"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... bet you sixpence she "finds herself" (I know nobody finds old maids). There now, didn't I tell you so? See,—she moves a little table up to the window and holds the table-cloth close up to her eye-lashes, to see if there's a speck of dirt on it, and then twitches, and pats, and pulls it into line and plummet order; then she places thereon a small tea tray, with only one cup and saucer. I declare it makes me feel quite melancholy! Then she throws up the window, lifts the cover off the tin-pail, ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... night breeze among the bushes and the brambles of the downs. But the people who were approaching were doubtless mistrustful people, for this real silence and apparent solitude did not satisfy them. Their boat, therefore, scarcely as visible as a dark speck upon the ocean, glided along noiselessly, avoiding the use of their oars for fear of being heard, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... laugh, in which he did not fail to join in unison. "But are you aware of the usefulness and national importance of the projector's plans? said Crony. "Not I," responded the citizen: "I hates all projections of breweries, bridges, buildings, and boring companies, from the Golden-lane speck to the Vaterloo; from thence up to the new street, and down to the tunnel under the Thames, vich my banker, Sir William Curtis, says, is the greatest bore in London." "But humanity, sir," said Crony, "has, I hope, some influence with you; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the blue above me, A tiny speck in the sky, Rained down from its bosom's fulness A shower of melody, Dropping through the golden sunlight, And ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... fast, Miss Esther," she returned, good-humoredly. "You've had a fine sleep, to be sure, and young things will stand a mortal amount of fatigue; but there isn't a speck of color in your face, my poor lamb. Well, well," as I showed signs of impatience—"I won't disturb Miss Ruth, but I will fetch you some coffee and bread-and- butter, and we will see how ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... next morning, after a good deal of handshaking, and Taffy looked after them wistfully as they turned to wave their caps and trudged away over the rise towards the cross-roads. Away to the left in the wintry sunshine a speck of scarlet caught his eye against the blue-grey of the towans. He watched it as it came slowly towards him, and his heart leapt—yet not quite as he had expected it ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... down his face. All this must have been pleasant to him, or he would not have done it; and there is no doubt that he is indebted to the stimulus thus applied to his eyes for the measure of sight he now enjoys. When five or six years of age, a small, comparatively clear speck appeared in one of his eyes; and it was discovered that within a very small space he could see any bright object. That eye has continued to clear, until he is now able to see luminous bodies at a distance, and can distinguish small bodies by bringing them close to his eye. Persons ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... in an incredible space of time he had gathered together his routed army, and was as formidable as before. The Germans liked the bold old fellow, and called, and still call him, Marshal Forwards. He had his disappointments, no doubt, but turned them, like the oyster does the speck of sand which annoys it, to a pearl. To our minds, the best of all these heroes is Robert Hall, the preacher, who, after falling on the ground in paroxysms of pain, would rise with a smile, and say, "I suffered much, but I did not cry out, did ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Matilda Anne, for the next few weeks.... I got up and went to the window and looked out. The moon was big and yellow, like a cheese. And the midnight prairie itself seemed so big and wide and lonely, and I seemed such a tiny speck on its face, so far away from every one, from God himself, that the courage went out of my body like the air out of a tire. Dinky-Dunk was right; it is life ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... Wisdom.—Sir Isaac Newton was once riding over Salisbury Plain, when a boy, keeping sheep, called to him—"Sir, you had better make haste on, or you will get a wet jacket." Newton looking round and observing neither clouds nor speck on the horizon, jogged on, taking very little notice of the rustic's information. He had made but a few miles, when a storm suddenly arising, wetted him to the skin. Surprised at the circumstance, and determined, if possible, to ascertain how an ignorant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... enclosed in a grasp as strong as a man's; and three minutes later Mrs Olliver—whose seat on a horse was as ungainly as her hand on its mouth was perfect—had become a mere speck ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Abraham Soft Raymond Sogue Assia Sole Nathan Solley Ebenezer Solomon Thomas Solomon James Sooper Christian Soudower Moses Soul Nathaniel Southam William Southard Henry Space Enoch Spalding Joshua Spaner Charles Sparefoot James Sparrows John Speake Martin Speakl James Spear Eliphaz Speck Elchie Spellman William Spellman James Spencer Joseph Spencer Nicholas Spencer Thomas Spencer Solomon Spenser Henry Spice John Spicer (2) Lancaster Spicewood John Spier (2) Richard Spigeman John Spinks ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck— A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... along with an innumerable host of stars, display their radiance to adorn the firmament of that magnificent world. He can wing his flight through the still more distant regions of the universe, leaving the sun and all his planets behind him, till they appear like a scarcely discernible speck in creation, and contemplate thousands and millions of stars and starry systems beyond the range of the unassisted eye, and wander among the suns and worlds dispersed throughout the boundless dimensions ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... was the sight of the great ocean itself, for we were out of sight of land. All round us, on both sides of the ship, ahead and astern, nothing was to be seen but water-water—water; not a single glimpse of green shore, not the smallest island, or speck of moss any where. Never did I realize till now what the ocean was: how grand and majestic, how solitary, and boundless, and beautiful and blue; for that day it gave no tokens of squalls or hurricanes, such as I had heard my father tell of; nor could I imagine, how any thing that ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... less than an hour we got above two hundred. Those which had a little black spot or two on the shell we ate the same day, as it was a sign that they were not fresh, and of course would not keep; those which had no speck were put into dry sand, and were good ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... dearie. Your own natural skin is no more color-fast. I handled Elaine Doremus in 'The Snowdrop' for three seasons. Never so much as a speck or a spot on her. My cream ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... must dust the China Cat," said her sister Angelina. "She is so white that the least speck shows on her. Real white cats are very fussy about keeping themselves clean, so I do not see why a white China Cat should not be treated the same way. You dust the Nodding Donkey, Geraldine, and I'll dust ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... floating far in the very middle of the river. A more critical experiment awaited us; for our little mule-cart was but ill-fitted for the passage of so swift a stream. We watched it with anxiety till it seemed to be a little motionless white speck in the midst of the waters; and it WAS motionless, for it had stuck fast in a quicksand. The little mules were losing their footing, the wheels were sinking deeper and deeper, and the water began to rise through the bottom and drench the goods within. All of us ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... a satisfaction to know that thus far the gloomy forebodings of the Seer had not been fulfilled. On looking out through a six-inch rose-window, I saw joyous daylight dancing over the boundless, placid waters,—not a speck of land in sight. We must have started long since; but my eyes, fast sealed under the opiate rays of the Luminary, had hitherto refused to ope their lids to the garish beams of his rival. Soon I heard beneath a rustling snap, as of a bow, and suddenly there sped ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Merrit's expected arrival, when the last flower had been put in the vases, and the last speck of dust flecked from the matting, Yuki San's keen eyes detected a torn place in the paper door which separated the ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... salvation on either side. No glory awaits the Southern Confederacy, even if it does achieve its independence; it will be a mere speck in the world, with no weight or authority. The North confesses itself lost without us, and has paid an unheard-of ransom to regain us. On the other hand, conquered, what hope is there in this world for us? Broken in health and fortune, reviled, contemned, abused by those who claim already to ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... schooner until it was a mere white speck on the horizon, a faint idea that it might yet see the error of its ways and return for her chaining her to the spot. Compelled at last to recognise the inevitable, she rose from the turf on which she had been sitting and, her face crimson with wrath, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... Treherne answered, "I hear, see, and understand many things that escape others. Jasper, allow me to advise you to smooth the hair which your sleep has disarranged. Mrs. Snowdon, permit me. This rich velvet catches the least speck." And with his handkerchief he delicately brushed away several streaks of white dust which clung ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... Tom, but I speck he's only jist a' animal. No, I reckon dat won't do, nuther, he ain't big enough for a' animal. He mus' be a bug. Yassir, dat's what ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... says Jacka, "for I was just about stepping down to call you. See that lugger, yonder?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a speck in the grey from which the Van der Werf was now running at something like ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... well, and rub salt inside of it; tie it up, and put it on the fire in cold water; throw a handful of salt into the fish-kettle. Boil a small fish 15 minutes; a large one 30 minutes. Serve it without the smallest speck and scum; drain. Garnish it with lemon, horseradish, the milt, roe, and liver. Oyster or shrimp sauce ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... just as clear on the radiation and heat-screens. The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked out, but the radiations from her engines and the distinctive radiation-pattern of her contragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked her position on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-point of light on the vision-screen—some device on the Sky-Spy, synchronized with the detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... enthusiast, in figured trowsers and a gay cravat. "Our beloved Union must and shall be preserved. The fabric that our fathers reared for us must not be allowed to crumble. We will prop it with our mangled bodies," and he brushed a speck of dust from the fine ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... which a flag was ordered to be hoisted whenever a ship might appear, which should serve as a direction to her and as a signal of approach to us. Here, on the summit of a hill, did we sweep the horizon every morning from day-light until the sun sunk, in the hope of seeing a sail. At every fleeting speck which arose from the bosom of the ocean, the heart bounded, and the telescope was lifted to the eye. If a ship appeared here, we knew that she must be bound to us; for on the shore of this vast ocean, the largest in the world, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... pyramid. There was not for miles round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked out in pink letters the name ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... are prepared for market. The work is all done by hand, which is one reason that they are so expensive. They are first worked in saw-dust; cleaned, scraped, washed, shaved, plucked, dyed with a hand-brush from eight to twelve times, washed again and freed from the least speck of grease by a last bath in hot ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... earth. I've heard him say that often, and you needn't be afraid of his not bein' able to pay you. A lot more than that man would have paid you for his little gal, if you'd catched the right one. So if you take me to Pop, and get me there safe and sound, it will be an awful good speck for you.' ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... from the sea, and began to search the green slopes around, and then all at once she uttered a cry of joy as she could sight, on the highest slope right at the end of the valley, a white speck which suddenly appeared out of the earth, and then stood out clear on the green turf, and seemed to be looking about before ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... and kept the soil so clean and orderly. Not surely her cousin Hepzibah's, who had no taste nor spirits for the lady-like employment of cultivating flowers, and—with her recluse habits, and tendency to shelter herself within the dismal shadow of the house—would hardly have come forth under the speck of open sky to weed and hoe among the fraternity of ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of liberty. One of the greatest blessings we enjoy, one of the greatest blessings a people can enjoy, is liberty. But every good in this life has its allay of evil. Licentiousness is the allay of liberty. It is an ebullition, an excrescence; it is a speck upon the eye of the political body, which I can never touch but with a gentle, with a trembling hand; lest I destroy the body, lest I injure the eye, upon which it is apt to appear. If the stage becomes at any time licentious, if a play appears ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to have an enjoyment which the ardent lover of nature alone can appreciate. Far as the eye can look, there is uninterrupted harmony. Splendid plains covered with the fleecy tribe, and here and there (alas! only but here and there) a speck of water, enough to vindicate nature from the charge of utter neglect—and no more. A glance thrown in another direction brings to your view an endless tract of country deprived even of these solitary specks, where the grass grows as high as your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... miles out on the gulf, at first like a tiny black speck, appeared the steamer. Nearer and nearer it came, growing larger and larger as it approached. The dark waters heaved up in huge waves as her bow pierced their depths. The foam dashed high, as if in angry protest at the intruder. And ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... Said the Rowe stuff was recording as if he was actually living the part. There were no extraneous sublevels at all and that's just never happened before. It's like Lorancelli says about Rowe dying and the character coming to life. Zack swears that Rowe just disappears. There isn't a speck of him that ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... of dress, especially to the chiefs and chiefesses, who are all remarkably tall and handsome, with a stately carriage and dignified manner. The Queen stood in front of the throne, on which were spread the royal robes, a long mantle of golden feathers, without speck or blemish. On each side stood two men, dressed in black, wearing frock-coats, and capes of red, black, and yellow feathers over their shoulders, and chimney-pot hats on their heads. In their hands they held two enormous kahilis of black oo feathers, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... hazarded the speculation that the origin of life on this planet has been the falling upon it of the fragments of a meteor, or an aerolite from some other system, with a speck of organic life upon it, from which all has developed. Whatever may be the case in regard to physical life, that is absolutely true in the case of spiritual life. It all originates because this heaven-descended Christ has come down ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Prince. Thence to the Ropeyarde and the other yards to do several businesses, he and I also did buy some apples and pork; by the same token the butcher commended it as the best in England for cloath and colour. And for his beef, says he, "Look how fat it is; the lean appears only here and there a speck, like beauty-spots." Having done at Woolwich, we to Deptford (it being very cold upon the water), and there did also a little more business, and so home, I reading all the why to make end of the "Bondman" ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... we don't want these would-be murderers to know how their trick failed. That's the reason I didn't pound the brute to a jelly on the bed, for it would have made such a mess on the sheet. Now there isn't a speck on it. I'll take the vase with me into my room and finish the cobra off. In the morning I'll get rid of its body somehow. When these devils find tomorrow that you're not dead, they'll be very puzzled. Now, the question is, what are you ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... or less noisy and loquacious. About noon a thin white veil began to blur the distant southern mountains. It was like a white dream slowly descending upon them. The first flake or flakelet that reached me was a mere white speck that came idly circling and eddying to the ground. I could not see it after it alighted. It might have been a scale from the feather of some passing bird, or a larger mote in the air that the stillness was allowing to settle. Yet it was the altogether inaudible and infinitesimal trumpeter ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... courtyard clean, bringing in a barrel of water twice a day, splitting and dragging in wood for the kitchen and the house, keeping out strangers, and watching at night. And it must be said he did his duty zealously. In his courtyard there was never a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; if sometimes, in the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his charge for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give it a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... be—our finite minds cannot grasp that which may not exist in accordance with the conditions which obtain about us upon the outside of the insignificant grain of dust which wends its tiny way among the bowlders of the universe—the speck of moist dirt we ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... seated upon the sideboard swinging their legs. Rowden cast a satisfied glance at the table laid for fifteen and flicked an imaginary speck ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the far slopes next the mountains, a black speck rolled into view, the nucleus of a little dust cloud. Her face brightened a little; she turned abruptly and sought easy footing down that ridge, and climbed hurriedly the longer rise beyond. Once or twice, when she was on high ground, she glanced behind her uneasily, as does one whose mind ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... as a speck of dirt, then, were it?" she queried. "And maybe mine ain't for Daddy. But the student air a-prayin' for him! It air a damn shame ye ain't got him a-prayin' for yerself and the kid.... Ye'd a seen yer man before now, and the ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... till twenty, which is erua ahuru, this is two tens; twenty-one consists of the terms for two tens and one. In this manner they count to ten tens, which is rau. Ten raus is one mano, or thousand; ten manos one million, and so on. How exactly the Algonquin method, but not a speck of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... fare again Forth o'er the heads of men, Nor other Summers for its Sanctuary: But from your mind's chilled sky It needs must drop, and lie with stiffened wings Among your soul's forlornest things; A speck upon your memory, alack! A dead ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... the island was going down slowly but surely. In a few minutes it was but a mere speck on the surface, and then even ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... plodded and churned her way onward. Every day and all day the same pale-blue sky and the unwinking sun bent over that moving speck. Every day and all day the same black-blue water-world, untouched by any known wind, smooth as a slab of syenite, colourful as an opal, stretched out and around and beyond and before and behind us, forever, illimitable, empty. Every day ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... Goose wuz down dar dabblin' in soapsuds en washin' cloze, he sorter lick he chops, en 'low dat some er dese odd-come-shorts he gwine ter call en pay he 'specks. De minnit he say dat, Brer Rabbit, he know sump'n' 'uz up, en he 'low ter hisse'f dat he 'speck he better whirl in en have some fun w'iles it gwine on. Bimeby Brer Fox up'n say ter Brer Rabbit dat he bleedzd ter be movin' 'long todes home, en wid dat ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... that was faintly silvered by the moon there was a black speck. It was, or seemed from the distance to be, motionless. Hermione's eyes were attracted to it, and again her imagination carried her to Sicily. She stood on the shore by the inlet, she saw the boat coming in from the open sea. Then it ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... glade clash cream swim blind grade crash dream spend grind shade smash gleam speck spike trade trash steam fresh smile skate slash stream whelp while brisk drove blush cheap carve quilt grove flush peach farce filth stove slush teach parse pinch clove brush reach barge flinch smote crush bleach large mince ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... foe. A dyke through the mist before us hover'd, And, quicken'd by voice and heel, The black overleap'd it, stagger'd, recover'd; Still nearer that muffled peal. And louder on sward the hoof-strokes grew, And duller, though not less nigh, On deader sand; and a dark speck drew On my vision suddenly, And a single horseman in fleet career, Like a shadow appear'd to glide To within six lances' lengths of our rear, And there for a space to bide. Quoth Harold, "Speak, has the moon reveal'd His face?" I replied, "Not so! ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... hermetically sealed trap-door. Brand threw the control switch and precisely at eleven o'clock the conical shell of metal shot heavenward, gathering such speed that it was soon invisible to human eyes. He set their course toward the blazing speck that was Jupiter, four hundred million miles away; and then reported their start by radio to Commander ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and a speck or two on her white, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... follow was one which the Count was anxious not to see. He therefore turned his back and pretended to brush from his sleeve a speck of dust revealed to his searching eye in the strong afternoon light which streamed through the open door. Then Vjera's low-spoken word of thanks and her light tread made him aware that she had received her ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... worlds beyond worlds circling through gulfs of space. But here in the primordial solitudes, under the solemn cope of the sky, the thought lost its terror. He seemed in harmony with the universe, part of it as was each speck of star dust. Without question or understanding he felt secure, convinced of his oneness with the great design, cradled ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... one of those historical novels once about a chap—a buck he would have been, no doubt, or a macaroni or some such bird as that—who, when people said the wrong thing, merely laughed down from lazy eyelids and flicked a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at his wrists. This was practically what I did now. At least, I straightened my tie and smiled one of those inscrutable smiles of mine. I then withdrew and went out for a saunter in ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... pleasure. Especially did my heart leap when I took the Countess to the window a little to the right, and, pointing with one hand upwards, put the Count's binocular into her hands. The sun of the mid-noon was shining on a black speck floating from the topmost cliff of the Piz Langrev. As she looked she flung out her hand to me, still continuing to gaze with the glass held in the other. She saw her own scarlet favour flying from the pine-branch. That cry of wonder and delight was better to me than the Victoria ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Socrates, a Plato, or an Aristotle, however confessedly inferior in knowledge to the philosophers of the present day, do not appear to have been much below them in intellectual capacity. Intellect rises from a speck, continues in vigour only for a certain period, and will not perhaps admit while on earth of above a certain number of impressions. These impressions may, indeed, be infinitely modified, and from these various modifications, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... To the westward was Goulburn's Range, distant about five or six miles; its bold rocky peaks of lofty elevation forming a striking contrast to the dead level of the country southerly, in which however Mount Aiton appeared like a blue speck on the horizon. To the northward was Mount Granard, the highest of a very elevated range, it having been seen at a distance of seventy-two miles from Mount Aiton; and to the north-north-east were extensive open flats; in one place, bearing N. 17. E., ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... mother scans face and hands and tiny curled-up feet. Finding all in order, he wiped it with a silk handkerchief (the special property of the instrument; a cotton one did duty for himself), polished it, and tuned it, and polished again. "Must look well, my beauty," he murmured; "must look well. Not a speck of dust but she'd feel it with those little fingers, you know. Ready now? Well, then, speak up for your master; speak, voice of my heart! 'A welcome for Rosin the Beau.' Ask for ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... house and had the preveleage of possessing a beautiful view both back and front. The front looked out across miles of woodland scenery with no sign of human inhabetance any where safe a single cottage which stood out like a white speck among ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the distance a moving speck on the water caught his eye. For a few minutes he watched it in suspense, then gave a cheer ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the mountain, deepening its rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,—diminished to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out, leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the wilderness of shadowy gloom. I had come under a spell,—for, often as I had seen the sun set in the mountains and over the lakes, I had never before felt as I now felt, that I was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... seen smoothing and dressing their fur, somewhat in the manner of a cat. After having smoothed and dressed each other's fur, both turn their attention to their young, from whose coats they remove the smallest speck of dirt, at the same time trying to keep their hair smooth and unruffled. The Guinea-pig feeds on bread, grain, fruit, vegetables, tea leaves, and especially garden parsley, to which it is very partial. It generally gives birth to seven and eight young at a time, and they very ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... charming sang-froid he fully bore out his previous description. He was as clean and refreshing looking as a madrono-tree in the dust-blown forest. An odor of scented soap and freshly ironed linen was wafted from him; there was scarcely a crease in his white waistcoat, nor a speck upon his varnished shoes. He might have been an auditor of the previous conversation, so quickly and completely did he seem to take in the whole situation at a glance. Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his black-ribboned Panama hat, and a certain dancing ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... company assembled numbered about fifty, the room being big enough to hold three hundred. I have a vision still before me, of twenty out of these fifty guests, solemnly executing intricate figure-dances, under the superintendence of an infirm local dancing-master—a mere speck of fidgety human wretchedness twisting about in the middle of an empty floor. I see, faintly, down the dim vista of the Past, an agreeable figure, like myself, with a cocked hat under its arm, black tights ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... we proceeded to pass over it. As we crossed the banks there came a rushing sound from beneath us, as of a mighty gust of wind, and, looking through one of the small windows in the side of the car, I saw in the distance a speck, which, in another moment, disappeared. Our aerenoid now gently rocked with the motion of a boat that is in the swell of a passing steamer, and I instantly realized that another aerenoid, travelling at a terrific speed, had passed in the canal ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... a lonely life. Especially lonely on a large farm in the West. The life of a hired man like Bradley Talcott is spent mainly with the horses and cattle. In the spring he works day after day with a drag or seeder, moving to and fro an animate speck across a dull brown expanse of soil. Even when he has a companion there is little talk, for there is little to say, and the extra exertion of speaking against the wind, or across distances, soon forces them ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... features of the place. The house she found lower-ceiled and smaller than she remembered it. The Boltons had kept it up very well, and in spite of the earthy and mouldy smell, it was conscientiously clean. There was not a speck of dust anywhere; the old yellowish-white paint was spotless; the windows shone. But there was a sort of frigidity in the perfect order and repair which repelled her, and she left her things tossed about, as if to break ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... on the white speck which was visible on the margin of the ocean, and which the 'Skimmer of the Seas' confidently pronounced to be the Water-Witch. None but a seaman could have felt this certainty; for, seen from the low raft, there was little else to be distinguished ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the right on the cliffs, dotted about which lay Eilygugg, there was a white speck here and a blue speck there, and a little more intent gazing proved to the lad that there was another speck upon the edge of the ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... promised candy and oranges and even wedding-cake, for she forgot she hadn't a speck of wedding-cake in ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... then flatter himself that he is riding wide and making a line for himself. But to be entrapped into a field without any power of getting out of it; to see the red backs of the forward men becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, till the last speck disappears over some hedge; to see the fence before you and know that it is too much for you; to ride round and round in an agony of despair which is by no means mute, and at last to give sixpence to some boy to conduct you back ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... out my field-glass and directed it at a little speck high above our heads. It was the basket floating high in the air. I gave the glass to my wife to look, but she did not want to ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... come home and tell Mother all about it, and we'll take a fresh start. You're pretty fairly, tolerably, moderately good children after all! Only I want you to grow a little speck better each day." ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... head, and all but meeting under his shaggy hair, at once fixed his choice on him as 'likest his work.' That work was to defend the sheep from the wolves, and one mode of defence was by laying a strange trap for the enemy. The dog was remarkably like a sheep, his hair white without a dark speck, and he carried a great load of it, long and fleecy like wool. In the Hungarian steppes four or five of those dogs would lay themselves down on the grass in the evening, sleeping there like so many harmless lambs, with their faces inward for the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... again in its case, her pole touching the snow, she approached until she could look down. Only the steep wall on the far side, sinking straight and black into the swollen torrent, only a little speck of white far down which might have been a struggling body or ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... "Not a speck," answered Le Farge. "DAMN that Irishman! but for him I'd have got the boats away properly victualled and all; as it is I don't know what we've got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... because they cultivated the Sikyonian plain, or owned that part of Marathon around Oenoe, or held possession of a thousand acres at Acharnae. Of the whole of Greece, as it then appeared to me from above, being about the size of four fingers, I think Attica was in proportion a mere speck. So that I wondered on what condition it was left to these rich men ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... turned to offer help, but the Lecomte was ever a Levite where we were concerned; and when we were ready to go on, the grey car was not even a speck in the distance. Luckily, however, there was little or no doubt where its ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery. Once, after the poor animals that conveyed me had with incredible toil gained the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one, sinking under his fatigue, died, I viewed the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of a well-known form within. Oh! With what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart! ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... that far in his story he stopped a minute and sighed, and filled his pipe again, and took out his handkerchief, and said he guessed a little speck of ashes had got into ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... picaninny's cry; surrounded as we were by a boundless sea of sand, it made one think how small a speck our party was on the face of the earth; it somehow took one's thoughts back to civilisation and crowded cities, and one felt that it was not just very certain if one would see such things again; and how little it would take to wipe us ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... in this direction yet a little further, he could see the tower of West Endelstow Church, beneath which he was to meet his Elfride that night. And at the same time he noticed, coming over the hill from the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It seemed first to be a sea-gull flying low, but ultimately proved to be a human figure, running with great rapidity. The form flitted on, heedless of the rain which had caused Stephen's halt in this place, dropped down the heathery hill, entered ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... feel very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn't come back? Suppose it were to drop out of the string of white faces like the pearl out of my ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... stood and gazed, marveling at the beauty and recalling some of the things her companion of the afternoon had said about his impressions of the place; then suddenly there loomed a dark speck in the near foreground of her meditation, and, looking down annoyed, she discovered the minister like a gnat between the eye and a grand spectacle, his face turned admiringly up to her window, his hand lifted ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... Not a speck of dust was to be seen from the altar to the porch, and the behavior of the congregation was ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... orchards that flourish, rank and wild, no longer cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from Palermo one sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun, indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... it seem'd a little speck And then it seem'd a mist: It mov'd and mov'd, and took at last A ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... interrupted by O'Connell, gently laying his hand on his shoulder, and pointing to the ship-of-war at anchor, as he exclaimed—"A speck of ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... her again late—incredibly late—that night as the moon swept from the south toward Karva. She was a long way off, coming down from her hill, a white speck on the gray moor. He pulled up his horse and waited below the point where the track she followed struck the high road; he even got out of his trap and examined, deliberately, his horse's hoofs in turn, spinning out the time. When he heard her he drew himself upright and ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... north-easter fifty winters long Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck; Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck; Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong. A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck, A white vest broidered black, her person deck, Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong. Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh, Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers, The spirit of traffic ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... was dealt out in rather meagre potions, 'bout three months in the winter after the wood was cut, sawed and split, and piled up in the wood-shed. We allus had to work in the summer, make hay and fill the barn in, and not till winter come could get a speck of larnin,' and then it took most of our time to pile wood into the stove and settle our personal accounts with the teacher." An audible titter ran through the audience at this sally. "And yet when I was young, though this community was rather behind ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... we all for do here, when you leff? 'speck ebbery ting be dull, wuss nor ditch-water. No more fun—no more shuffle-foot. Old maussa no like de fiddle, and nebber hab party and jollication like udder people. Don't tink I can stay here, Mass Ra'ph, after ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... was a speck of white cloudiness in the late afternoon sky. It grew swiftly in size, and a winking blue-white light appeared in its center. That light grew brighter—and the noise managed somehow to increase—and presently the ruddy sunlight was diluted by light from the rockets ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... taken possession of the territory from the great pond to the small one, and goes out to war with every fish-hawk that flies from one to the other over his dominion. The fish-hawks must be miserable cowards to be driven by such a speck of a bird. I have not yet seen one turn ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... known, according to their shape, as bacilli ("rod-shaped" organisms), or as cocci (round, or "berry-shaped" organisms)—are so tiny that a thousand of them would have to be rolled together in a ball to make a speck visible to the naked eye. But they have some little weight, after all, and seldom float around in the air, so to speak, of their own accord, but only where currents of air are kept stirred up and moving, without much opportunity to escape, and especially where there ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... "Lifted up above this little speck called earth. But now, no more of this. Go to Zara; keep your mind well employed; study, read, and pray—pray much and often in few and simple words, and with as utterly unselfish a heart as you can prepare. Think that you are going to some high festival, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... the way, was not a member of the society—discovered a tiny world in the vacant gap. Although eagerly welcomed, as better than nothing, it was a disappointing find. The new world was a mere rock. A speck of about 160 miles in diameter. It was obviously never intended that such a body should have all this space to itself. And, sure enough, shortly after, another small world was discovered. Then another was found, and another, and so on; and now more than 400 ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... themselves indestructible but capable of destroying everything within sight, and most things out of sight, were the only recognized results of man's inventive faculties. To build bigger, stronger, and more ships than the French was England's glory. To hit a speck with a rifle bullet at 800 yards distance was an Englishman's first duty. The proper use for a young man's leisure hours was the practice of drilling. All this had come upon us with very quick steps ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... to the gate which separated him from us. "Mas' John, I speck de President he dun' know de cullud people like we knows 'um, else he nebber bin 'pint dat ar boss in ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... of speaking, when his quick eye detected a speck in view around a bend in the river, some distance back. He halted, ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... not know where Myra was. He, himself, was here in Vancouver, alone, a stranger, a single speck of human wreckage cast on a far beach by the receding tides of war. He had no funds worth considering, but money was not as yet an item of consideration. He was not disabled. Physically he was more fit than he had ever been. The delicate mechanism of ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... her eyes with her hand and gazing eagerly out toward the speck that was growing larger every minute. "Oh, wouldn't it ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... is of no family. None, they say; literally a common woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who MAY be villeins; but we give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste, the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns; but Helen seems to know the whole repertory, and the morning ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Shipyard opened out, Charley edged into it to get the smoother water. Benicia was in view, and we were bowling along over comparatively easy water, when a speck of a boat danced up ahead of us, directly in our course. It was low-water slack. Charley and I looked at each other. No word was spoken, but at once the yacht began a most astonishing performance, veering and yawing as though ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... on the mountain top and dusky evening over all the country round about. But Pegasus flew so high that he overtook the departed day, and was bathed in the upper radiance of the sun. Ascending higher and higher, he looked like a bright speck, and at last could no longer be seen in the hollow waste of the sky. And Bellerophon was afraid that he should never behold him more. But while he was lamenting his own folly the bright speck reappeared, and drew nearer and nearer until it descended lower than the sunshine; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle rather than a formed body, and should tell him,—"Young man, there is America,—which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him. (I don't see why her writing shouldn't be better. Indeed I don't.) See! There he goes down along the Embankment to Westminster just like a real man, for all that he's smaller than a grain of dust. What is running round inside that speck of a head of his? Look at him going past the Policemen, specks too—selected large ones from the country. I think he's going to dinner with the Speaker—some old thing like that. Is his face harder or commoner or stronger?—I can't quite see.... And now he's up and speaking in ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... and up and down the stairs, his pulse beat low as if in the presence of death. Everything was as they had left it, when they went out of the house, and it appeared to Kenton that nothing had been touched there since, though when he afterwards reported to his wife that there was not a speck of dust anywhere she knew that Mary had been going through the house, in their absence, not once only, but often, and she felt a pang of grateful jealousy. He got together the things that Mrs. Kenton had pretended to want, and after glancing in at ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the long outline of Malabar Hill quite clearly, and below all its trees and gardens and the great houses rising among them, but at one part, the highest, the hill is kept for other uses. Look up into the clear blue sky overhead, do you see a black speck? Not got it yet? Wait a moment and try again. There! That is right, and there is another and another; you can't help seeing them now. Their flight is the slow heavy flight of clumsy birds. What do you suppose they ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... rest will toughen and taste leathery, besides failing in the special purpose of giving lightness to the mixture. After mixing lightly and perfectly all such preparations should be cooked at once. The white "speck" always should be removed from a broken egg, as it is easily distinguished after cooking, and in anything of a liquid nature, such as custards, sauces, etc., it would be ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... step or two. Beyond was inky darkness. If only a speck of light were down below! Why did I shut the door? Go on I could not. I turned my face upward, where the friendly light, packing up its robes of every hue for the journey of a night, looked kindly in. And so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... But it was such a chase as never you did watch. On and on went the heron, the falcon ever mounting higher and higher, till she was but a speck in the clouds, and Tam Falconer shouting and galloping, mad lest she should go down the wind. Methought she would have been back to Norroway, the ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a century throughout Canada's great plains, the red coat of the Mounted Policeman was the visible and definite assurance that right was might. A red speck on the horizon was notice to both weak and strong, honest and dishonest, that the rule of law prevailed; while experience taught white men and red that 'Law' meant even-handed justice as between man and ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... as we stood in front of our tent watching the sun above the horizon, we saw in the distance a black speck coming over the snow. We watched! What could it be? The speck came nearer, and we recognized a woman with a bludgeon coming towards us as fast as her skees could carry her. As soon as she was within hearing distance she shouted, "Wolves! Wolves!" The dreaded news had come; the wolves had made their ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... savory messes— Besides unnumbered fond caresses." The wolf, by force of appetite, Accepts the terms outright, Tears glistened in his eyes; But faring on, he spies A galled spot on the mastiff's neck. "What's that?" he cries. "Oh, nothing but a speck." "A speck?"—"Ay, ay: 'tis not enough to pain me: Perhaps the collar's mark by which they chain me." "Chain! chain you! What! run you not, then, Just where you please and when?" "Not always, sir; but what ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... "Well," he said, "I can't see any, I will call them back." He called out "Sambo!" which was the name of the Corporal, "Where track?" Sambo pointed to a blade of spinifex. I asked "Where?" He answered, "There." So I got off my horse, and there was a tiny speck of blood which had dropped on the root, and had not been washed off by the rain. It turned out the Myalls had been carrying the flesh of my horses, and the blood ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within the pipe-bowl and the scarecrow, without waiting for the witch's bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few short, convulsive whiffs, which soon however became ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... clung around thee on the deck, Welling with sunny hopes 'neath sunny skies; The wide horizon round thee had no speck; E'en Doubt herself ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... distances." A little later on, although he disapproved of "gaping," as he called it, he taught Miriam so much of geometry as was sufficient to make her understand what he meant when he told her that a fixed star yielded no parallax, and that the earth was consequently the merest speck of dust in the universe. She found his simple trigonometry very, very hard, but to her husband it was easy, and with his help ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... all its vastness, would not have been utterly invisible. Elenko leaned over the battlements, and watched the racing meteors. Prometheus stood by her, and pointed out in the immeasurable distance the little speck of shining dust from which ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... through the deep; Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep, Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, Which, by the toil of gathering energies, Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences, Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green Into a pleasant island in the seas, Where, mid fall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour, Hearing the leaves and loving God's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the bunk house and thought of these things, his eye was attracted by a speck moving toward him across the prairie. He watched it with the interest one might have in a ship at sea; as one watches in a place in which few moving things are seen. The speck was small, and was coming ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... shout, both boys rushed headlong up the turret stairs, and came to the top so breathless, that they could not even ask the warder what he saw. He pointed, and the keen-eyed Alberic exclaimed, "I see! Look, my Lord, a speck there on ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the railway engine appeared, to the immense relief of everyone. We climbed into the trucks and the return journey began. The shelling continued unabated. Above the belt of poplars a little black speck was moving along at great speed. Around it and trailing behind it were numerous black puffs. The frogs had ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... till nearly noon, the company caught sight of a scarcely-perceptible object on the water, in the direction of the great inlet. And, although for some time it appeared like a speck, as seen against the low, green fringe of the opposite and far-distant shore, yet it at length so enlarged on the vision that the form of a canoe and the gleam of flashing oars became distinctly discernible. Soon a little variation in the line of approach ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... all. I believed, for a moment or two, that I saw a black dot there, but it was only my fancy creating what I expected my sight to behold. Let us look again all around the horizon, where it touches the water, following it as we would a line. Ah, I think I see a dark speck, just a black mote at this distance, and I am still unable to separate fancy from fact, but it may be fact. What do ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... puffed and buffeted for about forty minutes before we arrived at the little speck of an island that is Quarantine. Long before we were there we sighted the great La Montaigne near the group of buildings on the island, where she had been waiting since early morning for the tide and the customs ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... vestiges of a great city. Nothing but vast beds of glistering lava, now rough like immense piles of scoriae and clinker, now smooth like crystal mirrors, and reflecting the Sun's rays with the same intolerable glare. Not the faintest speck of life. A world absolutely and completely dead, fixed, still, motionless—save when a gigantic land-slide, breaking off the vertical wall of a crater, plunged down into the soundless depths, with all the fury too of a crashing avalanche, with all the speed of a Niagara, but, in the total absence ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... to rage. Beasts, they were! If only he could take a flying leap on to them, or roll a few stones down and scare them out of their wits. But he could not stir without giving away his secret. And while he hesitated, his eye absently followed a moving speck far off on ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... just one little sliver—no, not as much as that—well, all right. That town, why you couldn't wake it up, Mrs. Piper, not with an earthquake. It would just fall down through the crack in the earth and go right on sleeping—no I couldn't eat another speck. We must ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... excites his organ of destructiveness. Don't you understand me? You hate sin, you know. Well, I hate disease. Moral evil is your devil, and physical evil is mine. I hate it, little or big; I hate to see a fellow sick; I hate to see a child rickety and pale; I hate to see a speck of dirt in the street; I hate to see a woman's gown torn; I hate to see her stockings down at heel; I hate to see anything wasted, anything awry, anything going wrong; I hate to see water-power wasted, manure wasted, land wasted, muscle wasted, pluck ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... though she showed no flag. Instead, however, of steering for the harbour where the "Lady Alice" lay, she kept round the island to another on the other side. What she was, or why she had come to the island, I could not conjecture, I was about to return when I caught sight of a speck of white canvas above the horizon. "That probably is the 'Eagle,'" I thought. "In a few days I shall have to bid my kind friends farewell and go back to my duties ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... they can't see me 'way down here," said Helen, shaking her head. "They wouldn't notice such a speck on the lake." ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... deep of earth's plain fragrance; he looked up into the great array of heaven, and was quieted. His little turgid life dwindled to its true proportions; and he saw himself (that great flame-hearted martyr!) stand like a speck under the cool cupola of the night. Thus he felt his careless injuries already soothed; the live air of out-of-doors, the quiet of the world, as if by their silent music, sobering and ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is too kind to be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the other day after his return from his grandmamma's that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcome and Charles, too, and of both their spectacles, quite like. He has done me and Hannah, too. Mr. Speck, the artist, says he is a wonder ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... one, at least, in Great Britain watched with anxious gaze this small speck of revolt rising so far away in the vast wilderness of the North-West; and when, about the beginning of the month of April, 1870, news came of the projected despatch of an armed force from Canada against the malcontents ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... if you had to make it. There! I knew it would be so. There isn't a speck of soda. Put on your bonnet, Matilda, and run round to Mr. Sample's and get some soda, will you?—and be quick. We shall be late, and then there ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... awed by the reverence of his manner, and I felt myself in the presence of my Maker,—a mere speck amid his vast creations. An ineffaceable impression was made on my mind, young as I was. My father died many years ago, while I was still a child, but the lesson of that hour has ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... a tiny bird, A shining speck at sleepy dawn, Forgets the ant-hill so absurd, This self-important Buffalo. Descending twenty miles away He bathes his wings at break of day— ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... examining these things, he heard a sound like that of a whirlwind, far up in the heavens. He looked up and saw a black speck which grew rapidly larger until it became a dense cloud. Out of it came a flash and then a thunderbolt. The boy was obliged to wink; and when he opened his eyes, behold! a stately man stood before him and ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... curlings of its pattern. He had numbered the very hairs on the head of George Washington, for in such minutiae did the value of the stamp reside. Did a single hair spring up above the count, it would invalidate the issue. Such values, got by circumstance or accident—resting on a flaw—founded on a speck—cause no ferment of ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... Triest Where a day or two we harboured: A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, One of our company espied A sudden speck to larboard. And as a sea-duck flies and swims At once, so came the light craft up, 220 With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) And by us like a fish it curled, And drew itself up close beside, Its ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... to this elusive plate, Did our Edwin curse his fate? No, he was content to live, For he was inquisitive. If he saw a speck of grit He must needs examine it, Not as any other might, Standing at his proper height, But with body slightly slanted And his head obliquely canted, While with small unblinking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... a speck was seen in the horizon; now it is visible above the hollow wave, now curtained from our sight by the swelling billow: we approach nearer; the speck divides, and two spots appear; ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo |
