"Elliptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more than $3,000,000 annually; and the capital invested in horses, tracks, stables, farms, etc., is enormous. The tracks are level, with start and finish directly in front of the grand stand, and are either one mile or one-half mile in length. They are always of earth, and are usually elliptical in shape, though the "kite-shaped track" was for a time popular on account of its increased speed. In this there is one straight stretch of one-third mile, then a wide turn of one-third mile, and then a straight ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of three stories, not placed one above the other, but descending in terraces from the top of the hill, deserves a visit or two. You will there see a pretty court surrounded with columns and small rooms, one of which—of an elliptical shape and opening on a garden, and lighted by the evening twilight, but shielded from the sun by windows and by curtains, the glass panes and rings of which have been found—is the pleasantest nook cleared out among ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... of Mercury, which of course is within that of the Earth, is not circular, but elliptical, and very eccentric, so elongated that at certain times of the year this planet is extremely remote from the solar focus, and receives only half as much heat and light as at the opposite period; and, in consequence, his distance from the Earth ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... the King's Palace; and this queer old lane running up through the walls like a sewer is Cuckoo lane; and that is Bugle street, where in olden times the warden blew; and here are the remains of Canute's palace, with its elliptical and circular arches and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... two theatres of wood, placed on pivots, so that they could be turned round, spectators and all, and placed face to face, thus forming a double theatre, or amphitheatre, which ending suggested its elliptical shape. Statilius Taurus, the friend of Augustus, B.C. 30, erected a more durable amphitheatre, partly of stone and partly of wood, in the Campus Martius. Others were afterwards built by Caligula and Nero. The amphitheatre of Nero was of wood, and in ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... things, Raggles was a poet. He was called a tramp; but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveller, a naturalist and a discoverer. But most of all he was a poet. In all his life he never wrote a line of verse; he lived his poetry. His Odyssey would have been a Limerick, had it been written. But, to linger with the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... Eddy to preach to us in rhetoric? 'Before you attempt composition, be sure that you have a rounded thought.' This isn't round, it's elliptical. Big Olaf is a friend useful. He's a shrewd fellow, who's been looking stupid for some time. The 'bunch' hasn't been treating him square. You can guess what that means. Anyway, he is sore as well as shrewd, and now I fancy ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... travel in long elliptical or parabolic orbits round the sun at great velocities. They seem to consist partly of glowing vapours, especially hydrogen, and partly of meteoric stones. 'Shooting stars,' that is to say, stones which fall to the earth, are known to ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... slightly projecting stage of two planks only. The paddles were six and a half feet in length, much clumsier than those seen in other parts of New Guinea, and without the carving on the handle, the blade also differed slightly in shape, being more elliptical. After paddling inshore a short distance they made sail and landed near the point. The sail resembled the common one of the Louisiade, being long, narrow, square at the ends, and stretched between two yards or masts, and in setting was merely ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... parallel genesis, but there is also a parallelism of results. For lyrical poetry differs from epic poetry, just as lyrical music differs from recitative: each still further intensifies the natural language of the emotions. Lyrical poetry is more metaphorical, more hyperbolic, more elliptical, and adds the rhythm of lines to the rhythm of feet; just as lyrical music is louder, more sonorous, more extreme in its intervals, and adds the rhythm of phrases to the rhythm of bars. And the known fact that out of epic poetry the stronger passions developed lyrical poetry as their appropriate ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... the last conclusions of philosophy. This mysterious picture is very low in tone, conforming to Watts' rule to make the colouring suit the subject. Here there is nothing hard or defined; the spirit of the universe is merely suggested or hinted at, his great wings enclose all. The elliptical form of this composition is seen again in "Death Crowning Innocence" and "The Dweller in the Innermost," and the same expressive indefiniteness and lowness of the colour tones. In the latter effort we have the figure of Conscience, winged, ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... that circular or elliptical tubes might better answer the intended purpose; and in March, 1845, he gave instructions to two of his assistants to prepare drawings of such a structure, the tubes being made with a double thickness ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... one of the surest signs that they are going to pieces. The Romans did at the last, and Rome and England are parallel cases. As Mrs. Le Roy Jennings says, they are parasitic nations. What did the Romans add to Greek art? The Greeks had this'—he made an elliptical movement of his hands—'the Romans did that to it'—he described a circle, then shrugged his shoulders, convinced that ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... yellowish-grey tinge, more or less rufous on the head, neck, shoulder and sides of body; a hairy brown muzzle, with pale under-lip; long whiskers, some white, the posterior ones dark; under-parts white; fur soft and fine. The upper lip is lobed as in the hare; ears elliptical, with rounded tops. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale |
