"Spar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... darkness before creation. It had closed behind me. I knew I was invisible to the man at the helm. Neither could I see anything. He was alone, I was alone, every man was alone where he stood. And every form was gone, too, spar, sail, fittings, rails; everything was blotted out in the dreadful smoothness of ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... little past midnight until eight o'clock of the following evening. One of them, venturing near the skylight, was shot in the breast by the captain, and then the two coolies rushed forward and threw a spar overboard. One of them jumped into the sea and clung to the spar, while the other dropped down into the between-decks, where he proceeded to set the ship on fire. Seeing this, the sailors who had barricaded themselves in the forecastle broke out, ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... poor old me when 'e 'ad money, an' when 'e lost everything, didn't 'e look arter me still? An' now 'e 's your shuvver, don' 'e keep a roof over me poor old 'ead like a son—don't 'e give me the run o' jour garridge an' let me watch 'im spar wi' you an' your gentlemen friends? Ain't 'e the best an' truest-'earted man as ever drawed breath? Ah, a king o' men is Joe, in the ring an' out, sir—only never let 'im 'ear me say so—'e 'd be that proud, Lord! there'd be no livin' wi' 'im—sh, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... stammer! Smite every rapturous wire With golden delirium, rebellion and silvery clamor, Crying—"Awake! awake! Too long hast thou slumbered! too far from the regions of glamour, With its mountains of magic, its fountains of Faery, the spar-sprung, Hast thou wandered away, O Heart! Come, oh, come and partake Of necromance banquets of beauty; and slake Thy thirst in the waters of art, That are drawn from the streams Of ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... barite is a heavy white sulphate of barium, frequently called "barytes" or "heavy spar." Witherite, the barium carbonate, is a much rarer mineral but is found with ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... woe. Ah; Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? Last came, and last did go, The Pilot of the Galilean lake, Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain, 110 (The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain) He shook his Miter'd locks, and stern bespake, How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, Anow of such as for their bellies sake, Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold? Of other care they little reck'ning make, Then how to scramble at the shearers feast, And shove away ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... twilight or gloaming; but there were neither windows nor candles, and he knew not whence it came if it was not from the walls and roof, which were rough and arched like a grotto, and composed of a clear transparent rock incrusted with sheep's silver, and spar and various bright stones." At last he came to two lofty folding doors which stood ajar. Passing through these doors, he entered a large and spacious hall, the richness and brilliance of which was beyond description. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... madness, reeling over graves Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight, Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite Who haunts foul seaweed forests and their caves. No parting cloud reveals a watery star, My cries are washed away upon the wind, My cramped and blistering hands can find no spar, My eyes with hope o'erstrained, are growing blind. But painted on the sky great visions burn, My voice, oblation from a ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... no means undeserving of the remark, being devoid of any kind of vegetation, except some straggling heath and a few patches of stunted gorse, which here and there sprung up amidst the rugged spar-stones that, intermixed with rude crags of granite, were thickly scattered over this wide waste, which, throughout its vast extent, afforded as perfect a picture of sterility as can be well conceived. With this brief outline of the scenery, we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... comfortable chamber, but the night was too fine for bed. He did not feel sleepy, and he went along the road he had come by; the church was an opaque mass, the spire alone showing in the violet twilight, like some supernatural spar on a ship far out at sea. He attempted to conjure to his tired brain the features, the expression, of the girl. They would not ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... I begin to know I ought to feel sheepish and beat, but somehow I feel cocky instead. I laugh and say, "Well, I am bound to break something down" - and suddenly see. "Oho, there's the place; get weight on there, and the belt won't slip." With much labour, on go the belts again. "Now then, a spar thro' there and six men's weight on; mind you're not carried away." - "Ay, ay, sir." But evidently no one believes in the plan. "Hurrah, round she goes - stick to your spar. All right, shut off steam." And ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said. "Only a try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley, an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest. He did not care ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... this frail spar, Bella bravely took up arms against her sea of troubles, and rode out the storm. When her lover came to know his fate, she hid her heart, and answered "no," finding a bitter satisfaction in the end, for Harry was right, and, when the fortune was denied him, young Butler ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... against its sides increased in loudness. The ship heeled over to the gale till her yard-arms seemed almost to touch the floating mountain. Still she stood up bravely to her canvas, closely hugging the wind. Had a rope been rotten, had a spar given way, our fate might have been sealed. In one instant after striking, the ship and everything in her might ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... without accomplishing anything decisive. Farragut had carefully studied the situation, and, confident that the passage could be made, determined it should be done, no matter at what cost. On the night of the 23d his vessels were stripped of every rope and spar that could be spared, the masts and rigging of the gunboats and mortar vessels being trimmed with the limbs of trees, to conceal their ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Sea brake upon the poop and quarter, upon us, as it covered our ship from stern to stem, like a garment or a vast cloud. It filled her brimful for a while within, from the hatches up to the spar deck. . . ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... upon his frail raft, or some spar of his shattered vessel, could not be more at the mercy of wave and wind, than were the two men astride of the capsized canoe. Their situation was indeed desperate. The stroke of a strong sea would be sufficient to swamp their frail embarkation; and, ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... some parts of a buff calcareous sandstone, calcareous tuff; and, more abundantly, of limestone of a peculiar aspect, presenting at first sight the appearance of porphyry, but consisting of a base of compact limestone, with disseminated portions of calcareous spar, principally due to fragments of crinoidea. At a lower part in the same rock, less compact, I found a beautiful chalcedonic cast, apparently of a terebra. The calcareous sandstone consisted of grains of quartz cemented by calcareous spar, and contained fragments ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... said; "we could not launch a boat, in the teeth of this tremendous sea. All we can do is to look out, and throw a line to any who may be washed ashore, on a spar, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... guns had roared, yet (though she was now so close that I made out her very rope and spar) she made no sign. In a little our guns fell silent also, wherefore, looking about, I beheld Don Miguel standing beside the tiller yet with his impassive gaze ever bent upon the foe; and, as I watched, I read his deadly purpose, and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... forth they went, Shooting all in-fere, Toward the town of Nottingham, Outlaws as they were. Our king and Robin rode together, For sooth as I you say, And they shot pluck-buffet, As they went by the way; And many a buffet our king wan, Of Robin Hood that day: And nothing spar-ed good Rob-in Our king in his pay. "So God me help-e," said our king, "Thy name is nought to lere, I should not get a shot of thee, Though I ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... had ventured this in the secret mountains, and perhaps had killed a trapper found there. Editors immediately reared a tall war out of it; but from five Indians in a guard-house waiting punishment not even an editor can supply spar for more than two editions, and if the recent alarm was still a matter of talk anywhere, it was not here in the sick-room. Whichever way the case should turn, it was through Molly alone (the doctor told her) that the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... as I thought we should be able to run her ashore, either upon the same shoal or upon the main, in case we could not keep her, I resolved at all risks to heave her off if possible, and accordingly tur'nd as many men to the capstan and windlass as could be spar'd from the pumps, and at 20 minutes past ten hove her afloat and into deep water." (He did not do this without losing his anchors, as ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... some false way, undebarred By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him; and between The lightning bursts is seen Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguished face and flying hair Grasping the rudder hard, Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, impossible shore. And sterner comes the roar Of sea ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... no sooner perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut, or divide ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... the hill supported by my brother on one side and our friend on the other, and returned to the latter's home for tea, after which our host showed us some remarkable spar stones—dog-tooth spar we were told was their name—found in the lead mines, whose white crystals glistened in the light, and I could see by the covetous look in my brother's eyes that he was thinking of the rockeries at home. His look was also seen by our worthy ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... came up one day while we were crossing the Gulf Stream, and the sea all around us was pretty well covered with patches of yellow weed—having much the look of mustard-plasters—amidst which a bit of a barnacled spar bobbed along slowly near us, and not far off a new pine plank. The yellow stuff, Bowers said, was gulf-weed, brought up from the Gulf of Mexico where the Stream had its beginning; and that, thick though it was around us, this was nothing to the thickness of it in the part ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... The bricks one after another each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle, The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men; Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, The swing of their axes on the square-hew'd log shaping it toward the shape of a mast, The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, The butter-color'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... her rigging, heavily covered with ice, were five men. All around was the sea, tossed into giant waves, curling and breaking about the stranded vessel. He noted the life-like shading of the green and white billows; the ice that covered every shroud and rope and spar; and peering out of a cabin door was a woman holding a babe in her arms. In a way it was a ghastly picture, and one that held his attention ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Hope, dazed and dumb, followed the others. They found the little room, where they had passed so many homelike hours, sadly demoralized. One of the great windows was shivered to splinters, and through it projected a heavy spar, now safely wedged from further harm, and as they gazed out through the other great panes, it was upon a scene of intense desolation. The deck was quite empty, all the crew being busy below, but it was one mass of broken timbers, fallen sails, and all ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... struggle. Why, this noble fellow had been a straggling sapling a thousand years before the birth of Christ! Before Darius led his conquering hosts from realm to realm, or ever Caesar knew life, or Christopher Columbus framed mast and spar to discover America, this sun-crowned monarch had over-topped his fellows, and met the challenge of the blasts of heaven, and drunk of the wines of the dews of an immortal youth, and dieted on the ambrosial ether of gods, and sent his seedling ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... then, know: Henrick, your valiant sonne, With Bellizarius and my selfe come laden With spoiles to lay them at your feet. What lives the sword spar'd serve to grace your Triumph, Till from your lips they have the doome ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were upon the run—the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek, up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the valley of death. The Highlanders ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... several stories. Those incorrigible tars could not forget the water-line even when they were ashore, for all the buildings were finished off with spar-varnish, and painted in two colors, like boats. Many a front door had a figure-head carved in wood, as though that portal were the bow-sprit of the sailor's habitation, which, in all its details of architecture, of color and line, called up memories of life ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and then the other and passed slings under it. Then he rigged a block and tackle to the mizzen-mast, and heaved on it till he had dragged the launch along the deck on rollers, made by sawing a spare spar into lengths, and hoisted it up on the poop deck. Then, detaching his tackle from the mast, he swung the boom overside with his tackle attached to its outer end. The end of the tackle was once more ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... crack with a sullen boom, Riven by the hands of the angry North; And, like the Angel of Wrath sent forth, The whirlwind stalks with the breath of doom, Crushing, like dust 'neath its heavy tread, The last frail spar o'er the seaman's head; But nought can reach the things that lie— The lovely things that sleeping lie, Deep in the bosom of ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... with great difficulty and beheld his faithful follower lying like himself on the ground, firmly bound to a stout spar or pole. His own inability to move was at once explained, for he soon perceived that he was in the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... to have you know, I scorn to get a whore for any prince alive, and yet scorn will not help methinks: my Daughter might have been spar'd, there were ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a vertical sheath 10 ft. high, which is set into the center of the frame, and in the interior of which slides a wooden spar that exceeds it by 5 ft. at first, and is capable of being drawn out as many more feet for the final apotheosis. This part of the mast carries three footboards and a platform for the reception of "supers." It is actuated by a windlass ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... she, Noah?" asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper. "That her off back of the spar buoy? Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain't what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t'other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he'd try out, fust look. Takes practice to keep your eyesight so's ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... afraid to let go your hand,' said that officer, 'for if I do your spar will fly back, and you will be thrown upon the deck with ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... companion's arm and pointed with his right hand to a spar-like object projecting a few feet, close to the waves, at less than a cable's length ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... logs; on examination they were thought to be useless; but, from subsequent experience, they proved to be far from deserving such contempt, for during the voyage we made two pole-top gallant-masts of it; which, although very full of knots, were as tough as any spar I ever saw; and carried a press of sail longer than would be trusted on many masts. These trees are very abundant on the Cumberland and Northumberland Islands, but do not attain any large size; being seldom higher than ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... the frigate several minutes, and yet no symptoms of any preparation for an answer could be discovered. At length the halyards moved, and then three fair, handsome flags rose to the end of le Feu-Follet's jigger yard, a spar that was always kept aloft in moderate weather. What the signal meant Raoul did not know, for though he was provided with signals by means of which to communicate with the vessels of war of his own nation, the Directory had not been able to supply him with those necessary to communicate ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... been bound to have seen her long before I had—I got a bit muddled there, with trying to think it out; and then, abruptly, the reality of the other ship, came back to me—every rope and sail and spar, you know. And I remembered how she had lifted to the heave of the sea, and how the sails had flapped in the light breeze. And the string of flags! She had been signalling. At that last, I found it just as impossible to believe that ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... the horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift in a river of silver. Every spar was distinct, every reef point on the great sails, and the decks lay like spaces of frost cut by ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Blount; I've come half-way across the continent to thresh this thing out with you, face to face, and I'm not in the humor to spar for an opening. Do you mean to run your son or not? That is a plain question, and I'd like to ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Roger Wearne, grinning welcome to me over the bulwarks. They, too, called my attention to the repairs; to the new rudder, fitted with chains in case of accident to the helm, to the grain of the new mizzen-mast (a beautiful spar, and without a knot), to the teak hatch-coverings which had replaced those shattered by the explosion. They desired me to marvel at everything; but that they themselves after past perils should be here again and ready, for no ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... dead and buried were some sort of new indoor sport," interrupted Mollie, glad to have this old familiar enemy to spar with. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... up in a corner, with his hand modestly placed over his nose. Ramshaw and Cottle were engaged in deadly strife on the floor, each under the fond delusion that the other was a Classic; while the twin brothers, armed with the better pair of boxing-gloves, were having a friendly spar in ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... of the Chinese were unable to swim, and those of them who possessed no spar or piece of plank to cling to either strove to save themselves by clutching at the nearest swimmer, or fought to tear their more fortunate companions from their supports and seize them for themselves. There were many exhibitions of mad brutality, selfishness, and cowardice, as there ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... a severe gale would have been regarded by an Australian clipper or Western Ocean packet-ship in the writer's early days as a hard whole-sail breeze, perhaps with the kites taken in. It was rare that these dashing commanders ever carried away a spar, and it was not because they did not carry on, but because they knew every trick of the vessel, the wind, and the sea. It was a common saying in those days when vessels were being overpowered with canvas, "The old lady was talking to us now," ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... over still nearer. "Just for to-night, shall we not quarrel or spar?" he whispered. "See, I will treat you as a sister and friend. I want to be petted ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... send it by post-chaise. I took the letter to the post myself, for the old man would trust nobody but me, and indeed would have preferred taking it himself; but in winter he was always lame from the effects of a bruise he had received from a falling spar in the battle ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... thoughts, Hermanric and Antonina remained silent in their little retreat, until the reveries of both were suddenly interrupted by the snapping asunder of the bar of wood which secured the door of the room, the stress of which, as it bent under the repeated shocks of the wind, the rotten spar was too weak to sustain any longer. There was something inexpressibly desolate in the flood of rain, wind, and darkness that seemed instantly to pour into the chamber through the open door, as it flew back violently on its frail hinges. Antonina changed colour, and shuddered involuntarily, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... poor creature, pale and trembling with excitement, seized my arm and clung to me as a shipwrecked sailor to a spar. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... paddle at either end. The sail is lateen, with a boom upon one mast; the prow and stern curve to a high point, and the depth being considerably greater than the width, the proa would, if unsupported, capsize instantly, but a hollow log or heavy-pointed spar rests on the water, parallel with the windward side, and, being secured in place, acts as an outrigger and removes the danger of overturning. The same name is applied to the boats used by the Malays, and which are propelled by both ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... to him, clung fast and desperately, as a drowning person clings to a spar. "But I'm not, Billikins! I'm not!" she whispered, with ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... had still sense enough to reflect that it would be little use to expect that the harassed mate would listen to reason then. Clawing his way up the ratlines he laid his chest upon the main-topsail-yard and worked his way out to the lower end of the long inclined spar. Here, still faint and dizzy, he hung with the footrope jammed against his heel, as he felt for the gasket that held the canvas to the yard. Swinging through the blackness across a space of tumbling foam he felt a horrible unsteadiness. There were other men behind him, for he could hear them ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Spar. s. The pointed sticks, doubled and twisted in the middle, and used for fixing the thatch of a roof, are called spars: they are commonly ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of Chatterbox, when they have been along the sea-shore as the tide was running out, have noticed a spar, or some other fragment of wood, which the waves threw up, dotted over with a number of odd-looking shells. This cluster was most likely made up of barnacles, of some sort or other—in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... his intercourse with his brother and Ranney, and profiting by their hints and suggestions, he plunged more eagerly into law-books than ever. He constructed a light boat, with a pair of sculls, and rigged also with a spar and sail, with which to traverse the pond, with places to secure it on the opposite shores; and early passers along the State road, that overlooked the placid waters, often marked a solitary boatman pulling a little skiff towards ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... in the sunlit cordage Behold the climbing tar, With his shadow beside on the sail white and wide, Climbing a shadow-spar! Up the glassy stream with issuing steam The cutter crawls again, All winged with cloud and buzzing loud, Like a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... a vengeance; for the first idea that struck the captain was, "the utter impossibility of finding anything in this way, in all Leaphigh, befitting a lord high admiral of his length of keel; for, as to going in an ordinary monikin queue, why, he should look like a three-decked ship, with a brig's spar stepped for a lower mast!" Dr. Reasono, however, had kindly removed the embarrassment, by conducting him to the cabinet of natural history, where three suitable appendages had been found, viz., two fine relics of oxen, [Footnote: Cauda Bovum.—BUF.] and another, a capital specimen, that had ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be so:—And you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spar'd, Shall wait upon ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a pen-wiper with a doll in the middle of it, a little dish of money-cowries, and another of Indian shot, the seed of the mahogany tree, some sea-eggs, a false book made of the wreck of the Royal George, and some pieces of spar and petrifactions which Helen had acquired on an expedition to Matlock with the Stauntons. The book-shelf, however, was to Anne the most attractive object in the room; and whilst Helen was untying the strings of her portfolio, she ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in order to paint a ship properly. To do this would miss the spirit of it, and make the thing rigid and lifeless. But ignorance will not take the place of pedantry for all that. Every kind of vessel has its own peculiar structure, its own peculiar proportions, and its own peculiar arrangement of spar and rigging. Whether you are complete or not in the detailing of the masts and rigging, you must know and represent the true character of the craft you are painting. You must take the trouble to know how, why, and when sails are set, and what are the kinds, number, and proportion of them, ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... other, anxious to display his familiarity with the technicalities of her profession. "'E wouldn't take 'is turn to be attended to aboard of us—we was in a Destroyer, an' picked 'im up 'angin' on to a spar. Would 'ave the doctor fix up a German prisoner wot was bleedin' to death. Said 'e wasn't in no particular 'urry, speakin' for 'isself. An' 'im a-bleedin' to death, too. As fine ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... gone aloft to take in sail, when it was discovered that the vessel was among breakers; and when she struck he was dashed from the rigging. He could give no account of what further happened, beyond remembering that he was clinging at one time to a spar, and saw his ship backing (as he described ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... anchor lay, (sl.) In the harbor of Mahon [Footnote 1]; A dead calm rested on the bay,— The waves to sleep had gone,— When little Jack,[Footnote 2] the captain's son, With gallant hardihood, Climbed shroud and spar,—and then upon The ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... by the Duke of Newcastle, and used by the Duke of York and his friends, according to local tradition, as a card-room, plentifully supplied with wine bottles. It is lined with a profusion of crystal spar and sea shells; it contains a deep bath, bashfully presided over by a statue of Venus, and the steps leading up to the door are paved with horses' teeth picked up on the battlefield of Waterloo. How the Duke of Newcastle accomplished ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... war mare mast chart damp warp share cask lard hand warm spare mask arm land ward snare past yard sand warn game scar lake waft fray lame spar dale raft play name star gale chaff gray fame garb cape aft stay tame barb shame ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Parisian could fail to be there. When I arrived, about one o'clock, the crowd already filled the vast bazaar. It was not easy to stand against certain currents that set toward the departments consecrated to spring novelties. Adrift like a floating spar I was swept away and driven ashore amid the baby-linen. There it flung me high and dry among the shop-girls, who laughed at the spectacle of an undergraduate shipwrecked among the necessaries of babyhood. I felt shy, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was torn into ribbons, and great pieces of it were blown away, like little white clouds played upon by the lightning. Worse than this, two of the men on the topsail-yard were wrenched from their hold on the spar, and hurled into the darkness beneath them, one falling into foaming waters, and the other ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... is said to be a fine specimen of artistic beauty and elegant workmanship, bears the following device:—One side of the medal represents a group on a raft. One of the men is seated on a spar, waving a handkerchief, as a signal to a small boat seen in the distance; another is supporting a sailor who appears in a drowning state. There is also a female holding a child in her arms, the sea having a stormy appearance. The group forms a most interesting allegory. On the obverse ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... Messrs. William and Robert Tindall, the former of whom resided in London; he was one of the half-dozen great shipbuilders and owners who founded "Lloyd's." Splendid East Indiamen, of some 1000 tons burden, were then built at Scarborough; and scarcely a timber was moulded, a plank bent, a spar lined off, or launching ship-ways laid, without my being present to witness them. And thus, in course of time, I was able to make for myself the neatest and fastest ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... parties. Hillyar, however, told Porter frankly that he should not throw away the advantage given by his superior force, for the event of a naval action was ever uncertain, liable to be decided by the accidental loss of an important spar or rope; whereas, by keeping his two ships together, he thought he could effectually blockade the Essex and prevent her renewing her depredations upon British commerce until the arrival of other ships of war which were on their way. From this wary attitude Porter in vain tried to force ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... boat,' said I, 'and when she fills I will cling to a spar. I will not die until my strength is exhausted and I can breathe no longer.' Here the conversation ended, when the captain covered his head with a blanket. I then wrote the substance of our misfortune in the log-book, and also a letter to my mother; rolled them up in a piece of tarred canvas; and, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... of old houses, long abandoned to the rats, rose the smokes of many fires and the rush and whine of passing automobiles told of races to distant grounds. All the old mines in the district, and of neighboring districts where the precious "heavy spar" occurred, were re-located—or jumped, as the case might be—and held to await future developments. The first thing was to stake. They could prospect the ground later. Tungsten now was king. Men who had never heard ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... and I pointed it out to my patron. Presently it was hauled down, and a series of signals was made at the yard—arm of a spar, that had been slung across it. Who can they be telegraphing to? thought I, while I could notice my host assume a most anxious and startled look, while he peered down into the hollow. But he could see nothing, as the fog bank still filled the whole of the space between ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... referred was this:—We had sighted a little full-rigged ship very close under our board in a haze; she sailed near as well as we did—I should be nearer truth if I said, near as ill; and we cleared the bow-chaser to see if we could bring a spar or two about their ears. The swell was exceedingly great; the motion of the ship beyond description; it was little wonder if our gunners should fire thrice and be still quite broad of what they aimed at. But in the meanwhile the chase had cleared a stern gun, the thickness of the air concealing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dan's yacht was so great that before the two dazed salts on board realized what had happened their master was far astern. They bustled to bring the Enchantress about and to come to his rescue in the dingy. Stunned by the blow of the—spar, he had gone down like a stone; so, in all probability, they would have been too late. When he came up the second time it was on the port bow of the Firefly, but completely out of reach. Giving the tiller to her friend, and stripping off superfluous apparel, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... talent. On Sheen's next visit he was introduced to a burly youth of his own age, very taciturn, and apparently ferocious. He, it seemed, was the knife and boot boy at the "Blue Boar", "did a bit" with the gloves, and was willing to spar with Sheen provided Mr Bevan made it all right with the guv'nor; saw, that is so say, that he did not get into trouble for passing in unprofessional frivolity moments which should have been sacred to knives and boots. These terms ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... like—and," pointing forward, "that parcel of negroes, now not more than a hundred and fifty, as you see, but then numbering over three hundred souls. Off Cape Horn we had heavy gales. In one moment, by night, three of my best officers, with fifteen sailors, were lost, with the main-yard; the spar snapping under them in the slings, as they sought, with heavers, to beat down the icy sail. To lighten the hull, the heavier sacks of mata were thrown into the sea, with most of the water-pipes lashed on deck at the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... lighted with a curious simplicity and grandeur.' Here, again, the coffin had to be lifted, and 'it was most striking to see the absolute silence with which the men moved the monstrous weight at a sign from the captain's hand.' The only sound was when a spar snapped in the hands of a 'giant of a fellow, who was lifting with it. There was a respectful delicacy in every motion of these men which combined beautifully with their immense, quiet, controlled strength, and impressed me very much. After a ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... small repair kit attached to one of the thwarts, containing cement, a piece of canvas same as cover of canoe, copper tacks, rivets, and some galvanized nails; a good hatchet and a hammer; a small can of canoe paint, spar varnish, and copper paint for worn places would be a protection against termites and torrential downpours. In concluding the subject of canoes I can state that the traveller in South America will find no difficulty in disposing ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... an age the waves became somewhat less violent, though still breaking in a mass of foam. Geoffrey loosed his hold of the spar and tried to get to his feet. He was knocked down several times before he succeeded, but when he did so found that the water was little more than two feet deep, although the waves rose to his shoulders. The soft mud under his feet rendered it extremely difficult ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... of the casks which had been brought by the large raft had been picked up, as well as a good many others. Those which would not float of themselves were now placed on the small raft, and the mate, taking a long spar in his hand, set out to lead the way. Four of the men took charge of the raft, while others dragged after them casks of beef and water and two of beer. Owen was thankful that no spirits had been picked up. He knew too well what ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... resort. The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he alone who can be accused of the thrift of craft. There is at the Warm Springs a thriving mill for crushing and pulverizing barites, known vulgarly as heavy-spar. It is the weight of this heaviest of minerals, and not its lovely crystals, that gives it value. The rock is crushed, washed, sorted out by hand, to remove the foreign substances, then ground and subjected ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... "that your foot has been tied up by a sailor. He has tried to mend it as if it were a broken spar. I suppose that was the Captain who brought me to you, and then ran away again, as soon as he could. Yes; I have Marie with me. She is telling them to be careful with the luggage. I can hear her. I am so ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... white spar, with arrow head "above heart." Nicely carved, with ears and with small pieces of turquoise inserted for eyes; designated by Mr. Cushing as Prey God of the Hunt. S-ni-a-k'ia-kwe ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in 1881 • James Stevenson
... remains nearly transparent, and it's temperature appeas to be quite as cold as that of our best springs. we meet with a beautifull little bird in this neighbourhood about the size and somewhat the shape of the large spar-row. it is reather longer in proportion to it's bulk than the sparrow. it measures 7 inches from the extremity of the beek to that of the tail, the latter occupying 21/2 inches. the beak is reather more than half an inch in length, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... shout reached my ears, and I saw Bill seated astride a piece of timber, not far from me. With my remaining strength I made towards it, and he, seizing me by the shirt, hauled me up, and made me fast with some rope attached to the spar. ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... beginning to work the vein, they covered it up immediately with rubbish, and defaced the country with their pick-axes; so that, to look at, no one could have suspected there was any load to be found near. I also saw them secrete a lump of spar, in which they had reason to guess there were Cornish diamonds, as they call them, and they carefully hid the bits of kellus[Footnote: 2 Kellus is the miner's name for a substance like a white soft stone, which lies above the floor or spar, near to a vein.], which ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... "Black Eagle," standing on the poop, holding by the remnant of a spar, issued his last orders in this fearful extremity with courageous coolness. The smaller boats had been carried away by the waves; it was in vain to think of launching the long-boat; the only chance ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... fire shot out of the mountain. It glowed red in the dusty air. It flung great red arms across the sky after the ship. Every man and spar and oar on the vessel seemed burning in its light. Then the fire died, and thick darkness swallowed everything. Ariston's heart seemed smothered in his breast. He heard the slaves on the rowers' benches scream with fear. Then he heard their leader ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... she was lying, and Eudora knew it, but said nothing except to bid the girl get up and assist Sonsie with the supper. Mandy Ann had once said of her mistress to Jake, "She hain't no sperrit to spar," and Jake had replied, "Lucky for you, Mandy Ann, that she hain't no sperrit, for ef she had she'd of done pulled every har out ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... he had conjectured they were marquesite. He tested them and ascertained they were el madre del oro. Where that is, the presence of gold below was supposed to be indicated. He remarked also the outside of many mines of white spar, from which he drew as ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Now the spar-aluminite outer skin of the ship grew bright with the red neon glare. Another ship, from China, dropped slowly to its stage near by, and the unloaders swarmed about the pneumatic tubes to receive the mail. The teleradio was shouting news of a failure of the Manchurian wheat crop. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... we even quarrelled over it. At least I did. Ludovic wouldn't quarrel with anyone. You have to fight air when you spar with him. I hate to square up to a person who ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... o' our heads most o' the time. I didn't know it then, but 'twas true all the same. Think now o' layin' the Screamer broadside on that stone pile at Shark Ledge, unloadin' them stone with nothin' but a couple o' spar buoys to keep 'er off. Wonder I didn't leave 'er bones there. Would if I hadn't knowed every stick o' timber in 'er and jest what she could ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... out: and I felt I'd die between them: but, after all ... And yet, Who kens what green sod's to be broken for him? Queer, that I'll lie, like any innocent Beneath the daisies; but the gowans must wait. Sore-punished, I'm not yet knocked out: life's had My head in chancery; but I'll soon be free To spar another round or so with him, Before he sends me spinning to the ropes. And life would not ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... destination; or chaffed the fishermen, whose boats heaved on the waves at the foot of the promontory. When they were rested, they visited a copper-mine by the side of the head, and filled their pockets with bits of bright quartz or red shining spar, which they found ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Brown, chipper as a mack'rel gull on a spar-buoy, "what's the outlook for to-morrer? The Gov'ment sharp says there's a big storm on the way up from Florida. Is he right, or only ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... essential part of the occasion. But at night the spirit of the people showed beyond mistake. Not only were the streets arched and bordered with festoons of colored incandescent lights, not only were the battleships in the harbor strung with fiery beads to the topmost spar, but every window in every house in the city bore its light. Fine houses had candelabra behind the glass, and the poorest mere tapers, but everywhere the same fire ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... learned what makes the might of words,— 55 Manhood to back them, constant as a star; His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords, And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and spar Heard him and stiffened; the sails heard, and wooed The ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... another with nothing standing above her lower mastheads; here a barque with her main-yard carried away; there a stately ship with her mizzenmast and all attached still towing astern, and the crew busy cutting away at the rigging which held the shattered spar; here another fine ship, totally dismasted; and there, now far astern, more than one dark object lying low in the water, and but imperfectly seen through the flying spindrift, which George Leicester knew only too well were the hulls of ships which had capsized, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... most inorganic bodies is one of a totally different nature from that exhibited in organic forms. The diamond shines for a time in the dark after it has been exposed to the sun; so do pieces of quartz when rubbed together, and powdered fluor-spar when heated shines with considerable brilliancy. Various artificial compounds, such as sulphide of calcium (Canton's phosphorus, as it is called from the discoverer), sulphate of barium (Bologna stone, or Bologna phosphorus), sulphide of strontium, etc., after being illuminated ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... last he had won, and the victorious pennon of the Privateer fluttered triumphant over the battered hulks which barely floated upon the spar-strewn water. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Every spar and rope and writhing piece of cordage showed up hard and clear under the vivid light which spluttered and flickered from the highest portion of the forecastle. Beyond the doomed ship, out of the great darkness ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... use polarized light, polarized not in the horizontal or vertical planes, but in the direction of the fourth dimension—an easy matter. One uses Iceland spar under colossal pressures, that is all. And since the worlds are very thin in the direction of the fourth dimension, the thickness of a single light wave, though it be but millionths of an inch, is sufficient. A considerable improvement over time-traveling in ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... of a buoy is an index of its character. Thus, one with black and red stripes indicates danger; one with black and white vertical stripes is a channel-marker. Temporary channels are frequently marked by pieces of spar floating upright. In some cases it is customary to set untrimmed tree-tops on the port, and trimmed sticks ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown its length were gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in reality, huge stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof. Others again were in process of formation. On the rock floor there was in these ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... guess how far she listened to or comprehended the conversation so unfit for her ear. When he rose to go, and stooped to kiss her, she looked wistfully in his face, and held up a small sparkling bit of spar, the most precious of all her hoards, gleaned from the roadsides ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... never bears malice; he hasn't time, especially now, with competition so keen in the fish business, and Church's fish pails only of the ordinary size. There is never any ill-feeling after a little spar, and each proceeds, in the most amicable way, to steal some other pelican's fish. A spar at this club, by-the-bye, is a joyous and hilarious sight. Two big birds with stumpy legs and top-heavy beaks, solemnly prancing ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the middle! Oh, the half of her goes down!" "God have mercy! Is his heaven far to seek for those who drown?" Lo! when next the white, shocked faces looked with terror on the sea, Only one last clinging figure on a spar was seen to be. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... sir? I didn't know but it might turn out to be galley-news. Pray what is the rumpus all about, Admiral Bluewater? for, I never could get that story fidded properly, so as to set up the rigging, and have the spar well stayed in ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at Fort Morgan before its fall, was her executive officer while she was being fitted out, and to him, as well as to Constructor Joseph Pearse, much credit is due for having made her as serviceable as she was for purposes of war. Her spar-deck cabins were removed, and her deck strengthened so as to enable it to bear a battery. Her boilers were slightly protected by iron plates one inch in thickness. V-shaped iron shields on the spar-deck, forward and aft of her engines, afforded some protection to the ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... with phosphoric acid, including crystals of the phosphate of iron from Fernando Po, Bavaria, and Cornwall; phosphates of manganese; phosphate of copper; yellow and green uranite; phosphates of alumina, including the blue spar, which has been mistaken for lapis-lazuli, and the phosphate of alumina known as turquois, found only in Persia, and esteemed as an ornament. In the two supplemental table cases, 57 A and B, the visitor may notice specimens of Pyromorphite, ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... o'clock at night, we were overtaken by such a violent storm that the waves covered the vessel, in which were twenty-six persons, and we went to the bottom. During the voyage somebody said to me: "Let us recommend ourselves to God and to the Virgin Mary of Roc-Amadour. Let us put her name upon this spar and trust ourselves to the care of this good Lady." He who gave me this good counsel and myself fastened ourselves to the spar with a rope. The tempest carried us away, but in so fortunate a manner that the next day we found ourselves on the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... you talk, as in your latest letter, of the making of yourself. It seems so much more possible than that I could do the same. But I am a miserable groping creature, cast on a sea of doubt, rejecting one spar to grasp another, and crying all the time against the storm, for help. I do not know another man who has tortured himself so insistently with the problems that are unsolvable. You are firmer in your grasp, and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... which Mr. Thrale had very little care about, but which Hetty doubtless thought of great importance. Be this as it may, no angry words ever passed between him and me, except perhaps now and then a little spar or so when company was by, in the ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the stump of the mast, threw their weight on the spar projecting over the side, straight as a lance towards a projection of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... brazen-tongued bell struck midnight. Then Theos, raising his eyes, saw that all further progress was impeded by a great wall of solid rock that glistened at every point with flashes of pale and dark violet light—a wall composed entirely of adamantine spar, crusted thick with the rough growth of oriental amethyst. It rose sheer up from the ground to an altitude of about a hundred feet, and apparently closed in and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... not yet done with Sir John Hawkins. We shall hear of him again. He became the manager of Elizabeth's dockyards. He it was who turned out the ships that fought Philip's fleet in the Channel in such condition that not a hull leaked, not a spar was sprung, not a rope parted at an unseasonable moment, and this at a minimum of cost. He served himself in the squadron which he had equipped. He was one of the small group of admirals who met that Sunday afternoon in the cabin of the ark Raleigh and sent the fire-ships ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Under spar-enchased bowers, Bending on their twisted stems, Glow the myriad ocean-flowers, Fadeless—rich as orient gems. Hung with seaweed's tasselled fringes, Dyed with all the rainbow's tinges, Rise the Triton's palace walls. Pallid silver's wandering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... ship's side and some of the rocks, but without success, for it snapped assunder before it reached them. However, by the light of a lanthorn which a seaman handed through a sky-light of the round-house to the deck, Mr. Meriton discovered a spar which appeared to be laid from the ship's side to the rocks, and on this spar he resolved ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... had never had a more adroit counsel. Like a good lawyer, Douglas seemed to feel himself in duty bound to spar for every technical advantage, and to construe the law, wherever possible, in favor of his client. At the same time he did not forget that the House was the jury in this case, and capable of human emotions upon which he ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... window, but could not speak. "Why, it was your husband himself," continued the generous seaman. "He and three others saved themselves on a spar, when the Blessing turned bottom upwards. The brig will beat into the bay by daylight, with this wind, and you'll see him here to-morrow. There's the comfort I bring you, Mary, and ...
— The Wives of The Dead - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
