"Centre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... immense tent was hung with crimson draperies, amongst which arose twenty golden pillars which supported the tent. At the top of these was an immense golden ring from which the crimson draperies hung, and above this ring were twenty golden pillars which, uniting in the centre at the top, formed the dome of the tent. From the centre hung a golden vase, in which burned the rarest incense. The floor was covered by a great Turkish carpet, and against the walls stood several divans, such as are generally used in the dwellings of the wealthy Turks. In the centre ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... almost as if the fearless ones were seeking for protection. But the announcer himself lost his almost invincible sang-froid; in all his matchless vocabulary there were no sounding phrases ready for this occasion, and little Werther strutted in the centre of the great arena, rising ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the prospect of red brick and water-spout, with a remote distance of chimney—cans and cats, which had crushed the old lady's spirit in other days—by no means. There was a picturesque little court, with an old pump in the centre to awaken the fancy, and frequent visits from more or less diabolical street-boys, to excite the imagination. Beyond that there was the mews, in which a lively scene of variance between horses and men ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... it true that 'he prophesies of times that are far off'? Yes! and No! Yes! it is true, and it is the great glory of Christianity that it shifts the centre of gravity, so to speak, from this poor, transient, contemptible present, and sets it away out yonder in an august and infinite future. It brings to us not only knowledge of the future, but certitude, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... or its equivalent in a modern house, appears to be the chief centre of attraction. It was ever so; and to-day the lessened necessity for crowding round the fire and sitting in the ingle nook, owing to modern methods of distributing the heat, in no way lessens the attraction which draws an Englishman to the fire. In the United States of America ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... medium that represents it is the only thing that changes. It is thus that an eloquent writer knows how to extract the most splendid order from the very centre of anarchy, and that he succeeds in erecting a solid structure on a constantly moving ground, on ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... recent investigations, that the Ancient Egyptians, before the building of the Great Pyramid; cut diorite, syenite and other very hard stone, by means of saws, some of them nine feet long, having jeweled teeth inserted; and that they excavated the centre of large blocks of hard stones for use as sarcophagi, etc., by means of tubular or circular hollow drills, the cutting surface of which was armed with jewels. They then took out the core and broke down the partitions between the drilled holes, with the chisel and hammer, and thus ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... joy That dies in sleep, their sleep that wakes in joy? Caressing arms are their light pillows. They That like lost stars have wandered hitherto Lonesome and lightless through the universe, Now glow transfired at Nature's flaming core; They are the centre; constellated heaven Is the embroidered panoply spread round Their bridal, and the music of the spheres Rocks ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... Nizam's retainers. We passed through this to a third courtyard (said to cover as much ground as Lincoln's Inn Fields), and there alighted, at the bottom of a fine flight of marble steps, overlooking a charming garden with the usual tank in the centre. The effect was, however, rather spoilt to European eyes by a very ill-cast bronze figure, holding in its hand a large coloured air-ball, such as are sold in the streets of London for a penny each. The Nizam (now about twenty-one years of age) is so delighted with these ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... by name. The gate leading into the garden was open; I arose without replying and entered it, I stopped before a plot of grass in the centre of the garden; I was walking like a somnambulist, without knowing what ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... never out of her ken, that picture hung before her all through the night, the centre-piece of every vision that floated through her weary brain. In the morning she awoke ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... as many or more in height, in large tufts, which seemed to be composed of the roots of the plant matted together. Among these hillocks are a vast number of paths made by sea-bears and penguins, by which they retire into the centre of the isle. It is, nevertheless, exceedingly bad travelling; for these paths are so dirty that one is sometimes up to the knees in mire. Besides this plant, there are a few other grasses, a kind of heath, and some celery. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... Cottage itself. But I have said nothing about its surroundings—the neat flower beds, and the prattling brook that ran by just at the foot of the garden, the green lawn as smooth as a table, and the great spreading elm-tree in its centre, against which Uncle Ben Mason was so fond of leaning his chair in the bright summer afternoons, and where Harry and Willie Mason liked nothing better than to lie at his feet on the greensward, and coax ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of the Beni-Merins seems hardly to leave room for the development of the humaner qualities; yet the flowering of Moroccan art and culture coincided with those tumultuous years, and it was under the Merinid Sultans that Fez became the centre of Moroccan learning and industry, a kind of Oxford ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... student of poetry now recall the diagram used in handbooks of psychology to illustrate the process of sensory stimulus of a nerve-centre and the succeeding motor reaction. The diagram is usually ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... about the land, And like a girdle clips her solid waist, Music and Measure both doth understand; For his great Crystal Eye is always cast Up to the Moon, and on her fixed fast; And as she daunceth in her pallid sphere, So daunceth he about the centre here. ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... malefactor was apprehended, a wave of excitement curled into the street and broke upon the doors of the police station. Then the inhabitants of the street would linger in dressing-gowns, upon their doorsteps: then alien visitors would linger in the street, in caps; long after the centre of misery had been engulphed in his cell. Then Eeldrop and Appleplex would break off their discourse, and rush out to mingle with the mob. Each pursued his own line of enquiry. Appleplex, who had the gift of an extraordinary address with the lower classes of both sexes, questioned the ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot
... relying upon the friendship of Henriette (a circumstance which had increased the coldness that already existed between the two Courts); and these at once rallied round Marie de Medicis as their common centre. Among these illustrious emigrants the most distinguished were the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the Ducs de Soubise and de la Valette, all of whom were surrounded by a considerable number of exiles of inferior rank; and as the Queen-mother saw them gathered about her, she easily ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... in painting or statuary more indispensible than that of balancing the figures, and placing them with the greatest exactness on their proper centre of gravity. A figure, which is not justly balanced, is ugly; because it conveys the disagreeable ideas of fall, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... Trimen has given me a description of a S. African moth (Gynanisa isis), allied to our Emperor moth, in which a magnificent ocellus occupies nearly the whole surface of each hinder wing; it consists of a black centre, including a semi-transparent crescent-shaped mark, surrounded by successive, ochre-yellow, black, ochre-yellow, pink, white, pink, brown, and whitish zones. Although we do not know the steps by which these wonderfully beautiful ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... artillery played on him with effect; and as he came nearer, the musketry began to fire also. This having obliged him to fall back, he next directed his attack against the detached Kentuckians on our right, one column moving toward the wood and the other toward the centre of the line. Now was felt the effect of the bad position that we occupied. One of the enemy's columns turned our troops at the extremity of Colonel Davis' command, while the other penetrated into the unguarded space between the Kentuckians and the breastwork ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... done, been seen to thump the midriff and rally them for their shyness of it, telling them he doubts them true poets while they abstain from singing him to the world-him, and the things refreshing the centre of him. Ineffectual is that encouragement. Were he in the fire, melting to the iron man, the backbone of him, it would be different. At his pleasures he is anti-hymnic, repellent to song. He has perceived the virtues of Peace, without the brother eye for the need of virtuousness to make good ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... their loud and unsavory conversation. The "Evening Spy" had just been read, and all were very busy discussing the scandal. As the knowledge of his presence and identity was speedily conveyed to one and another in loud whispers, the noisy tongues ceased, and the young man found himself the centre of an embarrassing amount of observation. But he endeavored to give the idlers a defiant and careless glance as he walked up to the proprietor and asked for ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... discouraged the intruders. The whole population were as sound asleep as was the excellent commandant, but the stillness in the deserted streets suggested an ambush, and they moved stealthily forward, feeling their way with caution towards the centre ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the centre of the underground city, the big golden statue, the door of rock descended, and made our friends prisoners. They almost died, but Andy Foger and his father, in league with some rascally Mexicans and a tribe of head-hunters, finally ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of the city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarce ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide streets brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rolling through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... my niece(9) in her new principality of Ham. It delighted me and made me peevish. Close to the Thames, in the centre of all rich and verdant beauty, it is so blocked up and barricaded with walls, vast trees, and gates, that you think yourself an hundred miles off and an hundred years back. The old furniture is so magnificently ancient, dreary and decayed, that at every step one's spirits sink, and all my passion ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... that which they have lost, and understand that they have lost it through their own sins and have lost it for ever. At the very instant of death the bonds of the flesh are broken asunder and the soul at once flies towards God as towards the centre of her existence. Remember, my dear little boys, our souls long to be with God. We come from God, we live by God, we belong to God: we are His, inalienably His. God loves with a divine love every human soul, and every human soul lives in that love. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... ground-floor about three feet above the medium level of the Adriatic, composed of a broad vestibule crossing through from front to rear, with the inferior apartments on each side; second, a floor of good apartments, with an open hall in the centre right over the vestibule—this hall adorned with pictures; third, a similar good floor, with another hall in the centre, which had been the banqueting or dining-room, and was now used as the salle-a-manger of the hotel—and this salle had balconied windows at one end looking out upon the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... oak in breathless air Will stand though to the centre hewn; Or as the weakest things, if frost Have stiffened them, maintain their post; So he, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Almamen, turning slowly, and recognising the intruder on his meditations, "I was but considering how many revolutions, which have shaken earth to its centre, those orbs have witnessed, unsympathising ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ready for the great collision, now seen to be inevitable. His right, under Ewell, occupies the works on the southern bank of the Rapidan, above Chancellorsville. His centre, under A.P. Hill, lies near Orange Court-House. His left, under Longstreet, is in reserve ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... no Centrifugal Force, then the Centripetal Force would draw all bodies, i. e. all planets, etc., to their central sun, and, instead of the planets continually revolving round the sun, there would be but one immense solitary mass in the centre of the solar system. ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... stood silent and cast their dark shadow far out over the lake, while the centre was bathed in the haze of a pale moonlight. Now and then a gentle rustle trembled through the trees, though wind there was none; it was but the ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... good night; he touched her hand but made no offer to kiss her. She laughed a little to herself, watching him striding toward the elevator, then, closing the door, she stood still in the centre of the room, staring at her own reflection, full length, in the gilded pier-glass, her lips edged with a sneer so like Quarrier's that, the next moment she laughed aloud, imitating Quarrier's rare laugh ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... departs he views His ancient altars, and a last salute, His wonted seat, his long-own'd temple, gives. Thence rolls he huge along the ground bestrew'd With scatter'd flowers, in curving folds entwin'd; And through the city's centre takes his way, To where the bending mole the port defends. Here rested he; and to dismiss appear'd His followers, and the kind attending crowd, With gracious looks; then in th' Ausonian ship He plac'd his length. A deity's huge weight The ship confess'd; the keel beneath the load Bent. Glad AEneaes' ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... battle; the fleet in two lines, with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest sailing two-deckers. The second in command, having the entire direction of his line, was to break through the enemy, about the twelfth ship from their rear: he would lead through the centre, and the advanced squadron was to cut off three or four ahead of the centre. This plan was to be adapted to the strength of the enemy, so that they should always be one-fourth superior to those ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... rules made him turn the Merry Wives into the Comical Gallant. As he found in the original three actions, each independent of the other, he had set himself to make the whole "depend on one common centre." In the Dedication to the letters On the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare we read that Aristotle, "who may be call'd the Legislator of Parnassus, wrote the laws of tragedy so exactly and so truly in reason and nature that succeeding criticks have writ justly and reasonably upon that ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Early had, that morning, pushed out every man he had, that could stand; and they lay hid for three mortal hours, within I don't know how near the picket line at Fort Powhatan, only waiting for the shot which John Streight's party were to fire at Wilson's Wharf, as soon as somebody on our left centre advanced in force on the enemy's line above Turkey Island stretching across to Nansemond. I am not in the War Department, and I forget whether he was to advance en barbette or by echelon of infantry. But he was to advance somehow, and he knew how; and when he advanced, you see, that other ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... Postumius Albus, as lieutenant-general. Servius Sulpicius, the other lieutenant-general, they place over the cavalry. The infantry on the right wing fought with distinguished valour, with stout resistance from the Volscians. Servius Sulpicius broke with his cavalry through the centre of the enemy's line; whence though he might have returned in the same way to his own party, before the enemy could have restored their broken ranks, it seemed more advisable to attack the enemy's rear, and by attacking the rear he would ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... troops starting hurriedly to arms, wildly attacked each other. The strife being furious and hand-to-hand was terrific and deadly; and when daylight appeared the enemy, pressing boldly forward to the centre of the camp, overcame all the resistance of which the thinned and disorganized army was capable, and captured both the king ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... strange it was, to find, in every stagnant town, this same Heart beating with the same monotonous pulsation, the centre of the same torpid, listless system, I came out by another door, and was suddenly scared to death by a blast from the shrillest trumpet that ever was blown. Immediately, came tearing round the corner, an equestrian company from Paris: marshalling themselves under the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... ever rose and died, Recurring without pause or change or close, Like one verse chaunted ever in sleepless brain, Still drew her to the shore. It drew her down, Like witch's spell, that fearful endless moan; Somewhere, she thought, in the green abyss below, His body, at the centre of the moan, Obeyed the motions whence the moaning grew; Now, now, in circle slow revolved, and now Swayed like a wind-swung bell, now swept along Hither and thither, idly to and fro, Heedlessly wandering through the heedless sea. ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... covered by thick mittens of woollen yarn, and they dragged their provisions and blankets on sleds or toboggans. At night they would use their snow-shoes to shovel a wide, circular pit in the snow, clearing it away to the bare earth. In the centre of the pit, they would build their camp fire, and sleep around it on piles of spruce boughs, secure from the winter wind. The leaders, usually members of the nobility, fared on these expeditions as rudely as their men, and outdid them in courage and endurance. Some of ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... brilliant silk hat, the shaven face, and every inch of the attire. As plainly as one knows a green tree from a dead one, the Crusoe of Grande Pointe recognized one who came from the haunts of men; from some great nerve-centre of human knowledge and power where the human mind, trained and equipped, had piled up the spoils of its innumerable conquests. His whole form lighted up with a new life. His voice trembled with pent feeling as ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... impertinent air, requests us to be seated, and asks what we'll have. We modestly ask for 'Two ales,' which are soon placed before us, and paid for. While quietly sipping the beverage, we will glance at our surroundings. Back of the hall—we are sitting at a table near the centre of the apartment—on a raised platform, is an asthmatic pianoforte, upon which an individual with threadbare coat, colorless vest and faded nankeen pantaloons, is thrumming away for dear life. Out of ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... by the members of the University of Oxford, England, is called an Oxford or Oxford cap. The same is worn at some American colleges on Exhibition and Commencement Days. In shape, it is square and flat, covered with black cloth; from the centre depends a tassel of black cord. It is further described ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... magnificent dress was trimmed with a profusion of the finest Flemish lace. I wore on my head a garland of full blown roses, composed of the finest green and gold work; round my forehead was a string of beautiful pearls, from the centre of which depended a diamond star; add to this a pair of splendid ear-rings, valued at 100,000 crowns, with a variety of jewels equally costly, and you may form some idea of my appearance on that eventful evening. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... handsomely dressed, although some wore corslets over their satin coats or lace above buff jerkins. I could even at that distance see the jewels gleam in the bonnet of one who seemed to be their leader. He was in the centre of the band, a very young man, perhaps twenty or twenty-one, of most splendid presence, sitting his horse superbly. He wore a grey riding-coat, and was a head taller than any of his companions. There was pride in the very air with ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... from the hospital, and drove them out of the town "into the Savannas or open fields." The Spaniards gave a cheer and charged in to end the battle, but the pirates were a dogged lot, and not yet at the end of their strength. They got into a clump or cluster, with a few wounded men in the centre, to load the muskets, "resolving to die one by another" rather than to run. They stood firm, cursing and damning the Spaniards, telling them to come on, and calling them a lot of cowards. There were not fifty buccaneers fit to carry a musket, but the forty odd, unhurt men stood steadily, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... hall in which he stood, was all in utter darkness; there was no light on the altar of the Penates, which was placed by the impluvium—a large shallow tank of water occupying the centre of the hall in all Roman houses—nor any gleam from the tablinum, or closed gallery beyond, parted by heavy curtains from ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... longer the dullest place in the world. It was the centre of the universe. See her diary, an entry following a gap where a page had ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... nature, occurred between Ida and Guy with regard to the ownership of a certain book-strap. There was a good deal of racing up and down stairs, and at length the bang of the front door proclaimed the fact that they had all started—the boys for the big school in the centre of the town, and the girls for one a little ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... of May, the square, with its sinuous edge, was indeed charming with bustle and light, with the houses which gave it a proper contour, with the double staircase of La Trinite-des-Monts lined with idlers, with the water which gushed from a large fountain in the form of a bark placed in the centre-one of the innumerable caprices in which the fancy of Bernin, that illusive decorator, delighted to indulge. Indeed, at that hour and in that light, the fountain was as natural in effect as were the nimble hawkers ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a sort of plan of what the desert was to be like when its cultivation was completed. There was to be a path crossing it each way exactly through the centre, and along each side of these paths there was to be a broad flower-border, which would partially conceal from view the potatoes and other useful vegetables which were to occupy the chief part of ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... Byron, wisely hast thou said. My realm, the centre of our empery, Once lost, all Turkey would be overthrown; And for that cause the Christians shall have peace. Sclavonians, Almains, Rutters, Muffs, and Danes, Fear [12] not Orcanes, but great Tamburlaine; Nor he, but Fortune that hath made him great. We have revolted Grecians, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... higher life More than by dust this little mound contained— He sought beneath the spreading banyan-tree His five companions, whom he lately left Sad at his own departure from the way The sacred Vedas and the fathers taught. They too had gone, to Varanassi[1] gone, High seat and centre of all ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... nine o'clock we were ordered to advance. We went down the hill at the double and proceeded towards the centre which was giving way. The regular beat of our footsteps appeared to me funeral-like. The bravest among us panting, pale and with ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... market-day of the week, and not only then is the "Place de Strasbourg," at the end of the "Rue du Centre," well crowded, but even—as happens on no other day—the Place Lafayette, in front of the hotel, and the top of the Coustous as well. The first-named is the fruit, flower, and vegetable market; the second, the grain and potato; and the third, the iron and ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... and he gave him the most useful instruction how to divide up his army in the field. Now he told him, whenever he was going to make war with his land-forces, to divide his whole army into three squadrons, each of which he was to pack into twenty ranks; the centre squadron, however, he was to extend further than the rest by the number of twenty men. This squadron he was also to arrange in the form of the point of a cone or pyramid, and to make the wings on either side slant off obliquely from it. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... composed of slabs of fine and various coloured marbles. The upper part of the walls, together with the ceiling, are covered with handsome red damask, flowered over with gold. The flat roof is upheld by three cross beams, supported in the centre by three columns. Between the columns ran bars of metal supporting many lamps said to be of gold." The total expense was eight dollars, and when they got away, the boy Mohammed said, "Wallah, Effendi! thou has escaped well! some men have left ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the centre, hidden from sight. And we become frantic, we dance. The March wind, seized with frenzy, Runs and reels, and sways with noisy branches. The sun and stars are drawn in the ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... and led her to the table. He drew the little house out, and opened it. The whole front of the house opened, and there, inside, were two rooms; one was a parlor, and one a bed-room. The children all cried out, "What a fine baby-house! Look at the centre-table, and the red velvet chairs; and only see the elegant curtains! Oh dear! how beautiful ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... confess he was a pleasant specimen of the genus. At the time of which I speak, the great awkward barn of a school-house on the Common, near the Appian Way, had not reared its imposing front. In its place, in the centre of a grass-plot that was one of the very first to look green in spring, and kept its verdure through the heats of July, stood the brown, one-storied cottage which she owned, and in which the aged woman lived, alone. ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... alone. But now the men of the West made ready for a more direct opposition to the foreign government. If they could not drive William out of what he had already won, they would at least keep him from coming any further. Exeter, the greatest city of the West, was the natural centre of resistance; the smaller towns, at least of Devonshire and Dorset entered into a league with the capital. They seem to have aimed, like Italian cities in the like case, at the formation of a civic confederation, which might perhaps find it expedient to acknowledge William as an ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... occupy the attitude of the party to be assailed. He seemed to feel that he had nothing to fear, and was in excellent spirits, as were the men; an eye-witness describes them as "gay, lively, laughing, magnificent." In front of his left wing he had already erected works; his centre and right were as yet undefended, but the task of strengthening the line at these points was rapidly prosecuted. Lee superintended in person the establishment of his order of battle, and it was plain to those who saw him thus engaged that the department ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... and his sister-in-law threw bouquets into almost every carriage that passed them; and the stock with which they had started was soon very much diminished. But one specially magnificent and large bouquet, which conspicuously occupied the centre of the front seat of the carriage, was evidently reserved. Everybody who saw it knew very well for whom that was intended. Of course it was for none other than the Diva of the theatre. And the known interest which the Marchese ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... of Chitral is called Kashgar (or Kashkar) by the people of the country; and as it was under Chinese domination in the middle of the 18th century, and was regarded as a Buddhist centre of some importance by the Chinese pilgrims in the early centuries of our era, it is possible that it then existed as an outlying district of the Kashgar province of Chinese Turkestan, where Buddhism once flourished in cities that have been long since buried beneath ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... how to do yourself!" exclaimed Matthews. His eye took in the Kerman embroidery on the table in the centre of the small saloon, the gazelle skins and silky Shiraz rugs covering the two divans at the sides, the fine Sumak carpet on the floor, and the lion pelt in front of an inner door. "By Jove!" he exclaimed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Westminster, already so illustrious; "the cause for which they fell is our cause. They are blind, indeed, who cannot see that what has been begun by the head will soon be undertaken against all the members; that the attacks will extend rapidly from the centre to the extremities; that revolutionary tyranny and the despotism of civil power will strive to establish everywhere, in detail, the domination which they are endeavoring to exercise over the will and the person of the Holy Father. We are at the commencement ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... for you," she whispered, bending swiftly toward him. Her lips rested lightly on his a moment, then she turned and walked out into the centre of the room. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... her residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with keen and rather cruel dark eyes, and an exceedingly sensual expression about her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an apartment on the ground floor, very sparsely furnished. In the centre of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with awe. Everything ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... year, encouraged by verbal praises and written commendations, some of them all the way from the literary centre of Edinburgh, he journeyed to that city, where he was received with great cordiality by many of the leading people, and urged to issue a second edition of his poems, which he did in April of the ensuing year. It was sold, like the first one, by subscription, and netted ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Confederate left rested on Lookout Mountain, there two thousand four hundred feet high; the right, along Missionary Ridge-so called because, many years ago, Catholic missionaries had Indian schools upon it; and the centre, in the valley between. The second day their army simply occupied Missionary Ridge, in the centre of their former line, in front of Grant at Orchard Knob.—On Lookout Mountain, Hooker met with so feeble a resistance, that Grant is reported to have declared the so-called ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... me to bed directly after dinner, "to be prettier for milor demain!" and then when she had tucked me up, and was turning out the light in the centre of the room, she looked back. "Mademoiselle is too beautiful like that," she said, as if it slipped from her. "Mon Dieu! il ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... Purple and fine linen never clothe the hero. There are powers and gifts in the soul of man that only come to life and action in some day of bitterness. There are wells in the heart, whose crystal waters lie in darkness till some earthquake shakes the man's nature to its centre, bursts the fountain open, and lets the cooling waters out to refresh a parched land. There are seeds of noblest fruits that lie latent in the soul, till some storm of sorrow shakes down tears to moisten, and some burning sun of scorching ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the worldly-minded rich man, the other is the sin of the worldly-minded poor man. The character is the same in both, turned inside out! And, therefore, the words, 'ye cannot serve God and Mammon,' stand in this chapter in the centre between our Lord's warning against laying up treasures on earth, and His warning against being full of cares for earth. He would show us thereby that these two apparently opposite states of mind in reality spring from that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... daughter. In a cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it with paint and jewels Every step was exposed to insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were now ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... sleeper, sir,' said John, when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; 'that I have half a mind to ask you where the other six are—only that would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though,' murmured the Carrier, with ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... matter of egotistic satisfaction, but of altruistic stimulus, awakening in others, by a happy rivalry, sentiments of generosity and self-sacrifice which might redeem society and the dying world of France. And this may perhaps at this point be observed as the centre of his action, namely the discovery that a wholesome desire for fame proceeds not from our self-satisfaction, but from our profound sense of ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... elasticity to rise above its narrow, uneducated dullness. The squalor so far as he himself was concerned was not physical. His own small, plain home was as neat as it was simple, but he had not the temperament which makes a man friends. Baird possessed this temperament, and his home was a centre of all that was most living. It was not the ordinary Willowfield household. The larger outer world came and went. When Latimer went to it he was swept on by new currents and felt himself warmed ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... knives, Lama swords, or Singpho dhaos and lances; and most of them carry cross-bows—the arrows for these are short, made of bamboo, and on all serious occasions are invariably poisoned with bee. When on fighting expeditions, they use shields, made of leather, which are covered towards the centre with the quills of the porcupine. Their lances are made use of only for thrusting: the shafts are made either from the wood of the lawn (Caryota urens) or that of another species of palm juice—they are tipped with an iron spike, and are of great use in the ascent of hills. The lance ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... so as to be too close in to be hit by (intertores ictibus) the engines. 10-12. in eas (sc. proras) iniecta on their bows was dropped ... 11. tollenone from a swing beam, supported at the centre of gravity by a strong fixed fulcrum. 12-13. cum (ferrea manus) gravique ... ad solum lit. when (the grappling-iron) swung back (recelleret) to the ground by a heavyweight of lead. 'This is incorrect; it was not the grappling-iron, but the ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... how it would end; they learned that all material existence was but a base and insignificant blot upon the fair face of the spiritual world, and that nature was, to all intents and purposes, the play-ground of the devil; they learned that the earth is the centre of the visible universe, and that man is the cynosure of things terrestrial; and more especially is it inculcated that the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, and constantly was, altered by the agency of innumerable spiritual beings, good and bad, according ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... great artistic beauty, and in countless variety, have been devised for book ornaments, and French and English book-binders have vied with each other for generations in the production of decorative borders, fillets, centre-pieces, rolls, and the most exquisite gold-tooling, of which ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... are—the side-porches close behind the towers; the screens of mullioned tracery, which divide the side-chapels; and the excessive height of the choir, which, having no triforium, has only a balustrade just before the clerestory windows. The centre tower is wonderfully fine in the exterior: it is apparently an expansion of the plain Norman lantern, as at Caen; but most airy and graceful. There is a double aisle round the ambit and altars are placed ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... a chandelier adorned with lustres, hung from a hook in the ceiling, large gilded vases and a mirror in a tarnished gilt frame adorned a shelf over the hearth, mahogany chairs stood in ranks against the wall under the little windows and a long narrow table ran down the centre of the apartment from end to end. It all seemed strangely familiar; of what did it remind him? His eyes fell upon the table-legs; they were riveted to the floor. Then it came to him at once,—the long narrow ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... confidence reposed in him. It is now pretty well known that the successful plot for the liberation of James Stephens was executed under the personal supervision of Colonel Kelly, and that he was one of the group of friends who grasped the hand of the Head Centre within the gates of Eichmond Prison on that night in November, '65, when the doors of his dungeon were thrown open. Kelly fled with Stephens to Paris, and thence to America, where he remained attached to the section of the Brotherhood which recognised the authority and obeyed the mandates of the ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... says, and a sun-temperature hovering about 160 degrees (there is no shade-temperature on the Downs); shadeless, trackless, sun-baked, crab-holed plains, and the Fizzer's team a moving speck in the centre of an immensity that, never diminishing and never changing, moves onward with the team; an immensity of quivering heat and glare, with that one tiny living speck in its centre, and in all that hundred and thirty miles one drink for the horses at the end of the first eighty. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... In a dynamo or motor the angle subtended by the portion of a pole piece facing the armature, such angle being referred to the centre of the cross-section of ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... some day that week. He did so, and I went to Versailles the Friday following, (the 9th of December.) M. de Reyneval was with the Count. Our conversation began with the usual topic; that the trade of the United States had not yet learned the way to France, but continued to centre in England, though no longer obliged by law to go there. I observed, that the real cause of this was to be found in the difference of the commercial arrangements in the two countries; that merchants would not, and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... man and woman, 150 Standing hand in hand together With their hands so clasped together That they seem in one united, And the words thus represented Are, "I see your heart within you, 155 And your cheeks are red with blushes!" Next the maiden on an island, In the centre of an island; And the song this shape suggested Was, "Though you were at a distance, 160 Were upon some far-off island, Such the spell I cast upon you, Such the magic power of passion, I could straightway draw you to me!" Then the figure of the maiden 165 Sleeping, and the lover ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... centre of his grandfather's life and of mine. He is a pensive child, and has never been strong; but his beauty and sweetness are such that we often tremble when we look in his face ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a'n't,—so Mr. Gris'ld says," went on Polly. "You see, I was a-comin' up here from the Centre, so's to see if Sam couldn't wait for his roundabout till arter Thanksgivin'; for Keziah Perkins, she 't was my sister's husband's fust wife's darter, 'n' finally married sister's fust husband's son, she's a real likely woman, and she's wrote over from Taunton to ask me to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the part of man which constitutes his intellect is caused by an instrument to which the other five {28} senses refer everything by means of the perception, and this instrument they have named the "common sense" or brain, and they say that this sense is situated in the centre of the head. And they have given it this name "common sense" solely because it is the common judge of the five other senses, that is to say, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The "common sense" is stirred by means of the ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... belonging nowhere. All youth resents the sense of the enormity of the universe in relation to the insignificance of the individual life, and youth, with that intense self-consciousness which makes each young person the very centre of all emotional experience, broods over this as no older person can possibly do. At such moments a black oppression, the instinctive fear of solitude, will send a lonely girl restlessly to walk the streets even when she is "too tired ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... of such centres having attractive and repulsive forces (both varying according to the same law of the inverse squares as gravitation), and by grouping them in symmetrical figures, consisting of a repulsive centre, an attractive nucleus, and one or more repulsive envelopes, we may explain all the general properties of matter; and, by more and more complex arrangements, even the special chemical, electrical, and magnetic properties of special forms of matter.[I] ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... opposite, of which the Queen forms the centre, is also painted with Veronese's highest skill; but contains no point of interest bearing on our present subject, except its connection by a chain of descending emotion. The Queen is wholly oppressed and subdued; kneeling, and nearly fainting, she looks up to Solomon with ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... been suggested more than once, only the property of the great landlords is socialized, whilst the factories are left untouched; or that, in a certain city, house property is taken over by the Commune, but everything else is left to private ownership; or that, in some manufacturing centre, the factories are communalized, but the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... ordinary postage stamps, the reason for this being, of course, that letters intended for special delivery may be at once identified and their handling facilitated. The stamps are oblong in shape, measuring about 31 mm. by 23 mm. high. The centre consists of an engine turned oval, in the middle of which is the word TEN in uncolored block letters on a solid disc of color. Around this is an oval filled with lathe-work and then comes an oval band inscribed "SPECIAL DELIVERY WITHIN CITY LIMITS" ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... to the former 45 to 50 miles, but with river communications to within 16 miles of the latter, and 10 miles of the former. The Gulf of St. Miguel opens to the Pacific from 8 deg.8' to 8 deg.17' N. lat., and runs E. N. E. and N. E. by E., fully 22 miles into the country, its centre crossing the meridian of 78 deg. W. long. As has been shortly adverted to, the rivers which seem to form the Gulf of St. Miguel run deeply into the country, both to the S. E. and to the N. E., one particularly, the Chuqunaque, with an extremely zigzag course between ridges of mountains, ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... of statues, fountains, canopies, etc., etc., etc. The first thing to be seen on entering is the Crystal Fountain, a most elegant one about thirty feet high at a rough guess, composed entirely of glass and pouring down jets of water from basin to basin; this is in the middle of the centre nave, and from it you can look down to either end, and up both transepts. The centre of the nave mostly consists of a long line of colossal statues, some most magnificent. The one considered the finest, I believe, is the Amazon and Tiger. She ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... In his other hand he held a horn, knocked from the bleaching skeleton of a steer that had died by the water, and to its end where the tip had been sawed off he applied the red-hot iron, burning a hole through to the hollow centre. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... centre, close to a pillar, and well out of sight, that the children had hidden their things; and here Esther came now, and pushing her arm through a narrow opening, groped about for the familiar ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... surface. It lay placid all the year, scarcely troubled even in winter, when the other parts of the creek rushed and tumbled in flood. There was room in the high banks of Anglers' Bend for all the extra water, and its presence was only marked by the strength of the current that ran in the very centre of the stream. ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... parlour, which was opened only on Sunday—was hideous with a gaudy carpet, stuffed chairs, family portraits done in crayon and inflicted upon the house by itinerant vendors of tea and coffee, and there was a basket of wax flowers, protected by glass, on the marble-topped "centre-table." ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... of the room rush toward him—felt it strike him dizzy; and he lay wondering what had happened. Gradually he became aware of a great tumult about him, and he knew he was vitally concerned. His idea of fighting happened to centre in a knuckle-duster with an ugly dagger on the end of it. He drew it mechanically before his scattered wits told ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... She takin' resks an' findin' funds, an' we co-operationin',— I mean a kin' o' hangin' roun' an' settin' on the fence, Till Prov'dunce pinted how to jump an' save the most expense; I recollected thet 'ere mine o' lead to Shiraz Centre Thet bust up Jabez Pettibone, an' didn't want to ventur' 'Fore I wuz sartin wut come out ud pay for wut went in, For swappin' silver off for lead ain't the sure way to win; 140 (An', fact, it doos look now ez though—but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and adventure, books about mighty hunting on the table in the centre of the room; and seated at the table was a short and rather fat, red-haired fellow of about forty-five, with a closely- trimmed beard and a pair of bright eyes. He was in his shirtsleeves, reading a book held in one hand while he gesticulated ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... front of the fire on the patch of prepared ground, squatted a number of men, between twenty and thirty of them, in a semicircle. They were wrapped up in karosses and blankets, and in their centre sat a large figure on a chair ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... upright she seemed to be dealing with the world as she chose; the enormous solid globe spun round this way and that beneath her fingers. And her husband! Mr. Dalloway rolling that rich deliberate voice was even more impressive. He seemed to come from the humming oily centre of the machine where the polished rods are sliding, and the pistons thumping; he grasped things so firmly but so loosely; he made the others appear like old maids cheapening remnants. Rachel followed in the wake of the matrons, as if in a trance; a curious scent of violets came back ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... face. And doubtless many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel (chap. xxxvii. 3), "Do these bones live? or, can that soul organise that tongue, to speak so long time as the sand in that glass will move towards its centre, and measure out an hour of this dying man's unspent life? Doubtless it cannot." And yet, after some faint pauses in his zealous prayer, his strong desires enabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his preconceived ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... but little encouragement, hastened to follow. The church was very dark. The sunlight came only through the lifted curtains at the farthest entrance, and the acolytes were already extinguishing the candles that had illuminated the altar. As Inez, in the centre of the church, picked her way among the scattered praying-chairs, Roddy, in the side aisle and hidden by the pillars, kept pace ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... dug extra deep for the corral. The work was completed before noon, the gate being the only feature of interest. It was made double, fifty feet wide, and fastened in the centre to a strong post. The gate proper was made of wire, webbed together with stays, admitting of a pliability which served a double purpose. By sinking an extra post opposite each of the main ones, the flexibility ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... Virgo is a Y-shaped group, of which [gr a], the star at the foot, is the well-known Spica, a star of the first magnitude. The other principal stars, [gr g] at the centre, and [gr b] and [gr e] at the extremities, are of the second magnitude. The whole resembles more a cup than the human figure; but when we remember the symbolic meaning of the cup, that seems to be an obvious explanation of the name Virgo, which the constellation ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the staircase, re-entered the sitting-room, and slamming the door behind her, halted in the centre of the room, panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. And she was alone in this empty room—this deserted hotel. From this very room her husband had left her with a brutality on his lips. From this room the fool and liar she ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... human dumpling with a discordant voice, and her first interest, like that of the doctor, seemed to centre in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... to say that out of England and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Universities," is the first of a long series of libels on things and persons he did not like. The Scotch capital was still a literary centre of some original brilliancy, in the light of the circle of Scott, which followed that of Burns, in the early fame of Cockburn and of Clerk (Lord Eldin), of the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews, and of the elder Alison. ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... twenty-one of us in the boat and with the water and bread and some old clothes she was pretty near the water, so deep that the water came over the centre board, so that some of us had to keep bailing all the time, while the rest were paddling down to the boat that was still ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... incidentally having heard a story recently that he was killed,—a fiction, doubtless,—a mistake,—a palpable absurdity,—not to be remembered or made any account of. Oh no! but what dull ache is this in that obscurely sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the nervous centre called the semilunar ganglion lies unconscious of itself until a great grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the non-conductors which isolate it from ordinary impressions? I talked awhile with Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but soldier-like and uncomplaining, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the Widow Finkelstein, to the evident delight of Sugarman the Shadchan, who had effected the introduction. It was wonderful how agile they all were, and how dexterously they avoided treading on her brother Benjamin, who lay unconcernedly in the centre of the floor, taking assiduous notes in a little copy-book for incorporation in a great novel, while Mrs. Henry Goldsmith stooped down to pat his ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... corners of Mexico that afternoon, and at an unheard-of place, with an unpronounceable name, it found Cornelius McVeigh, the centre of a group of gentlemen. The party had just emerged from the yawning mouth of a mine, and were resting in the sunshine and expelling the foul air from their lungs, whilst the young promoter of the western metropolis ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... painful tale of sorrow and destitution. Those sad eyes were fixed anxiously and imploringly upon the stern, grim face of a hard-featured old man, who, with hat pulled over his shaggy gray eyebrows, was standing, resting on a stout staff, in the centre of the floor. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... however, to adapt themselves to the new conditions. They arranged to stay at the inn that was farthest from the centre of things, and the drive out restored some of the former look of the place. It was near sunset; the road looked pink before them as they left the city. The boys had set fire to little piles of early fallen ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... unconquerable desire to breathe, if not the pure unadulterated atmosphere of Beverly Square, at least as much of it as was compatible with a very moderate income, she rented a small house in a very dark and dismal lane leading out of that great centre ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... darkness, ringing over the desert plains. Yet, his Master said of him that "among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist"; and in six brief months, as one has noticed, the young prophet of the wilderness had become the centre to which all the land went forth. We see Pharisees and Sadducees, soldiers and publicans, enthralled by his ministry; the Sanhedrim forced to investigate his claims; the petty potentates of Palestine caused to tremble on their thrones; while he has left a name and an influence that ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... them all aboard, with Quonab steering at the stern, and Skookum bow-wowing at the bow, bound for the great centre of Warren's settlement—one store and three houses, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and Peter and John and their followers could not be saved; neither could Paul, if he carried into practice his views as to the indifference of eating meats offered to idols. Or, to put the matter another way, the centre of gravity of orthodoxy, which is at the extreme right of the series in the nineteenth century, was at the extreme left just before the middle of the first century, when the "sect of the Nazarenes" constituted the whole church ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... storm of the night before. Harry was the first to spring from his bunk. He hastened to the cabin, his first impulse being to try the door and see if they were still prisoners. He started with surprise when he reached the outer room. At the table in the centre sat the captain working at some maps and papers. He looked up ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... lay at their feet, completely circled by the tree-clad heights. The centre was of red sand. In the very middle shot up a tall, stately tree, with a black trunk and branches, and transparent, crystal leaves. At the foot of this tree was a natural, circular well, containing ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... bet you anything you like there's nothing wrong, because I know she'd never dare un—'" She broke the word in two, and her quick blush made her face like a shallow-petalled rose shading to the deeper pink of the centre. ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... rose round him and sank. He controlled his sickness by planting a chair in the centre and sitting in it with his eyes shut. As he grew more comfortable he reflected how he had calmed that woman, and he resolved again to spend his life in doing good. "Yes, that's the only ticket," he said to himself, with involuntary frivolity. He thought of what the officer had said, and he helplessly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fraternized,—why, only the Providence which makes like and unlike attract each other could have explained. However, it was with deliberate intent that Sidwell entered the most brilliantly lighted room in the place and sought out the group of which Hough was the centre. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... In point of fact, neither lived to grow up; doubtless they would have been uninteresting enough if they had been spared. The Infanta Margarita is to be seen in Vienna, in Paris, and in Madrid, and she of course is the centre of the famous picture, "Las Meninas." Prince Prosper was painted by Velazquez, when no more than two years old. There were two other children, Prince Ferdinand and Prince Carlos II., but the former was no more than a year old when Velazquez died, and Carlos was ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan
... after-masts, as well as on the stays between the main and mizen masts. Their effect is to balance the head-sails, in the manner that a weather-cock or vane is moved, of which the main-mast must be considered the pivot or centre. The reverse of head-sails. "Square the after-yards," refers to the yards on the main and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... will leave it no inheritance that he can possibly squander away. What pleasure can I have in seeing a girl grow up to eclipse me, and enjoy those pleasures that I am for ever debarred from? But supposing I could be so generous as to take delight in this, still it is ONLY a child; and I can't centre all my hopes in a child: that is only one degree better than devoting oneself to a dog. And as for all the wisdom and goodness you have been trying to instil into me—that is all very right and proper, I daresay, and if I were some twenty years older, I might fructify by ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... entrance in a dashing showy style, and thus far had suffered no rebuke from his master for this habit. But on this occasion a careless nursery maid, neglectful of her charge, had left a little child to toddle to the centre of the carriage drive and there it had stood, balancing itself with the uncertain footing characteristic of first steps. Even if it could have seen the rapidly approaching carriage that was hidden by the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... of the street view is snow, or, lacking that, a cobbled pavement very rough and uneven, and lined on each side—sometimes on one side only, or in the centre—with a narrow sidewalk of heavy planks laid lengthwise over the otherwise open public sewer, a ditch about three feet wide and from three to six feet deep. Woe be to him who goes through rotten plank! ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... in the centre of each man's heart A longing and love for the good and pure, And if but an atom, or larger part, I know that this shall forever endure. After the body has gone to decay— Yes, after the world ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... sting of the outrage lay in the two names which blazed in the largest of black print from the centre of the placards. "The meeting will be addressed by Gertrude Marvell (D.R.), Delia Blanchflower ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Newton walked into the sea, and commending himself to Providence, struck out for the islet, keeping his course well to windward, to allow for the tide sweeping him down. To use a nautical phrase, he "held his own" extremely well, until he reached the centre of the channel, where the water ran with great velocity, and bore him down rapidly with the stream. Newton struggled hard; for he was aware that the strength of the current once passed, his labour would be comparatively easy; and so it proved: as he neared the shore of the islet, he made ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he regretted Paris and his life there. Suddenly sea-sickness overcame him. Every one knows the effect of that disorder. The most horrible of its sufferings devoid of danger is a complete dissolution of the will. An inexplicable distress relaxes to their very centre the cords of vitality; the soul no longer performs its functions; the sufferer becomes indifferent to everything; the mother forgets her child, the lover his mistress, the strongest man lies prone, like an inert mass. Paul was carried to his cabin, where he stayed three ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... Minab[-o]zho asked it to come to the center of the earth that he might behold it. Again it disappeared from view, and after reappearing in the west Minab[-o]zho observed it slowly approaching the center of the earth (i.e., the centre of the circle), when he descended and saw it was the Otter, now one of the sacred manid[-o]s of the Mid[-e]wiwin. Then Minab[-o]zho instructed the Otter in the mysteries of the Mid[-e]wiwin, and gave him at the same time the sacred rattle to be used at the side of the sick; ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... one large timbale mould or 8 to 10 small ones well buttered, fill in with the cream, cover with buttered paper, and steam very gently till set—30 minutes if large mould—10 minutes if small ones. If a large one turn out and fill in centre with tomatoes, mushrooms, &c. If small ones arrange round ashet with baked tomatoes, spinach, green peas, &c., in the ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... her the capacity of standing in awe of anybody, and she rushed at her host as a new type, delighting in the thrill which she felt creeping over her when she found herself on the arm of one who had been the rallying-point of a hundred struggles, and a centre of influence over thousands of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... important emissary of the Government, or even the President himself. We all push forward; the stalwart New York police keep back the crowd; the crew of the good ship Majestic hold the gangway in its place as the centre of attraction trips gaily up it. It is a diminutive nigger messenger from a florist's, with a huge bouquet of flowers. I imagine I see my own name on the label, so I modestly seclude myself in ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... duty to their own families, and do not sacrifice domestic happiness to fame and fortune. Personally he was pleasant to every one, mere acquaintances as well as intimate friends, and his house was always the centre of a lively gathering. With his wife, he took sedulous care of the education of his children, of whom there were no less than six at her early death ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... killed. But we have no copy of the proclamation as to Mr. Robert Oliphant. To Mr. Robert Oliphant, who had an alibi, we shall return, for this gentleman, though entirely overlooked by our historians, was probably at the centre of the situation (p. ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... congregate in Rome during the winter from every quarter. Naples and Tuscany send them by thousands. Every little country town of the Abruzzi Mountains yields its contribution. From north, south, east, and west they flock here as to a centre where good pickings may be had of the crumbs that fall from the rich men's tables. In the summer season they return to their homes with their earnings, and not one in five of those who haunted the churches and streets in the winter is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The sultan gets such obedience as he can. He governs with a loose reign, that he may govern at all; and the whole of the force and vigour of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain in her provinces submits to this immutable condition, the eternal law of extensive and detached empire." Still Burke did not conceive the idea of proclaiming the independence of America. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... share our thoughts and feelings with another and are allowed to share his in return, our centre of interest expands, as it were, and the essence of life within us enriches itself by this sympathetic mingling with the essence of the other. His thoughts, his feelings, his welfare are no longer a matter of indifference to us. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... opaque: amongst them dull white chalk varieties, called "Catchokolo," are valuable, besides black and pink, named, respectively, "Bububu" and "Sekundereche" the "dregs of pombe." One red bead, of various sizes, which has a white centre, is always valuable in every part of Africa. It is called "Sami-sami" by the Suahele, "Chitakaraka" by the Waiyou, "Mangazi," "blood," by the Nyassa, and was found popular even amongst the Manyuema, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... intelligence of humanity. It will be observed, too, that at this point what may be called pictorial description begins. Hitherto we have had merely a general impression of murky air and miry soil, sloping perhaps a little toward the centre, and intersected now and again by a stream. Now the City of Dis with minarets and towers rises in front of us, and, as we shall see in future cantos, from this time onwards the character of the scenery is indicated with great preciseness, even to its smallest details. Here, ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... glancing at her, saw her pale lips falter. It shook the cruelty of his purpose a little, and he had a vague feeling that he was doing wrong. Not without a proud struggle, during which no word was spoken, could he beat it down. Meanwhile, the phantom had advanced a pace toward the centre of the room. ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... revelation which they had studied deeply and knew better than other men, and on which they spoke with the authority of experience. It was firmly believed that to follow their teaching would lead to future salvation; for the centre of gravity in life for seriously minded men was the hope of attaining everlasting salvation in the world ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... wandering and trying every winding in the interminable jumble of hills, we came at last at nightfall on just such a valley as Van Huyn had described. A valley with high, steep cliffs; narrowing in the centre, and widening out to the eastern and western ends. At daylight we were opposite the cliff and could easily note the opening high up in the rock, and the hieroglyphic figures which were evidently intended originally ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... gorgeous rhetoric. It is then that his majestic sentences swell to the dimensions of his majestic thought; then it is that we hear afar off the awful roar of his rifled ordnance; and when he has stormed the heights, and broken the centre, and trampled the squares, and turned the staggering wings of the adversary, that he sounds his imperial clarion along the whole line of battle, and moves forward with all his hosts, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... are not likely to be any sentries placed on the walls at the entrance of this inner haven, or on that running along by Old Haven down to the forts. We will start as soon as the tide turns, and drift down with it. We will get out a pole or two to keep our course down the centre till we get near the forts, and must then let her drift as she will, for a splash in the water or the slightest sound would call the attention of the sentries there, and if the alarm were given the boats of the two ships outside would have us to a certainty. I think the night ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... for us moderns this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened age" just as glibly as The Times talks of it.' M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... into rounds, toast delicately, spread with potted tongue. In the centre put a stuffed olive and surround with a row of chopped beet and another of chopped ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... at Paradise, of whose existence he had not before seemed to be aware. The two men advanced towards the centre of the ring, shook hands at arm's-length, cast off each other's grasp suddenly, fell back a step, and began to move warily round one another from left to right like ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... much rock and sand abounded. The harbour, or rather bay, is small, and its depth of water from two to five fathoms. The principal battery is built on a solid tongue of rock which curves outward and forms a kind of harbour. I remarked the Spanish arms on the centre of it, and on inquiry I found it had been placed there by Charles the Fifth when he landed and took possession ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... listened; Then he sped forward Faster and faster Toward the bright water. Breathless he reached it. Why did he crouch then, Stark as a statue? What did he see there Could so appall him? Only a circle Swiftly expanding, Fading before him; But, as he watched it, Up from the centre, Slowly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... persuasion consented to fire at a mark under the direction of his faithful servant, Peter Taylor, who was accustomed to attend him on hunting excursions. Mr. Byle, with accommodating alacrity, offered his hat as a suitable target, having stuck a maple leaf on the centre of the crown to answer as the bull's eye. The party shifted ground to the rear premises, and the hat was fixed to the side of the barn. Blennerhassett took his place directly in front of the mark, at a distance from it of twenty steps deliberately paced off by Plutarch. When their ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable |
