"Block" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... If we reject his services, any petty military chieftain, by offering him freedom, can have them for the purpose of robbery and plunder. It is for the interests of the South, as well of the North, that the African should be permitted to offer his block for the temple of freedom. Sentiments unworthy of the man of the present day—worthy only of another Cain—could alone prevent such an ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... work of a moment for the excited lad to leap upon the block, throw the bridle over the post, and run in, letter in hand, vociferating, "Don't ye worry any more about Betsey; she's all safe and sound. See, it's in her own handwrite." "Yis, daddy, and stuck together with that same red wax you gin ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... to see how things were getting on; but, instead of crossing to the other side of the court, where lay the sheds and stables, etc., or leaving it by the gate, the laird turned to the left, and led the way to the next block of building, where he stopped at a door at the farther end of the front of it. It was a heavy oak door, studded with great broad iron knobs, arranged in angular patterns. It was set deep in the thick wall, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... were overpowering; all nature was an uproar, a hullabalooing. I tried to conquer the night by shouting at it, lest mysteriously it should rob me of my strength and leave me without a will. These mountains, I thought, are sheer incantations against my journey, great planted curses that block my path. Or perhaps I have only strayed into a mountains' trade union? But I nod my head repeatedly. That means I am brave and happy. Perhaps after all ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... very small, dark, sometimes cut out of one block of stone. It was surrounded on all sides by chapels equally small, filled with garments, furniture, vessels and jewels of the god which in its inaccessible seclusion slept, bathed, was anointed with perfumes, ate, drank, and as it ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... came. The cheering that had died away, far over to the left beyond the wooded knolls that surrounded Singalon and Block House 12, was suddenly taken up nearer at hand. Then crashing volleys sounded along the narrow roadway to the east, and a bugle rang out shrill and clear above the noise of battle; and then closer still, though unseen in the gloom of the dense thicket in which ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... out on the field in front of the reviewing officers, got up on its hind feet and walked for half a block, making the chaplain appear as though climbing up the horse's neck, and when some of the general's staff came out to arrest him, the horse whirled around and kicked, in every direction at once, and broke the saber of one of the staff-officers. That the horse seemed to be possessed of the devil. ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... embassy was sent, to engage them to contribute their share towards carrying on the war. Nor was Philip, who had by this time arrived in Macedonia, remiss in his preparations for the campaign. He sent his son Perseus, then very young, with part of his forces to block up the pass near Pelagonia, appointing persons out of the number of his friends to direct his inexperienced age. Sciathus and Peparethus, no inconsiderable cities, he demolished, lest they should become a prey and prize to the enemy's fleet; despatching at the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... old block!" "Sarve 'ee right, Cap'en!" "Starve 'un back to his manners again!" the inferior chieftains of the expedition cried, according to their several views of life. But Zebedee Tugwell paid no heed to thoughts ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... ocean shrinks and grows again the moon herself is lost in heaven 4. kennedy taking from her a handkerchief edged with gold pinned it over her eyes the executioners holding her by the arms led her to the block and the queen kneeling down said repeatedly with a firm voice into thy hands o lord i commend ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... violent gale: and for two days we drove before it in much distress—Obed and I taking turns at conning the ship, since Captain Wills had received an awkward blow between the shoulders from the swinging of a loose block, and lay below in considerable pain and occasionally spitting blood, which made us fear some inward hurt. During the night of the 4th, the wind moderated; but the weather turning thick again, we were ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... roof of the two houses, as shown in Fig. 227. A still further increase in the capacity of the house is often effected by increasing the number of these houses side by side. This results in a series of 8 or 10 houses forming one consolidated block of houses, each with its independent ridge roof and system of ventilation. The separating walls between the several houses of such a block are probably maintained for the purpose of better controlling the temperature conditions and ventilation in various houses. ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... middle-weight champion of India last year," rejoined Dam, and moistened his block of pipe-clay again in the most obvious, if ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... was near me; I lighted it with trembling hands and held it aloft—then I uttered a wild shriek of horror! Oh, God of inexorable justice, surely Thy vengeance was greater than mine! An enormous block of stone, dislodged by the violence of the storm, had fallen from the roof of the vault; fallen sheer down over the very place where SHE had sat a minute or two before, fantastically smiling! Crushed ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... with the block sloop Scorpion and 14 smaller "gun-boats," chiefly row gallies, passed the mouth of the Patuxent, and chased the British schooner St. Lawrence and seven boats, under Captain Barrie, until they ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... in block of quoted speech: "if Britannia ... to the "Line!". To avoid ambiguity, this has been changed to "if Britannia ... ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... month the three privateers appeared off the harbor of the threatened town, having landed a shore party of ninety men. Before the invaders the inhabitants retreated rapidly, making some slight resistance. Two block-houses, garrisoned by British regulars, guarded the town. One of these fortresses the Americans burned, whereupon the British established themselves in the second, and prepared to stand a siege. Luckily for the Americans, the block-house was within range of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... equal to any of these in his intended mischief, could never bring the like to pass in Rome. The head of a small commonwealth, such a one as was that of Syracuse or Fermo, is easily brought to the block; but that a populous nation, such as Rome, had not such a one, was the grief of Nero. If Sylvia or Caesar attained to be princes, it was by civil war, and such civil war as yielded rich spoils, there ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... again at these words, and two cohorts coming to his succor from the right wing, he led them to the charge and turned the day. Then retiring some short distance and refreshing his men, he proceeded again with his works to block up the enemy's camp. They again sallied out in better order than before. Here Diogenes, step-son to Archelaus, fighting on the right wing with much gallantry, made an honorable end. And the archers, being hard pressed by the Romans, and wanting space ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to be noted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extort information. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. The recalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from his courtship, while the young Alencon became the new subject of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... then and there. He was again struck with the chauffeur's appearance as he stood talking to Smith for he had the air of a gentleman and even through his dirt looked above his position. Leaving them there, the American strolled along, and, after a block or two, hailed another cab and ordered it to drive to Claridge's. He really did not think to look about him, but had he done so he might have discovered that he was being followed by the first taxi with its woebegone ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... his threats of the preceding night. What should he do now! All his hatred for her returned again, all his anxious wishes that she might be somehow removed from his path, as an obnoxious stumbling-block. A few minutes ago, he was afraid he had murdered her, and he now almost wished that he had done so. He finished dressing himself, and then sat down in the parlour, which had been the scene of his last night's brutality, to concoct fresh schemes for ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... after, we drove up on a corner of the street jest above where the Fish creek empties into the Hudson, and there, right on a tall high brick block, wuz a tablet, showin' that a tree once stood jest there, under which Burgoyne surrendered. And agin, when I thought of all that he surrendered that day, and all that America and the world gained, my emotions ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... wires at each end, all moving points being provided with knife edges. The true length of suspension was deduced from observations of the time of a complete small oscillation. The head of the pendulum was furnished with a wooden block, which caught the fragments of bullets fired at it, and its displacement was recorded by a rod moved by the bob (The Book of the Rifle, by the Hon. T.F. Fremantle, p. 336). An improved ballistic pendulum in which ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... absurd to suppose that Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a millionaire, a girl dowered with all that happy fortune had to give, would so far forget her social position as to flirt with the chauffeur of a hired car, this experienced marriage-broker did not fail to realize what a stumbling-block the dreadful person was in the path ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... valuable light on the philosophy and improvement of the national character. And I believe it would appear that the Reformation gradually swept away the black horrors of the torture-room; that the butchery of the headsman's block ceased at the close of the civil contest which settled the line of regal succession; and that hanging, which is the proper death of the cur, is now reserved for those only who place themselves out of the pale of humanity by striking ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... five little ships set sail from Holland on voyages for discovery and trade in the New World. They were the Little Fox, the Nightingale, the Tiger, and two called the Fortune. The Tiger was under the command of a bold sailor named Adriaen Block and he brought her across the ocean to New Netherland, which is now New York. There was then a small Dutch village of a few houses on ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... wish to see that room you will have to get a ladder and climb up from the outside. A young Breton priest died here last January from scarlet fever, monsieur—" she lowered her voice instinctively—"and the sanitary authorities forced us to block up the room in this way—most ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... close and fine quality as though no cutting had ever been done in the stand. In fact, some of the 50-year old stands have already been cut over a second time, and each time with decided profit to the owner and no damage to the forest. From one 10-acre block of second growth now 50 years old, situated 7 miles from the railroad, already 32,000 feet of mining timber and about 100 50-foot piles have been taken out, yet the stand is now in good condition, and in a few years more of the smaller trees can be removed without infringing on the yield of ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... picture ourselves walking into our homes or through the streets of New York as we then were, and laugh at the thought. "Wallace," Hubbard would say, "the cops wouldn't let you walk a block; they'd run you in sure. You're the most disreputable-looking individual I ever saw, by long odds." And I would retort: "I'd make a good second to you; for you're ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... afternoon John Indian saddled and bridled the mare, and brought her up to the horse-block. Susannah had allowed herself to be saddled without the slightest manifestation of ill-humor; probably the idea of stretching her limbs a little, was decidedly pleasant in view of the small amount of exercise she had ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... tub safely and began to turn the water in. The tub was slippery, and so was the candy, and as the water crept up to where Zip was tied, not hand and foot, but worse still, head, nose, ears and all four legs as well as tail, he howled and howled until one could have heard him a block away. He was so afraid of being drowned before the water would soak off the candy and when the children tried to pull it off it nearly killed him with pain, for it took all the little fine hairs ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... walked into my room, each with a small basket. The eldest carried some fresh eggs, laid by her own hens; the second, some pickles made by her mother; the third, some popcorn grown in her garden. They were accompanied by a young maid with a block of soap made by her mother. They were the daughters of a Mrs. Nottingham, a refugee from Northhampton County, who lived near Eastville, not far from 'old Arlington.' The eldest of the girls, whose age did not ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... is inconceivable that in an already over-crowded society men should not look rather with admiration than with contempt on those who, convinced that they block the way, surrender their places to those better able to fill them; and it is to you equally inconceivable that a man should be allowed to destroy his property and not his person. Your difficulty seems to me to arise from your not taking into consideration the instinctive ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... his father and placed an oblong block of pine wood in his hands. One of its ends was rounded off, and some deep cuts had been made on ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... discouragement and despairful circumstance which I feel it needful to present in order to give faithful background to the story of the valley. I have by no means told all: of continued malevolence where there should have been help; of the conspiracy of every possible untoward circumstance to block his way. But the telling of so much will be tolerated in the knowledge that, after all, his master spirit did triumph over every ill and obstacle. With Tonty, who, as he writes, is full of zeal, he confounded his enemies ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... and wild with panic, and there with voice and hand I bade them stand on that vantage ground and block the way against the Danes; bidding them remember the helpless ones in the town, who must have time to fly, and how the Danes must needs shrink from a second ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... punishment was generally inflicted by what was called a bill of attainder, which brought with it the worst of penalties. It implied the perfect destruction of the criminal in every sense. He was to lose his life by having his head cut off upon a block. His body, according to the strict letter of the law, was to be mutilated in a manner too shocking to be here described. His children were disinherited, and his property all forfeited. This was considered as the consequence of the attainting ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... cause crushing of the brick at the center of the 4-1/2 inch face by a steel block one inch square. The compression should ordinarily be low, a suggested standard being that a brick show signs of crushing ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... night long against the camp, but with little or no harm unto the Pirates, whom they could not conveniently reach. About this time also the two hundred Spaniards whom the Pirates had seen in the afternoon appeared again within sight, making resemblance as if they would block up the passages, to the intent no Pirates might escape the hands of their forces. But the Pirates, who were now in a manner besieged, instead of conceiving any fear of their blockades, as soon as they had placed sentries about their camp, began every one to open their ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... merely a small, model apparatus, with a mirror of space-strained silver that was an absolutely perfect reflector. The mirror had been ground out of a block of silver one foot deep, by four inches square, carefully annealed, and the work had all been done in a cooling bath. The result was a mirror that was so nearly a perfect paraboloid that the beam held sharp and absolutely tight for the half-mile range they tested it on. At the projector it was three ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... have come. Why did not you yourselves form a community and buy the village? Your money would have been as good as ours. You have been settled here for ages, but the colonists had to come in before you troubled about the land, and then no sooner have they bought it than they become a stumbling-block to you! Why wasn't the squire ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... "Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind" (Lev, xix. 14). We are clearly to conclude therefrom, that any net of treachery, in itself already detestable in the eyes of God, becomes doubly so when directed against the unconscious and the helpless; and a very wide range of treacherous actions would, therefore, ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... word spoken, agreed the factor, and as he said it he pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. He's a chip of the old block, he muttered, and putting his hand on little ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... to compare with our sanitary arrangements. Our president's bath-tub is cut out of one solid block of marble," ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... I can sink my own ships in the channel, and block him in until Bishop gets back from his wild-goose chase with his squadron, or until your ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... is gittin' ready for a killin'. Own big block of stock. Paid par. Want to sell, I hear ... if anybody's fool enough to buy. Then want to buy back for dum' near nothin' when receivership comes. Good scheme. Money in it. Crane thought ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... and so it must. And I will add, it is a shame, it is a reproach, it is a stumbling-block to the blind; {131f} for though men be as blind as Mr. Badman himself, yet they can see the foolish lightness that must needs be the bottom of all these apish and wanton extravagancies. But many have their excuses ready; to wit, their Parents, their Husbands, and their breeding calls for it, ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... gradually grew thicker, until it rose in the enormous mass of solid wood which constituted the stem, was most comforting. No single tree could provide the wood for such a stem, but the several trees used were cunningly scarfed to provide the equivalent of a solid block. In further preparation for the battle with ice-floes, the stem itself and the bow for three or four feet on either side were protected with numerous steel plates, so that when the ship returned to civilization ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... she sighed—"That old French knight was ever a fly in her brain and a stumbling-block in the way of us all!— and now to come across a man o' the same name an' family, turning up all unexpected like,—why, it's like a ghost's sudden risin' from the tomb! An' what does it mean, Mister Robin? Are you the master o' ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... lost in some degree its peaceful reputation, and became a centre of operations during King Philip's war, many bodies of armed men being sent out against the savages, and one to the relief of Brookfield, under Mr. Willard. Block houses were built at several exposed points, the sites of which, with other noted places will soon be ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... wagon road forked, Mrs. Preston took the branch that led south out of the park. It opened into a high-banked macadamized avenue bordered by broken wooden sidewalks. The vast flat land began to design itself, as the sun faded out behind the irregular lines of buildings two miles to the west. A block south, a huge red chimney was pouring tranquilly its volume of dank smoke into the air. On the southern horizon a sooty cloud hovered above the mills of South Chicago. But, except for the monster chimney, the country ahead of the two was bare, vacant, deserted. The ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... portion of a railroad bring even a passing cheer. They, too, were laughing! In a last doglike hope Martin looked up the precipitation reports. It only brought more gloom. Only four times in thirty years had there been a snowfall in Missouri that could block a railroad! ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... of the northeast edge of Jeffreys Bank and is often considered a part of it, but there seems to lie deep water between. This is one of three grounds of the name in these waters. The present piece of bottom lies 20 miles SE. by S. from Matinicus block and S. 1/2 E. from Seal Island (in Penobscot Bay) and has a broken and irregular bottom with depths from 60 to 100 fathoms over blue mud and shells and considerable areas of gravelly ground. It is about 7 miles long, E. by N. and W. by S., and about ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... nerves, can transform himself in most wondrous fashion. He has very properly dubbed himself "L'Homme-Protee." At one moment, assuming the rigidity of a statue, his body may be struck sharply, the blows falling as on a block of stone. At another he moves his intestines from above and below and right to left into the form of a large football, and projects it forward, which gives him the appearance of a colossally stout personage. He then withdraws it into ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... palm-groves are much more dense than in any other I have seen. They almost merit the name of forests, both from their size and wild luxuriant appearance. The Fezzanees pay little attention to their culture, and when a tree falls it is frequently suffered to lie for months, even though it block up the public road. In contrast to the burning desert we had just traversed, these dense woods casting their shadows on the white sand produced a most pleasing effect. We eagerly wandered into the cool arcades, and watched with delight the doves and ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... he could not help pausing a moment in admiration as he came in front of the workshop. The wide doorway, standing at the truncated angle of a great block or "isle" of houses, was surmounted by a loggia roofed with fluted tiles, and supported by stone columns with roughly carved capitals. Against the red light framed in by the outline of the fluted tiles and columns stood in black relief the grand figure of Niccolo, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... with Jack and Hal, Mr. Radwin looked rather disappointed. In fact, he was exceedingly disappointed, for he had hoped to leave Captain Jack Benson at this corner on the block below ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... the De Charleu estate had always strictly regarded the rights and interests of the De Carloses, especially their ownership of a block of dilapidated buildings in a part of the city, which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to be valuable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlos through a long and lazy lifetime, and, as ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... us it was very soft, having been selected by the Incas for the purpose of inserting in its face the crystal prisms. Then we procured a dozen or more of the prisms themselves, and, using them as chisels, and small blocks of granite as hammers, set to work at the block ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... Mrs. Spalding's handsome rooms were almost filled, as rooms in Florence are filled,—obstruction in every avenue, a crowd in every corner, and a block at every doorway, not being among the customs of the place. Mr. Spalding immediately caught him,—intercepting him between the passages and the ladies,—and engaged him at once ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... sit by our child's grave. The green hillside slopes gently under the chestnuts, violets and buttercups spring from the sod, and the robin sings its jubilant note in the long June twilights. Halfway down the slope, six or eight green mounds cluster about a granite block in ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... constructed, decomposition of the carbide is absolutely complete, so that no loss of gas occurs in this fashion; (2) the gas is evolved at a low temperature, so that it is unaccompanied, by products of polymerisation, which may block the leading pipes and must reduce the illuminating power; (3) the acetylene is not mixed with air (as always happens at the first charging of a water-to- carbide apparatus), which also lowers the illuminating ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... come! Adam will bring Geoffrey to show me they are friends again. I know it; you shall see it. Lift me to that block and watch the deck with me that we may see ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... now threaded its way through the maze of traffic in the city. Presently it drew up before a huge, ugly factory that covered a square block on the upper west side, near the river. Ward and his sister jumped out of the tonneau and entered the building. They found themselves in a busy office, consisting of a single room down the length of which a wooden rail ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... driving a tram—a swearing Tommy that you could hear a block away. He came on the mourners from behind. He was in a hurry, and by clanging his bell he could have crowded by. But he held the tram in check, nursing it so as not to frighten the two old women in the rear—until they came to a wide square. Here there was room. ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... because she thought he had the croup. What do you think he did, now? Went into Barton's store and ordered a bushel of chestnuts to be sent down to my account and brought 'em out and set on the horse-block and gave a treat for Collins. I was coming up home and saw the crowd and heard the hollering and laughing, and there was Tom in the middle baling out his chestnuts and hollering at the top of his voice: 'Come on, boys, all you Collins men, here's a treat for Collins!' I thought Collins ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Lat. dens, a tooth), in architecture, a small tooth-shaped block used as a repeating ornament in the bed-mould of a cornice. Vitruvius (iv. 2) states that the dentil represents the end of a rafter (asser); and since it occurs in its most pronounced form in the Ionic temples of Asia ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... instincts, with all the discords and divisions introduced by the military system of the Lombards, the feudalism of the Franks, the alien institutions of the Germans, superadded to exasperate the passions of a nation blindly struggling against obstacles that block the channel of continuous progress. Nor is this the end of the perplexity. Not only are the cities at war with one another, but they are plunged in ceaseless strife within the circuit of their ramparts. The people with the nobles, the burghs with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... blushed for very shame. In the Bristol, in the Kaerntner-Ring, in the Lichtenstein Gallery, in the Gardens—no matter where he went—if he were to be accosted by any of the genial architects it was always in a voice that attracted attention; he could have heard them if they had been a block away. It became a habit with him to instinctively lift his hand to his ear when one of them hove in ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... them!" Not long after this, the President made a personal visit to the army in Virginia. General Sherman, at that time connected with the Army of the Potomac, says: "I was near the river-bank, looking at a block-house which had been built for the defense of the aqueduct, when I saw a carriage coming by the road that crossed the Potomac river at Georgetown by a ferry. I thought I recognized in the carriage the person of President Lincoln. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... "Fankhui," or Asiatic prisoners, who were set to quarry the stone for the restoration of the monuments which their own forefathers had reduced to ruins.* The bas-reliefs sculptured on the stelae of Ahmosis show them in full activity under the corvee; we see here the stone block detached from the quarry being squared by the chisel, or transported on ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... gradually, in comparison with other objects handled in the same way, he notices the absence of corners, edges, or any obstructions which would meet his touch or eye. Then we may ask him if he could make a ball out of a rough block of wood which we show. Some bright little one will guess that a carpenter could do it with his tools. "What would he have to do?" "Plane it off," will perhaps be the answer. "Where and how is he to plane?" may be the next inquiry, ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... inclosed in adamant the Chinese Empire, scaled the stormy, cloud-capped Alps, opened a highway through the watery wilderness of the Atlantic, leveled the forests of the new world, and reared in its stead a community of states and nations. Perseverance has wrought from the marble block the exquisite creations of genius, painted on canvas the gorgeous mimicry of nature, and engraved on a metallic surface the viewless substance of the shadow. Perseverance has put in motion millions of spindles, winged as many flying shuttles, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... almost in the face of May, chapmen more than two or three brought tidings, to wit that all was done: Longshaw taken and ruined, the warriors thereof slain or scattered, and Sir Godrick brought to the heading-block in the King's City. Now great indeed was the joy in Brookside, and great joy and feast they made; and the Lady of the Castle sat at the high-table, clad in golden garments, at a glorious banquet which was held every night of the octave ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... that panting breath and throbbing heart. His vehemence had been, after all, chiefly against his own misgivings, and when he heard of his son's resolution, and Meta's more than acquiescence, he was greatly touched, and recurred to his kind, sorrowful promise, that he would never be a stumbling-block in the path of his children. Still he owned himself greatly allured by the career proposed by Lord Cosham, and thought Norman should consider the opportunities of doing good in, perhaps, a still more important and extensive field than ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... But here was this stumbling-block of a Thurstane. In the presence of a handsome rival, who, moreover, had started first in the race, slow was far from being sure. Coronado had discovered, by long experience in flirtation and much intelligent ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... fanaticism, followed his example, shouting, "Every high place shall be brought low." Immediately the mob assailed the churches and pulled down all the steeples. Those who ventured to resist the monarch's decrees were summarily dealt with, the block and axe, with Knipperdolling as headsman, quickly disposing of all ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... parties, the technically illegal Muslim Brotherhood constitutes MUBARAK's potentially most significant political opposition; MUBARAK tolerated limited political activity by the Brotherhood for his first two terms, but has moved more aggressively in the past year to block its influence; trade unions and ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... It is a subject, however, for a mystic. I have an idea myself for a picture, if I can get the tent-cloth to paint it on, and if some brushes and tubes I sent for ever get through the block." ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Prudy, showing her a block, "is your first letter; guess what the picture means, and I'll tell you the ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... have been wrought with impunity behind his back. This explanation of the double-headed Janus at Rome is confirmed by the double-headed idol which the Bush negroes in the interior of Surinam regularly set up as a guardian at the entrance of a village. The idol consists of a block of wood with a human face rudely carved on each side; it stands under a gateway composed of two uprights and a cross-bar. Beside the idol generally lies a white rag intended to keep off the devil; and sometimes there is also a stick ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... was beginning to get confused in her excitement, but the last stroke of generalship relieved the threatened block and her anxieties ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... recommend block tin saucepans, &c. as lightest and safest. If proper care is taken of them, and they are well dried after they are cleaned, they are by far the cheapest; the purchase of a new tin saucepan being little more than the expense of tinning ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... representation; members serve four-year terms) and the Federal Council or Bundesrat (69 votes; state governments are directly represented by votes; each has 3 to 6 votes depending on population and are required to vote as a block) elections: Federal Assembly - last held 18 September 2005 (next to be held September 2009); note - there are no elections for the Bundesrat; composition is determined by the composition of the state-level governments; the composition of the Bundesrat ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... picks, chisels, and gavelocks, used by the workmen, rose strangely clear amidst the surrounding stillness. From the quarries I got up by an old pack horse road, to a commanding elevation at the top of the moors. Here I sat down on a rude block of mossy stone, upon a bleak point of the hills, overlooking one of the most picturesque parts of the Irwell valley. The country around me was part of the wild tract still known by its ancient name of the Forest of Rossendale. Lodges of water and beautiful reaches ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... with him the writs of the See, which have been lost. Marshall[6] gives an account of this branch of Chisholms. The same writer says[7]: "Among the sepulchral monuments in the cathedral is that of Malise, eighth Earl of Strathearn, and his countess. It is in the vestry of the choir, and is a flat block of gritstone, having on it full-sized figures of the Earl and Countess. When discovered in the choir, the block was above a coffin of lead with date 1271. In the centre of the choir is the dust ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... escheated to the Crown. The King out of pure cowardice (for he dared not carry out the sentence of the Court) waived the horrid parts of the sentence-too horrid even to be quoted here-and commuted it to execution by the block. He also waived the immediate forfeitureof property acquired under Elizabeth's reign, and even allowed Raleigh to complete the entail of certain estates ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... divided into twenty-six provinces or counties, ruled by hereditary lords. The King was simply the most important one of these. Here were institutions which would have deserved the epithet patriarchal, save for the absence of overseers and the auction-block. The men worked in the field, the women spun at home. Two markets were held every four days in two convenient places, which were frequented by five or six thousand traders. Every article for sale had its appropriate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... my mother—now, when my disgrace is taken away, abide with me in my prosperity; and guard my heart, that it may be kept pure from arrogance and pride, and remain humble in its joy! Anne Boleyn, they laid thy beautiful, innocent head upon the block; but this parchment sets upon it again the royal crown; and woe, woe to those who will now ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... to delight him. Here is the ancient high cross, erected in the fourteenth century, which once stood in front of the old Ram Inn. The pedestal is hewn from a single block of stone, and beautifully wrought with Gothic arcades and panelled quatrefoils; this and the shaft are the sole relics of the old cross. We may go into raptures over the ivy-covered ruin known as Alfred's Hall, fitted up as it is with black oak and rusty armour and all the pompous simplicity ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... follow—all these in their opposition to each other, are plainly transitory, and the workings of that Power within us, though they be often overborne, are as plainly the stronger in their nature, and meant to conquer and to endure. Like some half-hewn block, such as travellers find in long abandoned quarries, whence Egyptian temples, that were destined never to be completed, were built, our spirits are but partly 'polished after the similitude of a palace,' while ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Queen Street into Shortland Crescent. At the corner is a large and handsome block of buildings constructed of brick, and having an imposing frontage on the Crescent. This contains the General Post-office and the Custom House. Not far distant, on the opposite side of Queen Street, is the New Zealand Insurance Company's establishment, more generally known ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... another note which the Irishman had also omitted from his complete story as I found it—in this MS. that lay among the dust and dinginess of the Paddington back-room like some flaming gem in a refuse heap. It was brief but pregnant—the block of another idea, Fechner's apparently, hurled at him ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... taste [for] harmonious colours is already deteriorated, for I declare the room begins to look less ugly. I take so much pleasure in the house (10/1. No. 12, Upper Gower Street, is now No. 110, Gower Street, and forms part of a block inhabited by Messrs. Shoolbred's employes. We are indebted, for this information, to Mr. Wheatley, of the Society of Arts.), I declare I am just like a great overgrown child with a new toy; but then, not like a real child, I long to have ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... in their Holy Book, she wanted to try and fathom their strange illogical way of believing. The Christianity of Christ she could accept. It was a faith of the heart and the life. But its crystallised forms and dogmas proved a stumbling-block to this embarrassing slip of a Hindu girl, who calmly reminded the Reverend Jeffrey Sale that the creed of his Church had not really been inspired by Christ, but dictated by Constantine and the Council of Nicea; who wanted to know why, in so ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... up the Judge with a twinkle in his eyes. "Enid, you take her down the block to that restaurant and get her a good breakfast. She'll be ready for anything when she ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... Ambassador, Mr. Sharp, the gold oak leaves as a token of France's veneration for America. There were young girls around us who did not hesitate to comment on everybody there. One little New Jersey girl insisted rather audibly that Clemenceau looked like the old watchman on their block; and a boy, a young officer, complained that General Foch "had not won as many decorations as General Bliss and General Pershing." Some youngsters asked high officers for souvenirs. Many French people perhaps did worse, but it hurt me to see even a few of our own splendid young people guilty of ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... day). I very soon ceased to hear the roar of the wind and engines—unless, indeed, some cylinders missed, when I became acutely aware of that. Within the rigid spread of the powerful planes, so strangely motionless I had sometimes the illusion of sitting as if by enchantment in a block of suspended marble. Even while looking over at the aeroplane's shadow running prettily over land and sea, I had the impression of extreme slowness. I imagine that had she suddenly nose- dived out of control, I would have gone to the final ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... eaten at his table until the blessing of the Almighty had been asked upon it, and "thanks" was solemnly offered ere rising. The Holy Sacrament was partaken by him with Doughty the Spanish spy. The latter, after being kissed by Drake, was then made to lay his head on the block, and thereafter no more was heard of him. Afterwards the Admiral gave forth a few discourses on the importance of unity and obedience, on the sin of spying into other people's affairs; and then proceeded, with becoming solemnity and in the names of God and the Icy Queen, to plunder Spanish ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... which never failed to greet it there. People in the cars also looked out as if glad they were not stopping, and a few with long checks in their hats, who appeared to be travelling to the earth's ends, were envied by a girl approaching the post-office in the brick block. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the magnificence of the Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Major Amberson bought two hundred acres of land at the end of National Avenue; and through this tract he built broad streets and cross-streets; paved them with cedar block, and curbed them with stone. He set up fountains, here and there, where the streets intersected, and at symmetrical intervals placed cast-iron statues, painted white, with their titles clear upon the pedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, Emperor Augustus, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... early winter night had now fallen, and the room, having only an outlet into a small court, would have been dark also but for the red glow of the "covered" fire. David took the poker and struck the great block of coal, and instantly the cheerful blaze threw an air of cosey and almost picturesque comfort over ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... heavy-chopped country justice, with the Popish plot still stuck in his gizzard, and be thereafter consigned to a dungeon, like the hero in John Dryden's latest. I have been round-housed many a time by the watch in the old Hawkubite days; but this would be a more dramatic matter, with high treason, block, and axe all looming ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Blind blinda. Blind, window rulkurteno. Blindness blindeco. Blind-alley senelirejo. Bliss felicxegeco. Blister veziko. Blister (plaster) vezikigilo. Blithe gaja. Bloat sxveli. Block (pulley) rulbloko. Block (log) sxtipo. Blockade blokado. Blockhead malsagxulo. Blond blonda. Blood sango. Bloodshed sangversxo—ado. Bloodvessel sangvejno. Bloom flori. Blossom flori. Blot makulo. Blotch skabio. Blotting paper sorba papero. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... despatches from Brand Whitlock to Secretary Bryan. During the night he rested at Antwerp the first Zeppelin air-ship to visit that city passed over it, dropping one bomb at the end of the block in which Gibson was sleeping. He was awakened by the explosion and heard all of ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... news did nothing to lift Tom's spirits. The next day, hoping to verify or disprove his suspicion, he drove to Shopton Police Headquarters with Harlan Ames. The two talked briefly with Chief Slater, an old friend. Then a turnkey took them to the cell block. ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... p.m.—The storm still continues. A large concrete block, weighing 300 tons, has been dislodged, and the whole building seems doomed unless the storm abates ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... stall at the bazar was the noisiest, for the men were engaged—to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block—with the kukri, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... he seemed startled, and the tone of his voice betrayed serious displeasure as he replied to the petitioner, "Do you suppose that I have three heads, like the Cerberus at the feet of your god, that you ask me to lay one on the block for the smile ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... after a long, vivid twilight, such as throws its splendor over the mountain ranges in these northern latitudes, Mrs. Woods and Gretchen were sitting in their log-house just within the open door. Mr. Woods was at the block-house at Walla Walla, and the cabin was unprotected. The light was fading in the tall pines of the valleys, and there was a deep silence everywhere, undisturbed by so much as a whisper of the Chinook winds. Mrs. Woods's thoughts seemed far away—doubtless among ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... all day, and it soon grew quite dark, and so bitterly cold, that the skipper took a dram to warm him. The bottle was old, and the glass too. It was perfect in the upper part, but the foot was broken off, and it had therefore been fixed upon a little carved block of wood, painted blue. A dram is a great comfort, and two are better still, thought the skipper, while the boy sat at the helm, which he held fast in his hard seamed hands. He was ugly, and his hair was matted, and he looked crippled and stunted; they called ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... notice the commotion he produced, the Comte headed straight for the courtyard, where Quatre Diables, recognizing the foot block, dropped his head and began to crop the grass. The new Comtesse, fatigued by the novel position, started gratefully to descend by the most natural way, that is, by slipping easily over the rear anatomy of the good-natured Quatre ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... not confer or correspond with Englishmen in their own language, and that the French tongue was at least as familiar to him, as that of his native Holland. He, therefore, who here was called greedy, niggardly, dull, brutal, whom one English nobleman had described as a block of wood, and another as just capable of carrying a message right, was in the brilliant circles of France considered as a model of grace, of dignity and of munificence, as a dexterous negotiator and a finished gentleman. He was the better ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 700 While brooding in a soul resolv'd on death Some black design, matures, some treach'rous blow, Haste then and fly, while yet you've pow'r to go. You'll see, if here you wait the morning ray, The port block'd up, the shore to flames a prey. 705 Woman's a thing so variable and light! Haste then away. He spoke ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... had raised the Boodah from her keel- block, and left her resting on the great braced ground-ways; and now down to the sea's brink the greasers were busy, prodigals in tallow, while, within, the seven hundred trooped from spectacle to spectacle, like a tourist ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... avoided. Sometimes it is expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through importunity thou fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of discipline thou become a stumbling-block to others, or lest by the resistance of others thou be suddenly disturbed and brought ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... brite and fair and buly snowballing. Gimmy Watson, Beanys brother said if Beanys head hadent been jest like the choping block it wood have killed him. Gimmy is mad becaus Beany calls him Gami. He can lick Beany alone and can lick me alone but me and Beany together can ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute |
