"Centre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in 1827 of the remains of a body in the centre of the spot where the shrine stood, with various relics of a very early period and it was asserted to be the body of St. Cuthbert. This, however, has not been universally assented to, and Mr. Akerman, in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... house Lingard slowed his pace. The mist still hung. A great sustained murmur pervaded it and the blurred forms of men were all moving outward from the centre toward the palisades. Somewhere amongst the buildings a gong clanged. D'Alcacer's ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Barker were sundered from each other in this flood. Barker, sucked in toward the centre but often eddied back by those who meant to help him, heard the mixed explanations pass his ear unfinished—versions, contradictions, a score of facts. It had been wolf-poison. It had been "Rough on Rats." It had been something in a bottle. There was little steering in this clamorous ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... inexhaustible beneficence has here missed its aim, and whose noblest work is cast away thus wantonly. Oh methinks the whole universe should clothe itself in black, and weep at the fearful example now passing in its centre. 'Tis but a common sorrow when mortals fall and Paradise is lost; but, when the plague extends its ravages to angels, then should there be wailing throughout ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... called the Emperor, is stationed in the center of the field between the two teams, and the ball scores its highest when it has been thrown entirely around one of the circles, from there to the captain in the centre, and from him to the Emperor. There are two fielders, or players at large, who try to intercept the ball before it reaches the Emperor, or to block it in any other part ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... of Trueman's campaign have come to know what has to be combatted. Handbills are hurriedly printed and distributed in the late afternoon along State, Clark and Dearborn streets, and on the intersecting streets in the centre of the business locality. These hand-bills announce that Trueman will deliver his farewell speech to Chicagoans that night at seven o'clock at ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... strange. It is as if a man should not know who were in his own house. Would-be civilization has for the very centre of its citadel, for the citizens of its innermost city, for the heart around which the gay and fashionable, the learned, the artistic, the virtuous, the religious are gathered, a people some of whom are barbarous, some cruel, many miserable, many ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... either side enclosing a portion of the ocean; to this inlet they had given the name of Safety Bay, because it was here they first felt themselves secure after having escaped the dangers of the storm. In the centre of the bay there was a small island which they called Shark's Island, to commemorate the capture of one of those monsters of the deep. Safely Bay, had, a second time, acquired a legitimate title to its name, for in it Providence had brought the ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... and from thence over land, until the army had got within a few miles of the Shawanoe camp. Here the army halted, and made a breastwork of fallen trees, and entrenchments of such extent as to include about twelve acres of ground, with an enclosure in the centre containing about one acre. This was the citadel, which contained the markees of the earl and his superior officers.[A] Before the army of Dunmore had reached this point, he had been met by messengers from the Indians suing for peace. General Lewis, in the meantime, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... a centre, there were, at this time, in a radius of ten or twelve miles around it, twenty-six soup kitchens—namely, at Skibbereen, Baltimore, Shirken, and Cape Clear (three); Creagh, Castlehaven (two); Union Hall, Aghadown (two); Kilcoe (three); Skull (two); Dunmanus, Crookhaven (two); Cahiragh ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... with the door closed, the rattle of the rain on the veranda roof sank to a subdued, quiet drumming. Piles of books lay upon a table in the centre of the room and there were other books on the shelves along the walls. On a table burned a student's lamp and in the corners of the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... guest dreaming of his narrow escape? or revolving plans beside which Felix's were but the schemes of a rat in a drain? Perhaps Marie alone—for Susanne slept a child's sleep of exhaustion—had her thoughts fixed on him, who only a few hours before had been the centre of the household. ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... and at midnight, two persons were seated. The chamber was of singular construction and considerable extent. The roof was of solid stone masonry, and rose in a wide semicircular arch to the height of about seventeen feet, measured from the centre of the ceiling to the ground floor, while the sides were divided by slight partition-walls into ranges of low, narrow catacombs. The entrance to each cavity was surrounded by an obtusely-pointed arch, resting ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... touch," said Faraday. "Each physical atom is the centre of an etheric molecule, and as far apart from every other atom as the stars in heaven from one another." This is true of every form of physical matter, whether it is a lump of metal, a cup of liquid, or a ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson
... on the way to Richmond in a hansom cab. Richmond had struck us both as the best centre of operations in search of the suburban retreat which Raffles wanted, and by road, in a well-appointed, well-selected hansom, was certainly the most agreeable way of getting there. In a week or ten days Raffles was to write to me at the Richmond post-office, but for at least a week I should ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... overhead the dismal hiss Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew, And flying vaulted either host with fire. So under fiery cope together rushed Both battles main, with ruinous assault And inextinguishable rage. All heaven Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth Had to her centre shook. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... writing-case lying open on a small table in the centre of the room, on the vase half full of partly withered roses, on the mantel-piece, the Shakespeare, and Macaulay's History lying on the stand at my right, thought my own thoughts, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... best position for a debater to take on the stage is in the centre well toward the front. He should take the centre because in that position he can best see the entire audience, and the entire audience can best see him. He should stand near the front edge of the platform for several reasons: first, he can make himself more easily understood; his voice need ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... 'Ginette Phelps had been, both as dancer and wife, always the centre of a group of actors, artists, and men of letters as well as of the world and affairs. The Phelpses had lived well, although they were not extremely wealthy, as fortunes go. When the blow fell, I could well fancy that the loss of ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... that Indian Frontier station where all the world was gay, she had become at once the centre of attraction, of admiration; and, responding to this with girlish zest, she had begun to find something ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and thence farther unrolled it, in the direction already established by the two points of the tree and the peg, for the distance of fifty feet—Jupiter clearing away the brambles with the scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg was driven, and about this, as a centre, a rude circle, about four feet in diameter, described. Taking now a spade himself, and giving one to Jupiter and one to me, Legrand begged us to set about digging as quickly ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... me, and arranged the wings, and they are just as beautiful as they can be. They spread about four inches. The color is reddish-brown, and across the middle of the wings there is a whitish line shading off into a clay-colored border. In the centre of each wing there is a long reddish-white spot, and on the tip of each fore-wing is a dark bluish eye. On the head are delicate feathered antennae. Mamma found a picture of the moth in a book. We are sure it belongs to the genus ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... many Major-Generals who are relieved from duty, so many of them, that the Major-Generals ought to be formed into a squadron, and, Halleck at the head, McClellan at the tail, make them charge on Lee's centre. In such a way the ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... to all the less familiar occurrences which present themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has always taken himself as the standard of comparison, as the centre and measure of the world; nor could he well avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently uncaused will has a powerful effect in giving rise to many occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed other and greater events to other and greater volitions, and came to look ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... played in the following manner:—A circle should be drawn about four feet in diameter, and an inner circle of about six inches being also marked out in its centre, into this each boy puts a marble. "Now then, boys, knuckle down at the offing, which is in any part of the outer circle. Now, whoever shoots a marble out of the ring is entitled to go on again: so mind your shots; a good shot may clear the ring. After the first shot, the players do not ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... girl, partially enveloped in a striped blanket, but naked from the waist upwards, impelling the boat in the direction of the deer by long graceful sweeps of her oar; in front of her was a squaw of maturer age, performing a like labour. In the centre of the canoe were two children, queer guinea-pig-looking little devils, and near these lay a man in all the lazy apathy of a redskin on his return from on the hunting ground; but towards the stern stood a splendid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... stone house, and a square of farm-buildings surrounding a green space of rough turf, in the midst of which stands a mighty, funereal umbrageous yew, making a solemn shadow, as of death, in the very heart and centre of the light and heat of the brightest summer day. On the side away from the house, this yard slopes down to a dark-brown pool, which is supplied with fresh water from the overflowings of a stone cistern, into which some rivulet of the brook before-mentioned ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... dream. And so I did. Before the sun was any height in the sky, long before the young ladies at the big house would be stirring, I was up at the paddock again searching for the ring. And granny told me what to do. I was to put the lucky penny as near as I could guess in the very centre of the field and then to walk round it in widening circles, always looking carefully downwards while I said this rhyme ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... Robinson Crusoe, for example; indeed, no two books could be more instructive to set side by side than "Les Travailleurs" and this other of the old days before art had learnt to occupy itself with what lies outside of human will. Crusoe was one sole centre of interest in the midst of a nature utterly dead and utterly unrealised by the artist; but this is not how we feel with Gilliat; we feel that he is opposed by a "dark coalition of forces," that an "immense animosity" surrounds him; we are the witnesses ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is of an irregular shape and very small, being hardly an acre in extent, and its shore covered with pebbles and boulders of granite. Near the centre, and fronting the east, stands an unpainted wood cabin of the humblest appearance, the shape and size of which is an oblong of some thirty by fifteen feet. One rude door furnishes the only means of entrance, and light is admitted through two small windows, one on the east and the other on the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... supposing what a difference it would make to us if it were suddenly discovered that the old system which Copernicus upset was true after all, and that we had to think ourselves back into a strictly limited universe of which the earth is the centre. The loss of its privileged position by our own planet; its degradation, from a cosmic point of view, to insignificance; the necessity of admitting the probability that there may be many other inhabited worlds—all this had consequences ranging beyond the field of ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... a coat-of-arms or crest it may be used in the centre of the engraved invitation at the top, but monograms or stamped ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... structure is entirely of stone, small and exceedingly simple and ingenious. The ground plan is that of a Greek cross. On this foundation are reared four walls, which, of course, cross each other in the centre at right angles. A little above the height of a man, the whole is amply roofed. Let the wind blow which way it will, you perceive there is always shelter. There is no external wall, and the diameter of the whole does not exceed ten feet, if it be as much. This little ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and Franka, and the seven whaleship captains, and Nanakin, the head chief of Ponape, and many other lesser chiefs, all gathered together around the table and filled their glasses and drank manuia to the bride, who sat on a chair in the centre of the room surrounded by the chiefs' wives, and smiled and bowed when my captain called her name and raised his glass towards her. Then after this he again took up the pese laakau and began to play, and my captain and Solepa danced again. Suddenly Franka pushed his way through the others and ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... in front of the stalled runabout, and in the exact centre of the dusty road, moved an animal. Huge and formless it bulked, as it receded into the fainter glow of light. It might have been anything from a lion to a bear; in that uncertain glimmer. But, the lamps' rays played strongly enough on one detail of the apparition to identify it, past doubt, to ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... a tiny upright piano in the sitting-room, and at the fireplace a deep thick rug, and an immense leather arm-chair. A clock in crystal and gold flanked by two crystal candlesticks had the centre of the mantelpiece. On the little round mahogany centre table was a lamp with a wonderful mosaic shade; a little book-case was filled with books and magazines. Margaret went to one of the three windows, and looked down upon the ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... views that are entertained of the offices and pulse of the heart, perhaps, less bound up with great and most inextricable difficulties. The heart, it is vulgarly said, is the fountain and workshop of the vital spirits, the centre from which life is dispensed to the several parts of the body. Yet it is denied that the right ventricle makes spirits, which is rather held to supply nourishment to the lungs. For these reasons it is maintained that fishes are without any right ventricle ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... broken, as I was using very fine gut, and the fish were heavy. Another trial seemed desirable, and the number of rising trout was most tempting. All over it trout were rising to the natural fly, with big circles like those you see in the Test at twilight; while in the centre, where no artificial fly can be cast for want of a boat, a big fish would throw himself out of the water in his eagerness. One such I saw which could not have weighed under three pounds, a short, ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... hope had begun to dawn—the hope, namely, that the world was in the hand, yea in the heart of One whom she herself might one day see, in her inmost soul, and with clearest eyes, to be Love itself—not a love she could not care for, but the very heart, generating centre, embracing circumference, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... which Tavernake was tasting, a new fever burning in his blood. He was jealous; he hated the whole party below. In imagination he saw Elizabeth with her friends, supping most likely in that other, more resplendent restaurant, only a few yards away. He imagined her the centre of every attention. Without a doubt, she was looking at her neighbor as she had looked at him. Tavernake bit his lip, frowning. If he had had it in his power, in those black moments, to have thrown a thunderbolt from ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in a comparatively narrow field of observation. Narrow as the field is, however, it offers a somewhat unusual diversity of scene; for that most charming of health resorts known in these pages as Springtown, is the chance centre of many varying interests. In its immediate vicinity exists the life of the prairie ranch on the one hand and that of the mining-camp on the other; while dominating all as it were—town, prairie, and mountain fastness—rises the great Peak which has now for so many years been the goal of pilgrimage ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the largest inscribed clay tablet which has yet been found on any Minoan site. This was a disc of terra-cotta, 6.67 inches in diameter, and covered on both sides with an inscription which coils round from the centre outwards. 'It is by far the largest hieroglyphic inscription yet discovered in Crete. It contains some 241 signs and 61 sign groups, and it exhibits the remarkable peculiarity that every sign has been separately impressed on the clay while in a soft state by a stamp ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... be seen that which follows. See the wheel of time, which moves round its own centre, and there is the legend: "Manens moveor." What do you mean ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... later. The joining and blending of the work with the Norman of Carileph's choir had evidently been accomplished when the chapel was almost completed. The eastern wall is of three bays, each bay having three lofty lancet windows. The bays are not of equal width, the centre one being regulated by the width of the nave of the church, and narrower than the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... comfortable house, which Mr. Fleming had taken on a five-year lease when they came to England to live. It was one of a row of houses that looked very much alike, which, itself, was one of four sides of a square. In the centre of the square was a park-like space, a garden, really. In this garden were several tennis courts, with plenty of space, also, for nurses and children. There are many such squares in London, and they help to make ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... separating it from the next annular continent. The first ocean was of salt water; the second, of the juice of the sugar-cane; the third, of wine; the fourth, of clarified butter; the fifth, of curdled milk; the sixth, of sweet milk; the seventh, of fresh water. In the centre of this vast annular system Mount Meru rose to the ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... any tongue—it means the same; LOVE ABSOLUTE: Think, feel, absorb the thought; Shut out all else; until a subtle flame (A spark from God's creative centre caught) Shall permeate your being, and shall glow, Increasing in its ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Villabuena was nearly in the centre of one of the irregular lines of detached buildings that formed the village. About eighty yards further off, on the opposite side of the road, from which they receded, and were partially screened by some barns and a plantation of fruit-trees, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... with his own hands in the replacement of the painted glass in its windows, and racked his wits in piecing the fragments together. The glazier was scandalized by the Primate's express command to repair and set up again the "broken crucifix" in the east window. The holy table was removed from the centre, and set altarwise against the eastern wall, with a cloth of arras behind it, on which was embroidered the history of the Last Supper. The elaborate woodwork of the screen, the rich copes of the chaplain, the silver candlesticks, the credence table, the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... call to afternoon service. It was like an invitation—the way was clear. My plan was laid in an instant, and it worked beyond my most hopeful anticipations. Entering the church, I was ushered to a pew about halfway up the centre aisle—despite my poverty, I had managed to keep myself always well-groomed, and no one would have guessed, to look at my faultless frock-coat and neatly creased trousers, at my finely gloved hand and polished top-hat, ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... Covenant-people, which the [Pg 360] Moabites were too weak openly to exhibit, impelled them to this wicked deed against the king tributary to them.—3. It must be carefully observed how the prophet, when coming to Judah, introduces us, at once, into the centre of theocratic transgression, the forsaking of the living God, and the serving of ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... eyes to the past, to obliterate the interval, to try to walk for a space in the track of the ancient societies. They would hardly succeed, but endeavour might at least do something to stay the plague of universal degeneracy. Hence the fatality of his system. It placed the centre of social activity elsewhere than in careful and rational examination of social conditions, and in careful and rational effort to modify them. As we began by saying, it substituted a retrograde aspiration ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... expected joy Of thy sweet friendship do persuade me on To bear all toil and wake the clear nights through, Seeking with what of words and what of song I may at last most gloriously uncloud For thee the light beyond, wherewith to view The core of being at the centre hid. And for the rest, summon to judgments true, Unbusied ears and singleness of mind Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged For thee with eager service, thou disdain Before thou comprehendest: since for thee I prove the supreme law of Gods ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... of groves and trees by the Germans after their conversion to Christianity, is that of the "Stock am Eisen" in Vienna, "The sacred tree into which every apprentice, down to recent times, before setting out on his "Wanderjahre", drove a nail for luck. It now stands in the centre of that great capital, the last remaining vestige of the sacred grove, round which the city has grown up, and in sight of the proud cathedral, which has superseded and ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... the nature of the foundation. The clearing away was most difficult. Parts had to be blown up with gunpowder. It is said that when he was giving instructions to the builders on clearing away the ruins, he called on a workman to bring a great flat stone, which he might use as a centre in marking out on the ground the circle of the dome. The man took out of the rubbish the first large stone that came to hand, which was a piece of gravestone, and, when it was laid down, it was found to have on it ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... a very good pen-wiper, in pleasant, simple taste, and I thanked Eliza for it several times most warmly. At my suggestion it was placed on the centre-table in the drawing-room. One never wrote there, but it seemed naturally to belong to ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other (so outright, so lusty)—yet all the while having for centre, for magnet, a young man alone in ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... his grave under an intricate network of wires and cables, for Bun Hill became not only a sort of minor centre of power distribution—the Home Counties Power Distribution Company set up transformers and a generating station close beside the old gas-works—but, also a junction on the suburban mono-rail system. Moreover, every tradesman in the place, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Names, and if I do not move (By my great power) the Centre of their Love From his fixt being, let me never more Warm me by those fair ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... entered during the last verse of the Processional Hymn. As Genevieve was known to the usher in charge of the centre aisle, they were shown to a pew farther forward ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... burst from her lips, more perhaps from horror at the demoniac cruelty of the man, than from fear. The next moment, a gigantic bloodhound, gaunt, mud-bespattered and with the froth of fury oozing from his distended jaws, plunged through the doorway and stood glaring in the centre of the cabin. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... them, and few of the beauties of Art stamped in, brought him, as a second feeling, a pride in her that almost equalled his first sentiment of surprise. Christopher's attention was meanwhile attracted from the constitution of the group to the words of the speaker in the centre of it—words to which her auditors ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... which are the world's fair eyes, Look down into the world, the world to see; And as they turn or wander in the skies, Survey all things that on this centre be. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... sword amain, The earth to its centre trembled; The small birds swooned and fell on the plain, On the bough that were singing assembled. "Come down to me, knave," bold Ramund he said, "Or by God I shall rave," said ...
— The Fountain of Maribo - and other ballads • Anonymous
... 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, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... in the centre of the table, and gathered together the soiled plates with a wooden stolidity. To all appearances she might not have heard a word that had been said. Margot seized the hot-water-jug, and shivered ostentatiously, trusting to pity to prevail where guile ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a shiver to the centre of his being. It seemed to him as though the foundations of his life were shaken. He had never experienced such a feeling before. He did not think it was fear; rather it was awesomeness. For a moment he regarded life, his ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... beetle by a thread to the nail, taking care that the sex of the beetle is that of the fugitive. As the beetle crawls round and round, it will coil the thread about the nail, thus shortening its tether and drawing nearer to the centre at every circuit. So by virtue of homoeopathic magic the runaway slave will be drawn back to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... marry. They were nice girls,—of that there could be no doubt; there was no false modesty in their attitude toward "society"; nor did they pretend—as so many silly people did, that they were not attempting to get anywhere in particular, that it was less desirable to be in the centre than on the dubious outer walks. They, too, were so glad ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... very well describe it," said the sculptor; "but you enter on a large open space, in the centre of which stands an obelisk, which is a thousand ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... scavenger's daughter. Imagine a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well and just above the pivot that unites the blades a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced, and in that position the man would be thrown upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony that insanity took pity. And this was done to keep people from going to Hell—to convince that ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... window of the house, from whence the line of aqueduct could be seen for some distance leaping houses and streets in its undeviating course to the centre of the city, sat the centurion. He was a man of medium height, short necked, and thick set, with blunted features and grizzled hair and beard. Two of the fingers of his left hand were wanting, and a broad scar, the trophy of a severe skirmish among the Alemanni, crossed his right cheek ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Gata, along the south-east coast; Alhamilla, east of the city of Almeria; Gador in the south-west; and, in the west, some outlying ridges of the Sierra Nevada. Three small rivers, the Adra, or Rio Grande de Adra, in the west, the Almeria in the centre, and the Almanzora in the north and east, flow down from the mountains to the sea. On the south coast is the Gulf of Almeria, 25 m. wide at its entrance, and terminating, on the cast, in the Cabo de Gata, the southernmost point of eastern Spain. The climate is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... this time, come to the conclusion that Elaine was the storm centre of the peculiar train of events that followed the disappearance of ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... leisurely towards us, those eight ugly craft, about a cable length apart, steering towards the very centre of our line. As they approached night fell rapidly. But still they held on. I could see their lights hoisted one by one, and strained my ears to catch the first sound of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... through. The thousand-foot roof had a sprung a leak. Three separate and distinct streams of water ran as from spigots. I lowered my torch. The canvas tarpaulin shone with wet, and in its exact centre glimmered a pool of water three inches deep and at least ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Propense his heart to idols, he is held In silly dotage on created things Careless of their Creator. And that low And sordid gravitation of his powers To a vile clod, so draws him with such force Resistless from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward, his ambition is to sink, To reach a depth profounder still, and still Profounder, in the fathomless abyss Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death. But ere he gain ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... The centre of the shoal was gained, and a feeling of hope and exultation began to rise in the breasts of the crew when a terrific shock caused the little schooner to quiver from stem to stern, while an involuntary cry burst ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... bring at least three hundred" do not correspond with the still existing marks on line 7. The portion of a letter appearing in the middle of the line would not, as far as I can judge, be a part of any of the words suggested which would come at the centre of that line. It might be a part of a capital "W," or an initial "p," or it might be a final "d" turned back to the left, and the last letter in the line looks as though it was intended for an "e." In support of this theory, I compare it with the "e" at the end of the word "true" ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... length, however, wearied with delay, we resolved to prosecute our voyage; and although the sea seemed more than usually agitated, yet we ventured forwards. The gulph of Carybdis, which we approached, seemed whirled round in such a manner, as to form a vast hollow, verging to a point in the centre. Proceeding onwards, and turning my eyes to Etna, I saw it cast forth large volumes of smoke, of mountainous sizes, which entirely covered the whole island, and blotted out the very shores from my view. This, together with the dreadful noise, and the sulphureous stench which was strongly ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... . would run in a half-circle, keeping his head turned always toward the centre, and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last he ran away into the brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gone mad, but on returning to the house found no other alteration in his manner than what was obviously due ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... her she would be very kind if she would oblige, for just then two neighbors happened to be there who had not been present the day before, and who had come down purposely to see the performance. The concierge called to everybody to make room, they cleared the centre of the apartment, pushing one another with their elbows, and quivering with curiosity. Gervaise, however, hung down her head. Really, she was afraid it might upset her. Desirous though of showing that she did not refuse for the sake of being pressed, she tried two or three little ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... officers were seated with their host round the camp-stove which stood hissing and spluttering in the centre of the hut. The dogs and Rainy-Moon were housed ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the centre of the golden burnished room, Danced the dancers, played the players, to the cadence of its fall, While out upon the balcony, amid the vernal gloom, A nightingale was singing, and with sadness ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... object we saw on the west was a small rock, on which stood two fire altars of a peculiar form: their dimensions were five feet square at the base, and three at the top, and they were five feet high. There were pillars or pilasters at the corners, and arches in the sides. In the centre of each of these, near the top, was a square basin, about eight inches in diameter, and six in depth, for the reception of the fire, formerly used by the disciples of Zoroaster ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... his advice in all matters relating to the military affairs of the kingdom. The count magnified the dangers that threatened the frontier under his command, and prevailed upon the king to send thither the best horses and arms remaining from the time of Witiza, there being no need of them in the centre of Spain in its present tranquil state. The residue, at his suggestion, was stationed on the frontiers of Gallia; so that the kingdom was left almost wholly without defence against any sudden irruption ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... ran across the lawn as if to stop him, but they soon had reason to duck and recoil. Even as he vanished up street for the second time, he let the big yellow bag fly from his hand, so that it fell in the centre of the garden, scattering the company like a bomb, and nearly damaging Dr. Warner's hat for the third time. Long before they had collected themselves, the cab had shot away with a shriek that went into ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... with everybody's business; and to profane the sweet stillness of the place with harsh squawks. The mistress of the little home in the oak, who had conducted her domestic affairs so discreetly, one day found herself the centre of a mob; for these birds early learn the power of combination. She came to her nest followed by the impertinent sparrows, who flew as close as possible, none of them more than a foot from her. They alighted as near as they could find perches, crowded nearer, stretched up, flew over, and tried ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... ounces of flour on the pastry board, make a hole or well in the centre; into this well put two tablespoonfuls of cream, three ounces of grated Parmesan, or any rich dry cheese, four ounces of butter, half a teaspoonful of salt, quarter of a teaspoonful of white pepper, and the same quantity of grated nutmeg, together with as much ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... indeed, has resolved to declare the glory of his name in this world, therefore the heavens and the firmament are made preachers of that glory, Psal. xix. 1, 2, &c. But in a special manner, his majesty's glorious name is manifested in man, and about man. He hath set man, as it were, in the centre or midst of the creation, that all the creatures might direct or bring in their praises unto him, to be offered up in his and their name, to the Lord their Maker, by him, as the common mouth of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... windows, and without chimneys; and the door so frail and badly made, that every blast finds its way through it. The floors are mud, the beds straw or ferns strewed sometimes on stones raised above the ground. The father and mother sleep in the centre, the children at each side, and the pig and horse, or goat, as may be, at one end. How dreadful it is to contemplate that such should be a fact existing in a Christian country—and worse, that this most fearful reality, which arises ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... either stirrup: heard of a sudden shrieks and cries and the thunder of galloping hooves; was aware of the flash of bright armour to his left, rank upon rank, where charged Duke Ivo's van-ward before whose furious onset Sir Benedict's weary pikemen were hurled back—their centre swayed, broke, and immediately all was dire ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... then there was a cheer. The two teams went rollicking and tumbling up and down the field for a few moments; then Collingwood and the Harvard captain met in the centre, Mr. Barclay tossed a coin, and the players went to their positions. Mr. Barclay blew a whistle; the ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness off;—he looked up at the sky—and was met by a blinding flash which tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire in the centre of the blackness—and at this he made some inarticulate sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... before me. There was so much cool impertinence in this proceeding, and in the fellow's manner, that I could with difficulty refrain from flinging the paper in his face. He was one of the little and vulgar clique of which Perkins was a sort of centre. The whole set were conscious enough of the low estimate which was put upon them by the gentlemen of the bar. Denied caste, they were disposed to force their way to recognition by the bully's process, and stung by some recent discouragements, Mr. Perkins was, perhaps, rather ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... hour was about half gone, some men of the rudest class—wretches from the tombs about the city—came and stopped in front of the centre cross. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... eight hundred feet wide, and adorned on all sides with porticoes, shops, and other edifices, on the erection of which large sums had been expended, and the appearance of which was very imposing, especially as it was much enhanced by numerous statues. In the centre of the Forum was the plain called the Curtian Lake, where Curtius is said to have cast himself into a chasm or gulf, which closed on him, and so he saved his country. On one side were the elevated seats or ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... Ireland and there continue the work begun by Patrick. After spending some time with Brigit at Kildare, and establishing various religious houses, he settled at Cluain Iraird, in the territory of Ui Neill: now called Clonard, in Co. Meath. His establishment there became the chief centre of instruction in Ireland in the early part of the sixth century. He died in 549, at an advanced age: indeed, he is traditionally said to have lived 140 years. Nothing now remains of the monastery, though there were some ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... Gettysburg lasted three days (July 1-3, 1863). On the first, the army of Northern Virginia was uniformly successful; on the second, the fortunes of battle swayed to and fro; on the third, Lee decided to make a Napoleonic decisive attack with half his available troops against Meade's centre. But the spirited attack of the first 15,000, after penetrating the line, was checked, and the remaining 15,000 did not arrive in support, so that the attack died down, was repulsed, ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... up from below. We perceived a number of small holes in the sides—the commencement of galleries. We discovered, on digging into it, that each led to a broad gallery four feet in diameter. This again led down into the centre of ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... shuttered windows. The street lamps were out. Not an automobile was to be seen, not a hurrying human figure, not a dog. No night prowler disturbed that ghastly silence. The town lay dead under the clear and peaceful light of the moon. The white paving stones of the square gleamed, and in the centre, saturnine and defiant, stood uninjured the statue of Jean Bart, privateer and ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... gentleman of moderate estate, trying to eke out a smallish income by literature, plumped down into the centre of as fine a tangle of mystery as ever came out of the ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... which time the Turk had had more than he had bargained for north and east of Jerusalem. The 1st Leinsters and 5th Connaught Rangers found the enemy in a stubborn mood west of Deir Ibzia, but they broke down the opposition in the proper Irish style and rapidly reached their objectives. The centre group started one hour after the left and got their line without much difficulty. The right group was hotly opposed. Beginning their advance at eight o'clock the 229th Brigade had reached the western edge of the famous ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... will be 'Small party only'; one shot, followed at an interval of ten seconds by two in succession, will mean 'Retire to the point agreed on before we separated'; followed by three shots in quick succession, will be 'Close in to the centre'. We can think of others afterwards, but I think that will do to begin with. I know that you have all pocketbooks, so take down ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... the contempt of death is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human life with a soft and easy tranquillity, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct. Which is the reason why all the rules centre and concur in this one article. And although they all in like manner, with common accord, teach us also to despise pain, poverty, and the other accidents to which human life is subject, it is not, nevertheless, with the same solicitude, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... The schoolmaster found her a charming talker and an interested listener. Marjorie and Coristine sat on a sofa with Muggins between them, while the working geologist banged about some photographs on a centre table. At dinner, to which Mrs. Thomas soon summoned them, Coristine had the post of honour with Marjorie to his right. Mrs. Carmichael sat at the foot of the table with Wilkinson by her side, and ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... of New Jersey; and by the 5th of January the American headquarters, and main body of the army, were established at Morristown in the Jersey hills, the left resting upon the Hudson, thus recovering touch with the strategic centre of interest. This menacing position of the Americans, upon the flank of the line of communications from New York to the Delaware, compelled Howe to contract abruptly the lines he had extended so lightly; and the campaign he was forced ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... dress makes us grotesque. We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken. We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour. On November 13th, 1895, I was brought down here from London. From two o'clock till half-past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress, and handcuffed, for the world to look at. I had been taken out of the hospital ward without a moment's notice being given to me. Of all possible objects I was the most ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... seems to be breaking up the solid earth under our feet—there is always some point and standard of sanity—a Kent or an Horatio—to which all enormities and passionate errors may be referred; to which the agitated mind of the spectator settles back as upon its centre of gravity, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... in a comfortable nap, it had a contrary effect on my exhilarated nerves. I strolled to the verandah to get a breath of fresh air from the river, but soon dashed off in the darkness to the sacred precincts of the harem! I was not detected till I reached nearly the centre of the sanctuary where Ormond confined his motley group of black, mulatto, and quarteroon wives. The first dame who perceived me was a bright mulatto, with rosy checks, sloe-like eyes, coquettish turban, and most voluptuous mouth, whom I afterwards discovered ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... forbearance by Robert, at last in self-defence, snapped at and lightly bit him, in revenge for which the violent tempered boy vowed to kill him, and the very next opportunity he had, he seized upon the little pet, and tying a string and stone about its neck, bore the dog to the large pond in the centre of the part, where he threw him into the deepest part. Charles at that moment came in sight, and at once saw the act. Without pausing to take off his clothes or any part of them, he sprang at once into the pond ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... in home, and in the discharge of all those quiet virtues of which home is the centre. Her husband will be to her the object of all her care, solicitude and affection. She will see nothing but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... Region of the city. Within that Region are included the Capitol, the Forum, the Colosseum and the Palatine, with the palaces of the Caesars. It takes in, roughly, the land covered by the earliest city; and, throughout the greater part of Roman history, it was the centre of political and military life. It merited something better than a diminutive for a name; yet, in the latest revolution of things, it has fared better, and has been more respected, than many other quarters, and still the memories of great times and deeds cling ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... are late!" she exclaimed, sinking the lesser into the greater offence after the habit of wives. As if he had all night instead of five minutes before him in which to dress, he stood in the centre of the room, blandly looking ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Scott having assumed the command, arrived at Fort Drane on the 13th March 1836. He had had previously to contend with heavy rains and almost impracticable roads, and was encumbered with a heavy baggage train; his whole force amounted to nearly 5,000 men. This he divided into a centre and two wings, with a view to scour the whole country, and force the Indians from their retreats; but in vain. The Indians being on the flanks of each division, occasional skirmishes took place; but when the troops arrived to where the Indians were supposed to be, not a man was to be seen, nor ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... was two hours and ten minutes in passing a given point, and was about three miles long. The centre of it had reached the Capitol and was returning before the rear had left Willard's. In one single detachment were over six thousand civil employees of the Government. Arriving at the Capitol, the remains were placed in the centre of the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... midday a frowsy-headed woman clacking across the flags in her wooden-heeled shoes made echoes whose garrulity was interrupted by no other sound. In the early morning, when the lid of the public cistern in the centre of the campo was unlocked, there was a clamor of voices and a clangor of copper vessels, as the housewives of the neighborhood and the local force of strong-backed Frinlan water-girls drew their day's supply of ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... of interest in these affairs to both of these men was Zillah; yet, though the conversation revolved around her as a centre, no direct allusion was for some time made to her present situation. Yet all the while Lord Chetwynde was filled with a feverish curiosity to know where she was, whether she was still with Obed's family, or had left them; whether she was far away ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Porte St. Martin was in flames, as were many other buildings. A large number of troops with piled arms occupied the centre of the street, taking their turn to rest before they relieved their comrades in the work of assault. Presently he saw down a side street a party of soldiers with some prisoners. He turned down to see what was going on. The officer ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... of family life throughout the English-speaking world leading to a decline in morality as it has generally been understood. A remedy must be found before this decline leads to the decay of the family itself as the centre and core of our national life ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.
... kindly amusements of the day, at the holly and mistletoe clustering round the lamps—the mistletoe, under which the gallant Florac, skilled in all British usages, vowed he would have his privilege. But the mistletoe was clustered round the lamp, the lamp was over the centre of the great round table—the innocent gratification which he proposed to himself ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... signs of the Zodiac, each with its appropriate legend: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces—in gothic characters. A flaming golden sun occupied the centre; the animal figures, drawn in somewhat archaic style, as one sees in mosaics, were extraordinarily brilliant. The whole thing was worthy to grace an Emperor's bed, and had, in fact, formed part of the trousseau of Bianca Maria Sforza, niece of Ludovico the Moor, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... affected that it will be impossible for him to do so. Isn't this cheering news? Here are seven hundred men in the Massachusetts legislature, who, if they can be moved to protest against the unconstitutional proceedings of Congress, will shake this nation to its centre, and rock it in a revolutionary storm that must either sink ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney |
