me to use a spear which lay at the bottom of the canoe; so, standing up, I grasped the weapon with both my hands, and drove it with all my force into the creature's skull. In an instant its head went down, and its feet rising, it lay dead on the surface. Kakaik handed me a rope to cast round its antlers, and we forthwith towed it in triumph to the shore. This done, we made chase after a second deer, which was swimming across ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... valor—achieved for himself a name and a post-captain's rank in the infant navy and finally was permitted to retire with a bullet lodged under his shoulder blade, a piece of silver trepanned in the top of his skull, a deep sword-cut across his face from the right temple over his nose to the left cheek—and with the honorary ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the great main gate Houten told us about. He said it faced sou'west by west and had a green skull ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... inner man, heart, breast, bosom, penetralia mentis[Lat], divina particula aurae[Lat], heart's core; the Absolute, psyche, subliminal consciousness, supreme principle. brain, organ of thought, seat of thought; sensorium[obs3], sensory; head, headpiece; pate, noddle[obs3], noggin, skull, scull, pericranium[Med], cerebrum, cranium, brainpan[obs3], sconce, upper story. [in computers] central processing unit, CPU; arithmetic and logical unit, ALU. [Science of mind] metaphysics; psychics, psychology; ideology; mental philosophy, moral philosophy; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the pretty head aside, Peep'd in your fans, been serious thus, and cried— 'The play may pass—but that strange creature, Shore, I can't—indeed now—I so hate a whore—' Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull, And thanks his stars he was not born a fool; So from a sister sinner you shall hear, 'How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!' 10 But let me die, all raillery apart, Our sex are still forgiving at their heart; And, did ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... little knew it, had no need to fear Lacheneur for the present, at least. A few hours before, on his way from the Rainbow to the Poivriere, Jean had been precipitated to the bottom of a stone quarry, and had fractured his skull. The laborers, on returning to their work early in the morning, found him lying there senseless; and at that very moment they were carrying him to ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... on the skull that I believe he disappeared in fire," said Furneaux. "My friend here," turning to the policeman who had voiced his amazement at the suggestion that Hilton Fenley was a murderer, "was in the position of Bret Harte's negro lecturer on geology, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... passed out of sight when a sallow-faced stripling makes his appearance, and with that characteristic effrontery for borrowing and never returning, of the property-man of a country theatre, "desires" to know if Mr. McArthur will lend him a skull. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Prof. Schaaffhausen accounts for this difference between the races by "the posterior dental portion of the jaw being always shortened" in those that are civilised (44. 'On the Primitive Form of the Skull,' Eng. translat., in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 1868, p. 426), and this shortening may, I presume, be attributed to civilised men habitually feeding on soft, cooked food, and thus using their jaws less. I am informed by Mr. Brace that it is becoming quite a common practice in ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... all the upper part of the skull from the front to the rear. It is divided symmetrically into two hemispheres, the right and the left. These hemispheres are connected with each other by a small bridge of fibers called the corpus callosum. Each hemisphere is furrowed and ridged with convolutions, an arrangement ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... dinner-tables, though it was rumoured that his industry was not entirely confined to these. He certainly sold the Crown Prince a sword with which he could face undismayed the fiercest of bears and boars, while the old Court Chamberlain bought a silk skull-cap that he found most useful on occasions when he did not desire to attract attention. But, perhaps from unwillingness to get Xuriel into trouble, neither of them made any mention ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... comedy, as in the tavern scenes in Henry IV, and the scenes in which Sir Toby figures in Twelfth Night; for repartee, as in the wit-combats of Beatrice and Benedick; for purely intellectual and moralizing speeches, such as Hamlet's over the skull of Yorick. On the other hand, highly emotional scenes are usually in verse, as are romantic passages like the conversation of Lorenzo and Jessica in the moonlight at Belmont, or the dialogues of Fenton and Anne Page, which contrast with the realistic prose ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... language to use to a superior officer, but the justice of it was evidenced by the submissive composure in which it was received. It was evidently soaking into the mate's thick skull that the water had not come from the skylight, and this idea was borne out by his not mentioning the matter to the lads when he went to their assistance. In spite of their weary and almost exhausted condition, they had to have their joke, so said to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... shoe-buckles; the second was an old Norway man in knee-breeches, and eighteenth-century small-clothes, and red worsted cap; and the third was, I decided, an old Jew of the Polish Pale, in gaberdine and skull-cap, with ear-locks. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... fair mall To give a knock on the skull To the man who keeps no gear for himself, But ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the air of heaven, Some boon of strength has Nature given. In forming the majestic bull, She fenced with wreathed horns his skull; A hoof of strength she lent the steed, And winged the timorous hare with speed. She gave the lion fangs of terror, And, o'er the ocean's crystal mirror, Taught the unnumbered scaly throng To trace their liquid path along; While for the umbrage of the grove, She plumed the warbling ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... their way so cheerfully to the new country. Again it was a child's doll, the rags of it beaten by the weather to a rusty hue. Every hour that we progressed seemed to justify the sagacity and boldness of Tom's plan, nor did it appear to have entered a painted skull that a white man would have the hardihood to try the trail this year. There were neither signs nor sounds save Nature's own, the hoot of the wood-owl, the distant bark of a mountain wolf, the whir of a partridge as she left her brood. At length we could stand no more the repression that silence ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... think clearly! But his brain seemed to lie in a red-hot skull. "Whatever's happened," he muttered, "I'd better not waste time; they couldn't have been here so long ago. Poor Alden! I wonder what kind ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... goes off tumbling over the carpet, and the orchestra leader is afraid the supe will fall on him. But I go out with a quiet dignity that is only gained by experience, and I take hold of the carpet the way Hamlet takes up the skull of Yorick, and the audience is paralized. I kneel down on the carpet, to unhook it, in a devotional sort of a way that makes the audience bow their heads as though they were in church, and before they realize that I am only a supe I have the carpet unhooked and march out the way a 'Piscopal minister ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... authorship upon him; a taste over-anxious not to commit itself, and refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French Tragedian in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs; and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude and a bridal properly got up, both according ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... bedside, and placing himself between the two half-drawn curtains at the foot of the bed, indicated as the place occupied by the apparition, asked if the spectre was still visible? "Not entirely so," replied the patient, "because your person is betwixt him and me; but I observe his skull peering above your shoulder." ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... skulls and of the long bones of the body are to be found in the mound, and that these are commonly associated with earthen pots, sometimes whole, but more frequently broken fragments only. In some instances portions of the skull were placed in a pot, and the long bones were deposited in its immediate vicinity. Again, the pots would contain only sand, and fragments of bones would be found near them. The most successful 'find' I made was a whole nest of ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... types, but Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): "As the external habitus of the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... by either side is white-hot indignation at the iniquities of the other side. The striking teamster complacently takes a scab driver into an alley, and with an iron bar breaks his arms, so that he can drive no more, but cries out to high Heaven for justice when the capitalist breaks his skull by means of a club in the hands of a policeman. Nay, the members of a union will declaim in impassioned rhetoric for the God-given right of an eight-hour day, and at the time be working their own business agent seventeen hours out ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... be unable to decide definitely for an hour or so yet, unless he regains consciousness in the meantime. It may be a fracture of the skull or ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... glance—seen straight in front—the face of the house seems to live still, rosy with colour, gazing with immense blue eyes through a light green veil. But a second glance brings a shock to the heart. The face is a mask held up to hide a skull; the blue of the eyes is the open sky framed by glassless windows; the rosy colour is stained with dark streaks of smoke and flame; the chateau among its trees, and the chapel with its stopped clock and ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... all kinds of strange and uncouth objects—implements of savage warfare, strange idols and stuffed alligators; bottled serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece; while on the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead grinned a human skull, flanked on each side by a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Vervain fell fitfully silent. Now and then Ferris briefly spoke, calling Miss Vervain's notice to this or that, and she briefly responded. As they passed the mad-house of San Servolo, a maniac standing at an open window took his black velvet skull-cap from his white hair, bowed low three times, and kissed his hand to the ladies. The Lido in front of them stretched a brown strip of sand with white villages shining out of it; on their left the Public Gardens showed a mass of hovering green; far beyond and above, the ghostlike snows of the ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... those who maintain that there was no such person as King Arthur, and that "all such books as been made of him be but feigned and fables." He recounts with assumed sincerity the evidence of the chronicles, the existence of Arthur's seal in red wax at Westminster Abbey, of Sir Gawain's skull at Dover Castle, of the Round Table itself at Winchester, and so on. But he goes on to say, in his own quaint way, which there is not space to quote at large, that in his own opinion the stories are worth while for the intrinsic interest and the moral values in them, whether ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... replied. "Skull fracture, ruptured spleen, broken ribs and double leg fractures. I've already called ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... that? But you are magnificent, all of you! We lack only the solitary illumination of a candle-end—a grinning skull—a cup of blood upon the table—to make the farce complete! But as it is.... Messieurs, you must be rarely uncomfortable, and feeling as foolish as you look, into the bargain! Moreover, I'm no child. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... verge of dissolution, and apparently unable to crawl from this spot, a force was exerted in this throw, probably greater than I had ever before exerted. It was resistless and unerring. I aimed at the middle space between those glowing orbs. It penetrated the skull, and the animal fell, struggling and shrieking, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... my blow in first," he mused. "If he had landed that fairly on my skull I don't think anything else in this world would ever have interested me ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... so had the child. Hipcroft was in ordinary a quiet and tractable fellow, but a determination which was to be feared settled in his face now. 'Blast him!' he cried. 'I'll beat his skull in for'n, if I ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... it was your off-leg and your spine and your skull that were smashed. That's what made me so surprised to see you. Never mind, I'm glad to see you, young 'un, for there's a ticklish bit of figure work to do. None of the others would look at it, so I've saved it up for ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... glowed! His brain seemed boiling as he rode— Was it a dream, a drunken one, Or was he really riding on? Was that a skull that gleamed and shone On ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Kincardineshire, where a fair is still held annually on his festival. More than a thousand years after his death the head of the saint was venerated there by one who has testified to the existence at the time of the skin upon the skull in the part where it had received the episcopal consecration. Up to the Reformation two other valuable relics of the saint were preserved in that same church. One was the copy of St. Matthew's Gospel, which belonged ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... Museum, to Truefitt's last patent self-adjuster. Of all these follies, and their root a razor, might we show the manifest absurdity: we might argue upon Eastern stupidity as caused by thickness of the skull, such thickness being the substitute for thatchy hair suggested by kind ill-used Nature as the hot brain's best protection: we might reason upon the average sheepishness of this peaceful West, as due to having shorn the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... tested the strength of their arms upon Magdalena's pate, which was bare with the baldness of repugnant diseases, and they would howl with laughter at the damage done to their fists by the protuberances of the hard skull. The bugler lent himself to these tortures with the humility of a whipped dog, and found a certain revenge in repeating, afterwards, those words that ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... blackfellow is, I believe, on the lowest rung of civilization. He is unlike the negro, the Malay, the Mongolian, and the American Indian, in many ways. If you could stay a few days, I would be glad to take you back in the bush and show you a few specimens in their native state. They have a long skull, with a low, flat forehead, Their brows overhang deep-set, keen eyes, and they have a heavy lower jaw, with teeth as strong as a dog's. Their hair is generally wavy or curly, being usually auburn ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... The base of his forehead was square, but it rapidly receded with a convex conformation of head, very closely shaven as though with a currycomb, and his ears stood out almost at right angles to his skull. The ferocity that was his by nature he seemed to have assiduously cultivated by art, and the points of his moustaches, upturned in the shape of a cow's horns, accentuated the truculence of his appearance. In short, he was a typical Prussian officer. In peace ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Tryggvasson made the bravest defence with his men, but they fell one after another. King Olaf fought almost too boldly, shooting arrows and hurling spears; he went forward in hand-to-hand fight, and cleft many a man's skull with ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... by the fretted walls, Beneath the Gothic arches:- King Skull in the black confessionals Sat ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not within the power of even genius to triumph over an impossibility. During the first part of Bonaparte's life it was possible to paint or chisel Bonaparte's protuberant skull, his brow furrowed by the sublime line of thought, his pale elongated face, his granite complexion, and the meditative character of his countenance. During the second part of his life it was possible to paint or to chisel his broadened ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... level mead of Hove Elastic-sided Ranjitsinhji With bowlers neatly juggles, Jove Of clapping palms is never stingy. Ambrosia stands neglected; wine To crack the skull of Hector spills While Lockwood cudgels brawn and brain; And when the Prince leaves ninety-nine, The cheers go valleywards like rain, ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... the instrument of death. Under this tree lay the remains of our overseer. The body was fast decomposing. A flock of buzzards was gathered around, and was driven away with difficulty. They had already begun their work, so that recognition under different circumstances would not have been easy. The skull was detached from the body, and lay with the face uppermost. A portion of the scalp adhered to it, on which a gray lock was visible. A bit of gray beard was clinging ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... a little recovered from my fright, I noticed that our master had on his new green overcoat, his fine plaited frill, and the embroidered black skull-cap which he put on for the inspection days or the prize distributions. Besides, all the class wore a curious solemn look. But what surprised me most of all was to see at the end of the room, on the seats which were usually empty, a number of the village elders seated and silent like the rest ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... hat of honour, evolved from the ecclesiastical skull-cap, and was distinctive of the higher degrees, particularly of that of doctor. Indeed, it has been thought that this class alone is designated by the term pileati found in our old statutes. From the thirteenth century onwards pilei, and the overtopping tufts, were of various ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... spoke: Dread master of the mighty lore! Say, shall the Spaniards welter in their gore? Let these dark ministers the answer tell, 100 Replied the master of the mighty spell. Then every giant-shadow, as it stood, Lifted on high a skull that dropped with blood. Yet more, the impatient warrior cried; yet more! Say, shall I live, and drink the tyrant's gore? 'Twas silence. Speak! he cried: none made reply. At once strange thunder shook the distant sky, And all was o'er; the grisly shapes are flown, And the grim warrior stands ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... astounding fashion, to have been left without any supervision between the director's visits), repeats once more, on the director's entrance, his insubordinate enquiry, again has it put by, and thereupon splits the unfortunate official's skull with a hatchet, digging also a pair of scissors, which once belonged to his (left-handed) wife, into his own throat. And the wretches actually cure this hardly fallen angel, and then guillotine him, which he takes ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... twilight that a voice below uttered an exclamation. Then came a pause. The old sergeant's voice ordered care and a pause, somewhere below the opening with, "Sir, the spades have hit upon a skull." ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... descendants, and the jeerings and sneerings soon ceased. The climax of Bonaparte's career at Brienne was in 1784, when he directed a snowball fight between two evenly divided branches of the school with such effect that one boy had his skull cracked and the rest were laid up for weeks from ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Hillsborough word. It means to disable a man from work. Sometimes they lie in wait in these dark streets, and fracture his skull with life-preservers; or break his arm, or cut the sinew of his wrist; and that they call DOING him. Or, if it is a grinder, they'll put powder in his trough, and then the sparks of his own making fire it, and scorch him, and perhaps blind him for life; ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the Chairman will be happy to take wine with them, will vary this stereotyped declaration by announcing that the Chairman will be happy to spill salt with them. The Club salt-cellars, it is stated, are coffin-shaped, whilst the best 'dim religious light' obtainable from skull-shaped lamps will light up the banqueting-hall, before entering which the company will pass under the Club ladder. Other details too gruesome to mention will perhaps only be revealed to the company who will sit down to this weird feast, which promises to make a record, nothing of the kind having ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... never erase it from the village mind—not if I lived a hundred sensible years, I had much ado to withhold myself from seizing a pot of bachelors' buttons that stood near, and breaking the whole thing over Mrs. Catlin's idiotic skull. ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... before us, externally, as the most desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most reckless charlatanerie to save himself from utter ruin and complete loss of the generous fluid. Internally, "Fantine" comes before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... continued to struggle gallantly. At length the Brigadier for a moment got the uppermost. Still retaining in his left hand the weapon of his enemy, he dealt him with his right a cut from his own sabre, which cleft his skull from his crown to the eyebrows. The Mohammedan once shouted "Ne Ullah!" (O God!) and never moved or ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... It was the bear's skull he meant to take aim at. From the position of the animal's snout, of course he could tell exactly where the head must be, though ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... got at Pauppukkeewis and battered in his skull with their clubs. After that seven or eight of them placed his body on poles and carried him home. As he went ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... must at once perform their ablutions of lustration. After a time the collection of bones is made with the verse "Go thou now to Mother Earth" and "Open, O earth." Dust is flung on the bones with the words "Roomy and firm be the earth"; and the skull is laid on top with the verse "I make firm the earth about thee." In other words the original hymn is fitted to the ritual only by displacement of verses from their proper order and by a forced application of the words. After all this comes the ceremony of expiation with the use ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... chests of gold and of silver and of other treasures; and moreover afterwards this which follows was seen in the case of the dead bodies here, after the flesh had been stripped off from the bones; for the Plataians brought together the bones all to one place:—there was found, I say, a skull with no suture but all of one bone, and there was seen also a jaw-bone, that is to say the upper part of the jaw, which had teeth joined together and all of one bone, both the teeth that bite and those that grind; and the bones were seen also of ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... when he should dash his horse's skull and his own against the shell that remained. He saddled Demijohn, filled an empty jar with the soft earth of his excavations, and waited. His dramatic appearance at the instant of the door's opening was not a coincidence. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... brother of Sleep, it was less funereal than narcotic. The theory of it generally was beneficent. But not enduring. In the change of things death lost its charm. It became a sexless nightmare-frame of bones topped by a grinning skull. That perhaps was excessive. In epicurean Rome it was a marionette that invited you to wreathe yourself with roses before they could fade. In the Muslim East it was represented by Azrael, who was an angel. In Vedic India it was represented by Yama, who was a god. But mediaevally ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... arterial bleeding about the head apply the bandage as in Diagram III. The pressure is here applied right over the wound, as the skull is always behind on which to ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... lodging for the winter; they are all well. I hear there are in town abundance of people from Ireland; half a dozen bishops at least. The poor old Bishop of London,(5) at past fourscore, fell down backward going upstairs, and I think broke or cracked his skull; yet is now recovering. The town is as empty as at midsummer; and if I had not occasion for physic, I would be at Windsor still. Did I tell you of Lord Rivers's will? He has left legacies to about twenty paltry old whores by name, and not a farthing to any friend, dependent, or relation: he has ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... wicked step by step. At all such niceties and groping efforts, how, if even he could understand them, would he laugh and wag his head! And, oh! how gracefully then would quiver those splendid ears which deck his empty skull! ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... some turned the brim right in except for a small peak a la Jockey; some had a peak back and front, made by rolling in both sides, and some settled the question by turning the whole brim in, the resultant skull-cap effect being such as to bring tears to the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the requiem had been sung, and the mourners had departed leaving him alone in the tomb. Philip the Second found a similar pleasure in gazing on the huge chest of bronze in which his remains were to be laid, and especially on the skull which, encircled with the crown of Spain, grinned at him from the cover. Philip the Fourth, too, hankered after burials and burial places, gratified his curiosity by gazing on the remains of his great grandfather, the Emperor, and sometimes stretched himself out at full ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the best thing," Jehosophat went on, "they'll have a flag with a skull an' dead men's bones ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... nowhere else to stay. Kevenoe was dead, his skull crushed by—by someone. Anketam refused, in his own mind, to see any connection between Kevenoe's death and the fact that Basom and Zillia had disappeared the same day, probably to give themselves over ...
— The Destroyers • Gordon Randall Garrett
... have the insolence to say, that a man cannot think without his head; for, some bachelor will tell him, the soul is a pure spirit, the head is nothing but matter: God can place the soul in the nails, as well as in the skull, therefore ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... genuine. A bright man in Duluth sent him an old Allen "pepper-box" revolver with the statement that it had been found among a pile of bones under a tree, from the limb of which was suspended a lasso and a buffalo skull; this as evidence that the weapon was the genuine Allen which Bemis had lost on that memorable Overland buffalo-hunt. Mark Twain enjoyed that, and kept the old pepper-box as long as he lived. There were letters from people with fads; letters from cranks ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... stand. As a matter of fact, he had not thought of his knife until the three young bruisers, habitues of the place and of the questionable pool-room in the rear, rushed him all together, and a dirty-aproned waiter, coming up from behind, hit him a crack that jarred his skull. Then he had sprung ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... responded John Barrow. "But I'll make sure." And catching up a club, he aimed a blow which crushed the animal's skull. ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... be ensured an hour; 'Twere grafting on an annual stock, That must our expectation mock, And, making one luxuriant shoot, Die the next year for want of root: Before I could my verses bring, Perhaps you're quite another thing. So Maevius, when he drain'd his skull To celebrate some suburb trull, His similes in order set, And every crambo[2] he could get; Had gone through all the common-places Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces; Before he could his poem close, The lovely nymph had ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... but, as good fortune would have it, I found an empty biscuit cask, so what did I do but poke my head into it, and cover my neck up with a thick handkerchief," said Larry, as he stood by my side. "Thinks I to myself, if Master Dan wants to be after giving me a whack on the skull, I shall have had time to jump up before he has done for me; but the spalpeen did not find me out, I've a notion, and I'll be on the watch for him if he does, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... the Three Capes, and no other land appeared, Zeus hung a dark cloud over us, and suddenly the west wind came fiercely down upon the ship, and snapped the shrouds on either side. Thereupon the mast fell backward and brake the skull of a pilot, so that he plunged, as a diver plunges, into the sea. Meantime Zeus hurled his thunderbolt into the ship, filling it with sulphur from end to end. Then my comrades fell from the ship; I saw ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... buoyant taste for disembodied spirits, and a rumor floated mistily about that Una had seen the wretched woman who could not forget her woes in death. In 'Monte Beni' this oratory is minutely pictured, where 'beneath the crucifix ... lay a human skull ... carved in gray alabaster, most skillfully done ... with accurate imitation of the teeth, the sutures, the empty eye-caverns.' Everywhere the intense picturesqueness gave material, at Montaueto, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... See Herder's Leben, by his Widow. That Herder was not usually troubled with any unphilosophical scepticism, or aversion to novelty, may be inferred from his patronising Dr. Gall's system of Phrenology, or 'Skull-doctrine' as they call it in Germany. But Gall had referred with acknowledgment and admiration to the Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Here lay ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... a most effective blow. This is so because the lower jaw is anatomically loose; and when it is struck heavily, it turns and jars the brain, and the man who is struck feels as though the man who struck him had opened the top of his skull and taken his brains in his hand and wrenched them as a brakeman wrenches a brake. If you shut your teeth hard, and rap the tip of your chin sharply with your knuckles, you can get an idea of how effective this is when multiplied by an arm and all ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... a bullet-shaped head, embellished by two out-sized prick ears, the hair-tufted pointed tips of which projected well above the top of the skull. Round eyes were set deeply in sunken pits. The mouth was a swinish snout from which lolled a purple tongue, though the rest of that gargoyle head was very close in color to the rock against ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... but hardly observed, so strongly was her attention attracted to a figure that stood a few paces within the entrance—a tall, thin old man, bent and leaning on a stick. He was wrapped in a long dressing-gown of dull dark gray, evidently much worn; slippers were on his feet, and a black velvet skull-cap on his head, from under which some thin straggling locks of white hair escaped. His thin aquiline features and dark sunken eyes were alight with an expression of malignant fury; one long claw-like hand was outstretched ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... full of swords, arranged in a half-circle like a modern fan; of actual skeletons of dead saints, hideously attired in gaudy satins, silks, and velvets trimmed with gold; their withered crust of skull adorned with precious jewels, or with chaplets of crusht flowers; sometimes, of people gathered round the pulpit, and a monk within it stretching out the crucifix, and preaching fiercely; the sun just streaming down through some high window on the sail-cloth stretched above him and across the church, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... violent. His mildness was more forcible than anger. He wore a full beard, but no mustache, thus exhibiting his long, determined lip. At forty he was already bald, and after he was sixty he always wore indoors a black skull-cap. Scrupulously cleanly, in his dress he was point-device. Without the least ostentation, his clothes were invariably faultless. From young manhood he had thought that it is due to one's self and to one's friends to look one's best; and he had also realized the practical value of a good appearance. ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... glint come into his eyes—the danger signal that all the carnivorae flash and all hunters heed—I knew the time was up for airy persiflage and that I was in for a 'scambling and unquiet time' unless I promptly took up the quarrel. It was an easy shot, through the throat to the base of the skull, and the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... easiest for a Christian, the more likely shall we be to conquer. Goliath is not to be encountered with sword and armour which is, after all, but a shabby copy of the tons of brass which he wears, but he does not know what to make of the sling, and does not see the stone till it crashes his skull in. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his head beneath his skull cap. He would see what he could screw out of the funds of the Obreria; if just at first nothing could be managed, as the revenues of the Primacy were meagre and at their lowest ebb, no doubt something could be ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... premised, the answer to this objection can not be difficult. For as to the more solid and firm parts of the body, as the skull and bones, it is not, I think, pretended that the cannibals eat them; and if they did, so much of the matter even of these solid parts wastes away in a few years, as being collected together would supply them many times over. And as for the fleshy and fluid parts, these ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... lower Eocene of Europe and North America, in which there were 44 teeth, and no horn-like excrescences on the long skull, while the femur had a third trochanter. The canines are somewhat elongated, and were followed by a short gap in each jaw, and the cheek-teeth were adapted for succulent food. The length of the body reached about 6 ft. in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
