"Spar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... buffeted them cruelly. This was a thing he had once been accustomed to, but as he clutched at the canvas it seemed to him incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the reeling spar. Still, that banging, thrashing canvas must be mastered somehow, though it was snow-soaked and almost unyielding, and he clawed at it furiously with bleeding hands while twice the bowsprit raked a sea and dipped him waist-deep in. At length the other man flung him the end of the gasket, and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... is a "birdsmouth joint," a simple joint which can be readily made by the handsaw, used when a spar fits on the wall plate. A nail is shown securing it ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... replied, "nothing. Yes; about a quarter of a mile on there's a spar sticking up; it may be the ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... and you should have seen it. From top to bottom it was one mass of holes. One bullet passed through my combination and hit a can of tobacco. Another cut a main spar on one of my wings, and another hit my stabilizer, tearing it half in two. One other hit my gas tank and put a hole clear through it. Luckily my gas was low and it did not explode, but, believe me, I ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... stimulus from his intercourse with his brother and Ranney, and profiting by their hints and suggestions, he plunged more eagerly into law-books than ever. He constructed a light boat, with a pair of sculls, and rigged also with a spar and sail, with which to traverse the pond, with places to secure it on the opposite shores; and early passers along the State road, that overlooked the placid waters, often marked a solitary boatman pulling a little ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... now strong, and deep, and swift of pace, rushing madly in; and he was cumbered with that weight of osier and of weed, which yet he never yielded, because it had been her trust. With each yard that the tide bore him forward, by so much it bore us backward. There was but the length of a spar between us, and yet ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... rest, These are clinging to a spar. One with secret in his breast Is by sense of guilt oppressed, Which keeps his ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... searching further along the shore for driftwood, he came suddenly upon a tangle of wreckage piled high among the rocks. It would serve as fuel, and he began to drag large pieces to his shelter. Three trips he made, and was just lifting the end of a broken spar, when right at his feet, and half-buried in the sand, he saw a white object. The night was fast approaching and he was in a hurry, but some impulse made him stoop, and there in the gathering gloom ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... length, where at my feet the sunlit waters broke On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock; The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear lines on high, Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... life solely to the wish of Smudge to keep me as his slave. From that instant every appearance of stupidity vanished from this fellow's countenance and manner, and he became the moving spirit, and I might say the soul, of all the proceedings of his companions. As for myself, there I sat, lashed to a spar, utterly unable to help myself, an unwilling witness of all that followed. I felt the imminent danger of our situation, but I think I felt the disgrace of having such a surprise occur in my watch, more even than the personal ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... two Nicol prisms of Iceland spar and balsam, arranged in such a way that under ordinary conditions the light coming from the spark is stopped by polarization and prevented from reaching the camera. Between these two prisms, however, is a solution of chemicals ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... wind, she was like a hare before the hounds, so quickly did she go. Her slim black body, her white, beautifully set sails—not a strake or an inch of canvas on her that he did not know and love. And more thought was given by him to the proper peaking of a spar and the exact setting of a leech than to the profits of the cargo. It was like having one's own country, and his cabin aboard was like his own castle—the little stateroom with the swinging-lamps, and the ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more than ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... would, too, for he had threatened to be the last man in Maida's world; the Countess was now the last woman in his, and he would hold on to her and her money as a drowning man grasps at a substantial spar. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of sailing on the Great Lakes, it was requisite to dress the yacht in her proper array, with her high tapering masts; the cords of her rigging stretching from spar to spar with the beautiful accuracy of a picture; and so equipped, as to give her the appearance of a majestic, white winged sea-bird resting gracefully on ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... both rose-coloured and white limestone, similar to that we had seen at Geera; this was surrounded by basalt, and the presence of limestone entirely mystifles my ideas of geology. Immense quantities of very beautiful spar lay upon the surface in all directions; some of this was perfectly white, and veined like an agate—I believe it was white cornelian; other fragments, of sizes equalling sixty or seventy pounds weight, were beautifully green, suggesting the presence of copper. Large masses of exquisite ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... towards Widemouth Bay, it is irresistibly tempting to quote a few verses of rank doggerel, written on a shipwreck which happened there on November 23, 1824. The verses were probably inspired by terrible stress of emotion, and suggest the idea that they were written with a spar rather than with a pen; but no doubt they were for ever the joy and ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... . You may speak what is true to you,— but it becomes an error when received into his mind. . . . If his mind is a refracting and polarising medium—if the crystalline lens of his soul's eye has been changed into tourmaline or Labrador spar- -the only way to give him a true image of the fact, is to present it to him already properly altered in form, and adapted to suit the obliquity of his vision; in order that the very refractive power of his faculties may, instead of distorting it, correct it, and make it straight ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... When I was robb'd of all my peace of mind, My cruel fortune left me still one blessing, One solitary blessing, to console me; It was my fame.—'Tis a rich jewel, Percy, And I must keep it spotless, and unsoil'd: But thou wouldst plunder what e'en Douglas spar'd, And rob this single ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... its low, heavily beamed ceiling and walls of birch, stained to a rich sienna, glistening in fresh spar varnish; the fire licking up the throat of the wide chimney-piece built of rough boulders from the bed of Big Shanty; the floor laid with rare rugs; the easy chairs and shaded lights—all gave to this living room a charm that none in ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... the sunlit cordage Behold the climbing tar, With his shadow beside on the sail white and wide, Climbing a shadow-spar! Up the glassy stream with issuing steam The cutter crawls again, All winged with cloud and buzzing loud, Like a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Holden, bounding along with strides which showed that the habits of his forest-life were not forgotten. At any other time the apparition of the Solitary would have imparted anything but pleasure, but now it was as welcome as a spar to a shipwrecked sailor. Holden advanced straight to the carriage, but before he could speak the black ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Portions of the rock may, nevertheless, be selected partially free from this difficulty, and which are possessed of sufficient compactness to render them of value as a coarse building stone; horn-stone, striped jasper (imperfect); hog-toothed spar, calcareous spar, and fluor spar, are imbedded in the rock, although the ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... and like all other special buoys, such as bell buoys, gas buoys, and automatic sounding buoys, shall be placed to mark special positions either on the coast or in the approaches to harbours. (7) Buoys showing only a mast above water shall be called spar-buoys (fig. 5).[2] (8) Starboard-hand buoys shall always be painted in one colour only. (9) Port-hand buoys shall be painted of another characteristic colour, either single or parti-colour. (10) Spherical buoys (fig. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... The mainmast, an enormous spar of some sixty or seventy feet in length, is stepped almost amidships in a kind of tabernacle, and has neither stays nor shrouds, its only visible support being a wooden prop, which a few feet above the deck takes part of the pressure when running before the ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... of barium (BaO), commonly occurs in combination with sulphuric oxide in the mineral barytes or heavy spar (BaSO{4}), and in combination with carbon dioxide in witherite (BaCO{3}). These minerals are not unfrequently found in large quantity (associated with galena and other metallic sulphides) in lodes. Small isolated crystals of these are frequently found in mining districts. ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... Lord knew what was right: but it's wuss by a deal to see them things than to be in 'em yourself, to my thinkin'. Wal, after a spell I looked agin, and there was somethin' else a-driftin' looked like a spar, it did: and somethin' was lashed to it. My heart! 'twas tossed about like a egg-shell, up and down, and here and thar! 'Twas white, whatever was lashed to it, and I couldn't take my eyes off'n it. 'It can't be alive!' I says, 'whatever it is!' I says. 'But I'll get it, if it takes a leg!' ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... at SPAR,' says the fellow, grinning: 'seven's the main, hey?' and being exceedingly proud of this reminiscence, I bade ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... colors on the head, the face covered with a long white beard—this can be made of flax. The ladies at the table must be costumed in silk or satin dresses, ornamented with spangles, and any kind of jewelry that will look showy; hair decorated with spar beads, hair pins, and plumes. The gentlemen's costume consists of rich velvet suits; long beards. Servants in short white coats, with border on the bottom, red breeches, white hose, and light felt hats with gold bands. Belshazzar's ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... "When you rise to be a regular professional you won't care to spar with nobody without you're well ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... that no young or pretty Parisian could fail to be there. When I arrived, about one o'clock, the crowd already filled the vast bazaar. It was not easy to stand against certain currents that set toward the departments consecrated to spring novelties. Adrift like a floating spar I was swept away and driven ashore amid the baby-linen. There it flung me high and dry among the shop-girls, who laughed at the spectacle of an undergraduate shipwrecked among the necessaries of babyhood. I felt shy, and attaching myself to the fortunes ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Every spar and rope and writhing piece of cordage showed up hard and clear under the vivid light which spluttered and flickered from the highest portion of the forecastle. Beyond the doomed ship, out of the ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... placed it on a wain, and dragged it to the village with the help of an immense team of oxen, numbering as many as forty yoke. Each ox had a garland of flowers fastened to the tip of its horns; and the tall spar itself was twined round with ropes of daffodils, blue-bells, cowslips, primroses, and other early flowers, while its summit was surmounted with a floral crown, and festooned with garlands, various-coloured ribands, kerchiefs, and streamers. The foremost yokes of oxen had bells hung round their ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... booming sound—and it is caught in the bolas! The mast is struck too, and the balls, whirling around and around, lash it and the yard together, with the frumpled canvas between, as tight as a spliced spar! ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... mix his gentle rays with thine; E'en I, by far the meanest of your age, Shall not repent my passion for the stage. Thus did the will almighty disallow, No human force could pluck the golden bough, Which left the tree with ease at Jove's command, And spar'd the labour of the weakest hand. Auspicious fate! that gives me leave to write To you, the muses' glory and delight; Who know to read, nor false encomiums raise, And mortify an author with your praise: Praise wounds a ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... a godsend to her, and everybody else. She still talked revolution, and she was always ready to spar with Lord Buntingford, or other people. But all the same Lucy Friend was often aware of a much more tractable temper, a kind of hesitancy—and appeasement—which, even if it passed away, made her beauty, for ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Swash with great rapidity, and the brig made a bold push at the Stepping-Stones. Spike was a capital pilot. He insisted if he could once gain sight of the spar that was moored on those rocks for a buoy, he should run with great confidence. The two lights were of great assistance, of course; but the revenue vessel could see these lights as well as the brig, and she, doubtless, had an excellent pilot on board. By the time the studding-sails were set ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... utmost of our power. And if there were a lack of competitors, the ridicule of fools would not deter us from hanging up a lifeless image and practising at that. Or if we had no adversary at all, animate or inanimate, should we not venture in the dearth of antagonists to spar by ourselves? In what other manner could we ever study the ...
— Laws • Plato
... the wheel, steering steadily. He carried the "Benson" past the gunboat's bow, some seventy yards away. A cheer went up from the sailors crowding forward on the gunboat's spar deck. The cheer would have sounded, no matter which submarine ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... another; live like cat and dog; differ; dissent &c 489; have a bone to pick, have a crow to pluck with. fall out, quarrel, dispute; litigate; controvert &c (deny) 536; squabble, wrangle, jangle, brangle^, bicker, nag; spar &c (contend) 720; have words &c n.. with; fall foul of. split; break with, break squares with, part company with; declare war, try conclusions; join issue, put in issue; pick a quarrel, fasten a quarrel on; sow dissension, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... returned the woman, with a snort. "Well, whatever you air, you kin jest as eas'ly keep on along that thar road. I ain't got nothing on this place for you. Some of you broke into my smokehouse night befo' last an' stole all the spar' ribs I'd been ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... arms outspread to steady himself, and was half-way to its end before the telltale surge under him gave warning. Then he fell upon the huge stick, rolled under it, and shoved arms and legs under the foot of the sail. Barely had he clutched the spar in fierce embrace before it began its return journey. It was a dizzy sweep across the deck, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... everything (at an alarming sacrifice, I am sorry to say) and inclose draft for net amount. Shall begin to spar for orders at once. I trust everything to you—but, I say, has anybody tried to grow ice in this vicinity? There is Lake ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... solitudes of Lower Canada. Marble of excellent quality, and endless variety of color, is found in different parts of the country, and limestone is almost universal. Labrador produces a beautiful and well-known spar of rich and brilliant tints, ultra-marine, greenish yellow, red, and some of a fine ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... that too!) I play'd my fillie sic a shavie, She's a' bedevil'd with the spavie. My fur ahin's[11] a wordy beast, As e'er in tug or tow was trac'd. The fourth's a Highland Donald hastie, A d—n'd red wud Kilburnie blastie! Forbye a cowt o' cowt's the wale, As ever ran afore a tail. If he be spar'd to be a beast, He'll draw me fifteen pun' at least.— Wheel carriages I ha'e but few, Three carts, an' twa are feckly new; Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token, Ae leg an' baith the trams are broken; I made a poker o' the spin'le, An' my auld ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... was elegance, all splendour! The arches were hung with Tyrian-dyed curtains. The ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of red Bohemian glass. Everywhere were crimson couches and sofas. The housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax, pointed out to my notice some vases of fine purple spar, and on all sides were Turkey carpets and large mirrors. Elegance of taste and fastidious research of ornament could do no more; but what is luxury to the mind ill at ease? or can a restless conscience be stilled by red Bohemian glass or pale ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... much pains he had gaind, he kept with small ado. On the other side Caeesar Borgia (commonly termed Duke Valentine) got his state by his Fathers fortune, and with the same lost it; however that for his own part no pains was spar'd, nor any thing omitted, which by a discreet and valorus man ought to have been done, to fasten his roots in those Estates, which others armes or fortune had bestowed on him; for (as it was formerly said) he that lays not the foundations ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... piles of gray rock jutting out more and more, till they nearly meet at top. Looking upward, through this narrow aperture, you see, high, high above you, a vaulted roof of black rock, studded with brilliant spar, like constellations in the sky, seen at midnight, from the deep clefts of a mountain. This is called the Star Chamber. It makes one think of Schiller's grand description of William Tell sternly waiting for Gessler, among the shadows of the Alps, and of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... to as little Purpose as most of the good Ministers ever did; for we do not read there was one Man converted by him, or at least not one of them left, for that at the Deluge there was either none of them alive, or none spar'd but Noah and his three Sons, and their Wives; and even they are ('tis evident) recorded, not so much to be sav'd for their own Goodness, but because they were his Sons; Nay, without Breach of Charity we may conclude, that at least ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... scientific subjects on which I find notes are, a Paper on the forms of the Teeth of Wheels, communicated to the Philosophical Society on May 2nd; some notes about Musical Concords, and some examination of a strange piece of Iceland Spar. On Apr. 29th I was elected to the Northern Institution (of Inverness); the first compliment that I received from ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... pressing her close was the realization of the imminent danger threatening the boy. This was no time for quibbling—no time for nice shadings of propriety. Even if this meant a sacrifice of something of herself, she must cling to the one spar that promised a chance for her brother's safety. As Donaldson's eyes met hers, she felt ashamed that she had hesitated even long enough for these thoughts to flash through ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... property which some transparent bodies have of producing, either on their surface or within their substance, light different in color from that of its origin. This happens, for example, when green crystals of fluor spar afford blue reflections of light. Glass may be rendered fluorescent, as is seen in the Geisler and Crookes tubes. Edison conceived the project of using this phenomenon to get back the invisible ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... them both; and with one voice propos'd The only means whence Truth might be disclos'd; That, when the Summer Months should shrink the rill, And scarce its languid stream would turn the Mill, When the Spring broods, and Pigs, and Lambs were rear'd, (A time when George and Phoebe might be spar'd,) Their birth-place they should visit once again, To try with joint endeavours to obtain From Record, or Tradition, what might be To chain, or set their chain'd affections free: Affinity beyond all doubts to prove; Or clear the road for Nature and for Love. Never, till now, did PHOEBE ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... would have been regarded by an Australian clipper or Western Ocean packet-ship in the writer's early days as a hard whole-sail breeze, perhaps with the kites taken in. It was rare that these dashing commanders ever carried away a spar, and it was not because they did not carry on, but because they knew every trick of the vessel, the wind, and the sea. It was a common saying in those days when vessels were being overpowered with canvas, "The old lady was talking to us ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... pains Shall be well spar'd, and your deep eloquence Be worthily applauded amongst ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... made a line fast to themselves, and worked away with a good will, and soon got the deck and the house over the engine as tight as a bottle. The smoke-stack, which was well forward, had been broken down by a spar when the masts had been cut, and as the waves washed into the hole that it left, the captain had this plugged up with old sails, well fastened down. It was a dreadful thing to see the ship a-lying with her bows clean under ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... as she knows," ses Alf; "but there was four of them saved, so why not five? Mightn't 'e have floated away on a spar or something and been picked up? Can't you dream it three nights running, and tell 'er that you feel certain ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... See the noble fellow's face As the big ship, with a bound, Clears the entry like a hound, Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide seas profound! 15 See, safe through shoal and rock, How they follow in a flock, Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, Not a spar that comes to grief! 20 The peril, see, is past, All are harbored to the last, And just as Herve Riel hollas "Anchor!"—sure as fate, Up the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... making spars, such as are used by thatchers, with great rapidity. She wore a leather apron for this purpose, which was also much too large for her figure. On her left hand lay a bundle of the straight, smooth sticks called spar-gads—the raw material of her manufacture; on her right, a heap of chips and ends—the refuse—with which the fire was maintained; in front, a pile of the finished articles. To produce them she took up each gad, looked critically at it from end to end, cut it ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... vaporous stillness. The whole air was full of blue haze, that softened the outlines of objects without hiding them. The sea lay like so much glass; every ship and boat was double; every line and rope and spar had its counterpart; and it seemed hard to say which was the more real, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... in the disaster. I was by her side when the steamer was struck. We had both concluded to go on deck to join you. With the first terrible lurch we were both thrown headlong into the water. I did my utmost to save her, but it was not to be. A floating spar struck her, and she went down before ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... mariner of the India-shawl, disregarding the complaint of the burgher. "The times are getting heavy for men of metal, as may be seen by the manner in which yon cruiser wears out her ground-tackle, instead of trying the open sea. May I spring every spar I carry, but I would have the boat out and give her an airing, before to-morrow, if the Queen would condescend to put your humble servant in charge of the craft! The man lies there, at his anchors, as if he had a good freight of real Hollands in his hold, and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... comes along old Ocean's trackless way— A warrior scenting conflict from afar And fearing not defeat nor battle-scar Nor all the might of wind and dashing spray; Her foaming path to triumph none may stay For in the East, there shines her morning star; She feels her strength in every shining spar As one who grasps his sword ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... should think, at least. It was a surprise." A spar had been fitted as a rudder, and the raft had now gained nearer the shore than it ever had done before. The men were in high spirits at the prospect, and every man was sitting on his own store of dollars, which, in their eyes, increased in value, in proportion as did ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... summer or winter, Hurricane nights like these, When spar and topsail are rag and splinter ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... Diamond Bank, and with pretty much the same sort of weather, too, when one of them things boarded us, making its appearance on the spindle of the vane at our main-topmast head. It wavered about for a minute or two, exactly like that thing just now, and then rolled, as it might be, down the spar until it met the topmast-stay, down which it travelled to the foremast-head, and from thence it came down the topsail sheet to the deck, where it bursted. Ten minutes after that happened, sir, we were struck by a squall that ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... walked briskly through the crisp stubble. A little later Beulah came down to the corral with her milk-pails, and the cows, comfortably chewing where they rested on their warm spots of earth, rose slowly and with evident great reluctance at her approach. A spar of light blue smoke ascended in a perpendicular column from the kitchen chimney; motherly hens led their broods forth to forage; pigs grunted with rising enthusiasm from near-by pens, and calves voiced insistent demands from their quarters. The Harris farm, like ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... People making booms and getting water. A.M. Got on board a spar for sprit-sail yard: carpenter making ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... this that lay at my feet? A woman, lashed to a spar, and apparently dead. When I picked her up, though, she opened her eyes and shut them again. Enough! this was no time to think of peculiar difficulties. I lugged her to the warm room in the light-house where I sat and lived. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... large proportion of the Chinese were unable to swim, and those of them who possessed no spar or piece of plank to cling to either strove to save themselves by clutching at the nearest swimmer, or fought to tear their more fortunate companions from their supports and seize them for themselves. There were many exhibitions of mad brutality, selfishness, and cowardice, as there ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... discovered that the vessel was among breakers; and when she struck he was dashed from the rigging. He could give no account of what further happened, beyond remembering that he was clinging at one time to a spar, and saw his ship backing (as he described ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... the light of the comet is, nevertheless, borrowed from the sun, for it has one property belonging to it that only reflected light can manifest. It is capable of being polarized by prisms of double-refracting spar. Polarization of this character is only possible when the light that is operated upon has already been reflected from an imperfectly ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... had come back to Widow Rippet's, for ye would hae spar't me a hard ride. Scarcely had ye ta'en the road when my Lord mindit that he had neglekit to gie you the sign, by the which ye were to make yoursel and message kent to his friends, and I was sent after ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... that slight spar within her arms, the mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a second I saw the mass of spar all tangled up with sail rise up on a wave as it drifted past. I found myself wondering why we had all been in the shadow of death only a couple of minutes before. There was no thought of danger now. I ran below for the balsam, which I found ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... but laughing, back from the war within twenty-four hours! Clethera heard the broom-handle strike the floor as one hears the far-off fall of a spar on a ship in harbor. She put her palms together, without flying into his arms or even offering ...
— The Mothers Of Honore - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the crews. The boats were loaded in the evening of Jan. 6th, as it had been necessary to give the paint a little time to dry. On the 4th, I had sent Clayton and Mulholland to the nearest cypress range for a mast and spar, and on the evening of that day some blacks had visited us; but they sat on the bank of the river, preserving a most determined silence; and, at length, left us abruptly, and apparently in great ill humour. In the disposition of the loads, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... when, being mad as brute beasts, they seized me and, lifting me, hurled me into the raging waters, I did but utter one prayer to Isis and made ready for death. But it was fated that I should not die; for, when I rose to the surface of the water, I saw a spar of wood floating near me, to which I swam and clung. And a great wave came and swept me, riding, as it were, upon the spar, as when a boy I had learned to do in the waters of the Nile, past the bulwarks of the galley where the fierce-faced ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... sedative and idle resort. The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he alone who can be accused of the thrift of craft. There is at the Warm Springs a thriving mill for crushing and pulverizing barites, known vulgarly as heavy-spar. It is the weight of this heaviest of minerals, and not its lovely crystals, that gives it value. The rock is crushed, washed, sorted out by hand, to remove the foreign substances, then ground and subjected to acids, and at the end of the process it is as white ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... defence against the broadsides, even when delivered at close range. The eight-inch shells of the Hartford buried themselves about half their diameter in our armor, and crumbled into fragments. All of our casualties occurred on the spar deck; our gallant commander being mortally wounded there; and many of the mechanics, who were quartered on board the tenders alongside of us, were killed or wounded. The McRae and the Manassas were in the stream in time to take an active part in the conflict; the former being considerably ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... a man who has slept on the hard deck, on the bare ground, on a coil of ropes; and once on a floating spar, when I thought sleep was death, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... been gilding everything from masthead to floating spar gathered in its forces, and for one moment seemed to rest upon Liberty's torch, throwing the statue into clear relief, and then dropped rapidly behind the river's night-cloud bank, and presently lights began to glimmer far ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... never had a more adroit counsel. Like a good lawyer, Douglas seemed to feel himself in duty bound to spar for every technical advantage, and to construe the law, wherever possible, in favor of his client. At the same time he did not forget that the House was the jury in this case, and capable of human emotions upon which he might play. At times he became declamatory ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... rising to his glory), and professional scullers (those were the days of Hanlan), and the like. No man talked of his own doings or of those of his friends, for he and his friends did nothing, except perhaps to spar for an hour or so once or twice a week, or go through perfunctory gymnastics for their ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... wood, or a shield of raw hide; piercing that, they reckon that their shafts will go through armour too. So, Lycinus, tell Hermotimus from us that his teachers fierce straw targets, and then say they have disposed of armed men; or paint up figures of us, spar at them, and, after a not surprising success, think they have beaten us. But we shall severally quote against them Achilles's ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... present day under the name of the Phase Law. We know that by phases are designated the homogeneous substances into which a system is divided; thus carbonate of lime, lime, and carbonic acid gas are the three phases of a system which comprises Iceland spar partially dissociated into lime and carbonic acid gas. The number of phases added to the number of independent components—that is to say, bodies whose mass is left arbitrary by the chemical formulas of the substances entering into the reaction—fixes the general form of the ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... by new arrivals from both shores, sailboats, rowboats, racing shells, rafts, were loaded with gayly dressed people, and here and there some adventurous man or boy might be seen as a merry sailor on a single plank or spar, apparently as deep in enjoyment as were any on the water. It seemed as if all the town were coming to the river, renouncing the cares and toils of the day, determined to take the evening breeze into their pulses, and be cool and tranquil ere ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... Cochin in India, but not aboue 26 at her arriual in Dartmouth, being lightened in her voyage by diuers meanes some 5 foote. She caried in height 7 seuerall stories, one maine Orlop, three close decks, one fore-castle, and a spar-decke of two floores a piece. The length of the keele was 100 foote, of the maine-mast 121 foot, and the circuite about at the partners 10 foote 7 inches, the maine-yard was 106 foote long. By which perfect commensuration of the parts appeareth the hugenesse of the whole, farre ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... refers thus to the defences: "I received order from General Carleton to put the extensive fortifications of Quebec in a state of repair at a time when there was not a single article of material in store with which to perform such an undertaking....My first object was to secure stout spar timber for palisading a great extent of open ground between the gates called Palace and Hope, and again from half-bastion of Cape Diamond along the brow of the cliff towards Castle St. Lewis. I began at ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... actually living matter, from that of the dead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. But objectors of this class do not seem to reflect that it is also, in strictness, true that we know nothing about the composition of any body whatever, as it is. The statement that a crystal of calc-spar consists of carbonate of lime, is quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic acid over the very ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... suspense. Would not those dead eyes move, would not those stiff lips quiver? No! all was still; the very seaweed seemed lifeless where the breakers had flung it; even the gulls had flown; not a broken spar anywhere, not a fragment of wood, nor a bit of rigging. On all sides emptiness ... only he and I, and in the distance the sounding sea. I looked back; the same emptiness there: a ridge of lifeless downs on the horizon ... that was all! My heart ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... from Cochin in India, her draught of water was 31 feet; but at her arrival in Dartmouth, not above 26, being lightened 5 feet during her voyage by various causes. She contained 7 several stories; viz. one main orlop, three close decks, one forecastle, and a spar deck of two floors each. The length of the keel was 100 feet, of the main-mast 121 feet, and its circumference at the partners was 10 feet 7 inches. The main-yard was 106 feet long. By this accurate mensuration, the hugeness ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... place and discharges a vast body of water; notwithstanding it high state the water remains nearly transparent, and it's temperature appeas to be quite as cold as that of our best springs. we meet with a beautifull little bird in this neighbourhood about the size and somewhat the shape of the large spar-row. it is reather longer in proportion to it's bulk than the sparrow. it measures 7 inches from the extremity of the beek to that of the tail, the latter occupying 21/2 inches. the beak is reather more than ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... the letter to the post myself, for the old man would trust nobody but me, and indeed would have preferred taking it himself; but in winter he was always lame from the effects of a bruise he had received from a falling spar in ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... so as to remove the dusty portion, and mix it with boiling tar in the proportion of 25 gallons to each load. Spread it evenly, cover the surface with a layer of spar, shells, or coarse sand, and roll it in ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... the land when a violent storm arose, and after several hours of beating about, the vessel was driven on to some rocks, on which it dashed itself to bits. The Prince was fortunate enough to be able to lay hold of a floating spar, and contrived to keep himself afloat; and, after a long struggle with the winds and waves, he was cast upon a strange island. But what was his surprise, on reaching the shore, to hear sounds of the most heartrending distress, mingled ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... the Doctor to keep bachelor's hall upon the beach. It was raining smartly by the time the tavern was reached, nearly a mile down the bank. Our advent caused a rare scurrying to and fro, for two commercial "drummers," who were to depart by the early morning boat, occupied the "reg'lar spar' room," the landlady informed us, and a bit of a cubby-hole off the back stairs had to be arranged for us. Guests are rarities, at the hostelry ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... the rest of it—to walk to the tops of your shoes in pine chips in the spar yards, to measure the lengths of booms and gaffs for yourself if you weren't sure who were going to spread the big mainsails, to go up in the sail-lofts and see the sailmakers, bench after bench of them, making their needles and the long waxed threads fly through the canvas that ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... lower mastheads; here a barque with her main-yard carried away; there a stately ship with her mizzenmast and all attached still towing astern, and the crew busy cutting away at the rigging which held the shattered spar; here another fine ship, totally dismasted; and there, now far astern, more than one dark object lying low in the water, and but imperfectly seen through the flying spindrift, which George Leicester knew only too well were the hulls of ships ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... cents better," returned the man-o'-war's man, doing something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn't think o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss Jim Buck, I outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin' hot shot at our stern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar. And bound her to ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... clasping little Birdie's hand in his, gazed at her with a tender imploring countenance: yet it was a despairing look—such a one as a shipwrecked seaman gives when, in sight of land, he slowly relaxes his hold upon the sustaining spar that he has no longer the strength to clutch, and sinks ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... tried to find out something about the boat. The seamen were none too friendly; but by patching up his almost forgotten French and by signs, he learned something. His sudden failure of strength in the water had been due to a blow from a floating spar, as a bruise on his forehead testified; "the old man," whom Jim supposed to be the captain, was a hard master; Monsieur Chatelard was owner, or at least temporary proprietor, of the yacht; and the present ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... for office in this enlightened age breaking loose in that manner! It's suicide. He could be arrested for the attempt in this State. Is that strong enough for you? You surely know how I feel now, don't you? Come on, Betty dear! Let's not spar in that foolish way any longer. Remember all I said yesterday. It goes double today—really, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... may be considered by some as objectionable, (an old argument against double-topsail yards). The spar used for the reef may be about one-half the diameter of the yard on which it is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... the great V formed by New York, Detroit, and Knoxville, Tenn. And while patrolling they have become skilled in the use of the depth charges, in establishing smoke screens so as to hide vessels of a convoy from the periscope eye, and in marksmanship. One gun crew not long ago saw the spar of a sunken ship which they at first took to be a periscope. They shattered that spar at a distance of 2,000 ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... great earthquakes; continents raised from the sea; the Moon thrown from a volcano, has no atmosphere, and is frozen; the earth's diurnal motion retarded; it's axis more inclined; whirls with the moon round a new centre. 67. IV. Formation of lime-stone by aqueous solution; calcareous spar; white marble; antient statue of Hercules resting from his labours. Antinous. Apollo of Belvidere. Venus de Medici. Lady Elizabeth Foster, and Lady Melbourn by Mrs. Damer. 93. V. 1. Of morasses. Whence the production of Salt by elutriation. Salt-mines ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... him canvas and rope and spar—we know that his price is fair, And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... sad day dawned over the hills and sea, she knew that God was still in His Heaven, behind the clouds—while she clung as a drowning mariner—the more desperately for her weakness—to the spar of this faith in the wreck of her happiness, though the love to which her whole being had moved in rhythmic content was as a lost star, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... hatch to keep out the snow from the cabin. Suddenly the schooner gave a great lurch and fell off the wind. The mainsail flapped wildly for a moment, and as we luffed again we went over with a list that swung the boom back with such force that the ropes that held it were slipped, and the spar struck the skipper a blow upon the shoulder that sent him headlong overboard into ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... appearance of a vaulted cathedral, supported by massy columns. The walls, ceiling, floor, and pillars, are by turns composed of every fantastic form; and often of very beautiful incrustations of spar, some of which glitters so much that it seems powdered with diamonds; and in others the ceiling is formed of that sort which has so near a resemblance to a cauliflower. The spar formed into columns by the dropping of water has taken some very ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... features worn and sharpened with spare diet and want of sleep; above all, with those haggard eyes, always watching and waiting for something a long way off—almost, indeed, out of sight at present, but coming up, as a ship comes spar by spar above the horizon, taking shape and distinctness as it nears. There were nineteen years and three months still, however, between him ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... was ready enough to spar with my sister; to-night I had not the spirit. To-night, moreover, she, whom as a rule I could treat with good-humoured indifference, had power to wound. The least weighty of people speaking the truth can not be wholly disregarded. I prepared to go ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... flanges, couplings, carburetors, lamps, lanterns, fog horns, pumps, check valves, steering wheels, galley stoves, fire buckets, hand grenades, handspikes, shaftings, lubricants, wire coils, rope, sea chests, life preservers, spar varnish, copper paint, pulleys, ensigns, twine, clasp knives, boat hooks, chronometers, ship clocks, rubber boots, fur caps, splicing compounds, friction tape, cement, wrenches, hinges, screws, oakum, oars, anchors—it was no wonder that the force quailed at sight ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... said Coomber. "Steady, now; mind your oars; let her float; it's coming this way, and we'll pick it up;" and in another minute Coomber had reached over and seized the white bundle, which he found to be carefully lashed to a spar. ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were upon the run - the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek, uprose the lance- butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the valley of death. The Highlanders gave the fugitives two hundred ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... hardy pony, the solitary patrol starts upon his lonely way. He rides up the centre valleys, ever and anon mounting a grassy hill to look seaward, reaches the West-end bar, speculates upon perchance a broken spar, an empty bottle, or a cask of beef struggling in the land-wash—now fords the shallow lake, looking well for his land-range, to escape the hole where Baker was drowned; and coming on the breeding-ground of the countless birds, his pony's hoof with ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... captain shouted. "Quick, men! and lash a spare spar to the yard. They are busy cutting away their topmast, but we shall be off again before they are ready to move. They have lost nearly half a mile; we shall soon be out of range. Be sharp with ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... large, square net suspended in the air. It was hung by means of ropes at the four corners, which met in a point above, whence a larger rope went up to a pulley which was attached to the end of a spar that projected from the stern of a boat. The net was slowly descending into the water when Rollo first caught a view of it; so he ran across, and looked over the ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... said to be a fine specimen of artistic beauty and elegant workmanship, bears the following device:—One side of the medal represents a group on a raft. One of the men is seated on a spar, waving a handkerchief, as a signal to a small boat seen in the distance; another is supporting a sailor who appears in a drowning state. There is also a female holding a child in her arms, the sea having ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... were crowded in the small cabin; the midshipmen and pilot on one side, and the seamen upon the other, were stowed like herrings upon "a platform laid across water-casks, whose surface they completely covered when they slept, and at so small a distance below the spar deck that their heads would reach it when seated." To these inconveniences were added the want of any room for exercise on deck, the attacks of innumerable vermin which their predecessors, the slaves, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... day Ben went to Belem one of father's outstanding ships arrived. She came into the harbor presenting the unusual sight of trying oil on deck. Black and greasy from hull to spar, she was a pleasant sight, for she was full of sperm oil. Little boys ran down to the house to inform us of that fact before she was moored. "Wouldn't Mr. Morgeson be all right now that his ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... and of happy relief were vivid as they passed, but I made the steamer stop, and on climbing the mast, I found not even the slightest crack or injury there. Henceforth we shall trust the goodly spar in any gale, with the confidence only to be had by a crucial test ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... dispiriting to find so intrepid a geographer and so acute a merchant befooled by the madness of gold, and pathetic to know that his hopes in this direction were absolutely unfounded. The white quartz of Guiana, the 'hard white spar' which Raleigh describes, confessedly contains gold, although, as far as is at present known, in quantities so small as not to reward working. Humboldt says that his examination of Guiana gold led him to believe that, 'like tin, it is sometimes disseminated in an almost imperceptible ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... streams, like a perpetual shower of rain! The never-abating action of the water has worn the rock into many fantastic shapes; and, crusting round the moss and fibres of the roots of trees, has given to it almost the appearance of a spar cavern. In several places the water has worn little reservoirs for itself, which are always full. It is cool, clear, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... She nodded: in her blue-spar eyes, there was the look of a winged victory. "That was the little secret—don't you think it was a nice one? It is your magnificent boast come true.... And you don't even say 'I ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... greater of Will's two ricks approached completion, and all the business of thatch and spar gads and rush ropes began. At his mother's desire he wasted no time, and toiled on, long after his party had returned to Newtake; but with the dusk he made an end for that day, stood up, rested his back, and scanned the darkening scene ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... dazed and dumb, followed the others. They found the little room, where they had passed so many homelike hours, sadly demoralized. One of the great windows was shivered to splinters, and through it projected a heavy spar, now safely wedged from further harm, and as they gazed out through the other great panes, it was upon a scene of intense desolation. The deck was quite empty, all the crew being busy below, but it was one mass of broken timbers, fallen sails, and all the debris ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... gas-mask and a packet containing first-aid appliances which he thrust into the pocket of his swimming waistcoat, together with a flask and a small tin of compressed meat lozenges. Once before, earlier in the war, he had fought for life clinging to a floating spar. Then succour had come in a comparatively short time, but the experience had not ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... larger bird, probably attracted by the smoke of our fire, paid us a visit from the shore, and were the only living things seen during our stay. The rock constituting the cliffs along the shore where we were encamped, is a talcous rock, or steatite, with brown spar. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... she was lying, and Eudora knew it, but said nothing except to bid the girl get up and assist Sonsie with the supper. Mandy Ann had once said of her mistress to Jake, "She hain't no sperrit to spar," and Jake had replied, "Lucky for you, Mandy Ann, that she hain't no sperrit, for ef she had she'd of done pulled every har out of your head ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... suite of rooms, 'hung with black, and lighted with a curious simplicity and grandeur.' Here, again, the coffin had to be lifted, and 'it was most striking to see the absolute silence with which the men moved the monstrous weight at a sign from the captain's hand.' The only sound was when a spar snapped in the hands of a 'giant of a fellow, who was lifting with it. There was a respectful delicacy in every motion of these men which combined beautifully with their immense, quiet, controlled strength, and impressed me very much. After a ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... scorned by the eighteenth-century poet-gardeners. Why? Because it was "artificial," and the eighteenth century must have "nature"—nay passion. There seems to be some plan of passion in Pope's grotto, stuck with spar and little shells. ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... man. He had his son with him, a little fellow only ten years old, as gallant, those we rescued told us, as his father. They were blown up together. We saw the two, the father holding on his son clinging to a spar. We pulled towards them, but just then a bit of the burning wreck must have struck them and carried them down, for when we got up to the spot they were nowhere to be seen. That's the worst of a battle; there are so many young boys on board who often get as cruelly hurt as the men, and ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... P.M. the end of the flag-staff was shot down, and the flag fell.[20] It had been previously hanging by one halliard, the other having been cut by a piece of shell. The exultation of the enemy, however, was short-lived. Peter Hart found a spar in the fort, which answered very well as a temporary flag-staff. He nailed the flag to this, and raised it triumphantly by nailing and tying the pole firmly to a pile of gun-carriages on the parapet. This ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... under a reefed fore-topsail and a storm jib, everything else having been taken in the night before. The studding-sail boom of the foreyard, which had been carelessly left out, had been broken off short in the earing, from the pressure of the wind on the bare spar. The roaring of the wind through the rigging was such as only one who has ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... water, slipping fast along the terrace wall. The fronts of the various buildings opposite rose in shadow against the dazzling blue and silver of the water. Here over the river, even for this jaded London, summer was still fresh; every mast and spar, every track of boat or steamer in the burst of light, struck the eye ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for a moment and her face brightened on recognizing her traveling companion. She instinctively rose and, like a drowning man who clutches at a spar, she was ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... mischief was in the air, and that there was every probability of the soundness of the renovated rigging being promptly tested. The wind and sea were making, with swift roaring anger, but not a stitch of canvas was taken in, every spar and rope-yarn aboard was feeling the strain as the clipper was crashed into the surging waves which flowed between the shores of an iron-bound gulf. The vessel was swept with exciting rapidity towards her destination, but before morning dawned the gale had become so fierce ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... The weed, I believe, is a sailor, like you and I, my lad, and lives and has its being on the sea, no matter what your longshore naturalists, who don't know much about it from personal observation, may say to the contrary. Hullo! though, my boy, look forrad there! Where has our spar anchor gone? I thought I noticed something and could not make out at first what it was. Look, youngster, and see whether you can ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... when the fierce besiegers' eager host Beholds the fainting garrison retire, And rushes joyful to the naked wall, Destruction flashes from th' insidious mine, And sweeps th' exulting conqueror away. Perhaps, in vain the sultan's anger spar'd me, To find a meaner fate ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... long as 'e don't know it? Didn't 'e look arter poor old me when 'e 'ad money, an' when 'e lost everything, didn't 'e look arter me still? An' now 'e 's your shuvver, don' 'e keep a roof over me poor old 'ead like a son—don't 'e give me the run o' jour garridge an' let me watch 'im spar wi' you an' your gentlemen friends? Ain't 'e the best an' truest-'earted man as ever drawed breath? Ah, a king o' men is Joe, in the ring an' out, sir—only never let 'im 'ear me say so—'e 'd be that proud, Lord! there'd be no livin' wi' 'im—sh, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... high by the lugger struck the cutter's topmast. The spar held on for a minute, but a stronger puff of wind filling the sail, with a loud crash it gave way, and down came the gaff-topsail and square-topsail. The mainsail and squaresail still, however, stood. The lugger now came up hand over hand. The two stern chasers were once more fired. The ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... Noah?" asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper. "That her off back of the spar buoy? Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain't what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t'other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he'd try out, fust look. Takes practice to keep your eyesight so's you can see ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sair gruppin' to a spar Or whammled wi' some bleezin' star, Cryin' to ken whaur deil ye are, Hame, France, or Flanders - Whang sindry like a railway car An' flie ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest. He did not care what the end ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and spar were fitted to each sledge. Immediately in front of the mast came the "cooker-box," containing in respective compartments the primus and a bottle of spirit for lighting it, as well as spare prickers, openers and fillers for ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... guns, loaded, a few religious books, a copy of the "Vicar of Wakefield," twenty-six silver spoons and forks, and many other articles. The Esquimaux related that the men dragging the boat "dropped as they walked." The other boat was crushed in the ice. No trace, but a floating spar or two, and driftwood embedded in ice, was ever found of the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... mother! My dear Lady Kicklebury! [To T., who has come forward.] They spar so every night they meet, ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two Months, but Misson seeing him in a fair way of Recovery, took what Hands could be spar'd from the Bijoux, leaving her sufficient for Defence, and went out, having mounted ten of the Portuguese Guns, for he had hitherto carried but thirty, though he had Ports for forty. He stretched over to Madagascar, and coasted along this Island to the Northward, as far as ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... it, sir? I didn't know but it might turn out to be galley-news. Pray what is the rumpus all about, Admiral Bluewater? for, I never could get that story fidded properly, so as to set up the rigging, and have the spar well stayed in ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... talked in excited tones as they made their way forward. If the object sticking above the gully's edge proved actually to be a mast it was in all probability a spar of the ship they sought. The thought put new life into every one and they hurried forward over the hard ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a buoy is an index of its character. Thus, one with black and red stripes indicates danger; one with black and white vertical stripes is a channel-marker. Temporary channels are frequently marked by pieces of spar floating upright. In some cases it is customary to set untrimmed tree-tops on the port, and trimmed sticks ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut, or divide a Man in two; or which of them should decollate or behead a Man, with the greatest dexterity; ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... mizzenmast of the Guerriere went by the board, and her mainyard in the slings, and the hull, rigging, and sails were completely torn to pieces. The fire was kept up for fifteen minutes longer, when the main and foremast went, taking with them every spar except the bowsprit, and leaving the Guerriere a complete wreck. On seeing this Hull ordered the firing to cease, having brought his enemy in thirty minutes after he was fairly alongside to such a condition, that a few more broadsides must have ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... noble broadness; I've no complaint to make on that score. It's the length of the way that is troubling me just now—this cursed leg of mine! Might I be so bold to ask the loan of your arm so far as the fortress? An old sailorman with a sprung spar navigates but badly ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... has a bit of the God in him, though the hero may have feet of clay and body of beast. Such were the old Vikings of the North, who spent their lives in elemental warfare, and rode out to meet death in tempest, lashed to the spar of their craft. And such, too, were the New World Vikings of the Pacific, who coasted the seas of two continents in cockle-shell ships,—planks lashed with deer thongs, calked with moss,—rapacious in their deep-sea plunderings ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the successful attack by the Confederate "fish-torpedo boat" David, on the Union ironclad Housatonic in Charleston harbor on February 17, 1864; and the next was the sinking of the Confederate ironclad Albemarle by a spar torpedo carried on a little steam-launch commanded by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... in several ways—by reflection, by transmission, but most commonly through what I have here, a prism of calcite, or Iceland spar, commonly called a Nicol prism. Light fully polarized consists of vibrations transverse to the direction of the ray, all in one plane. Ordinary light has transverse vibrations in all planes. Certain substances, due to their ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... and fro so violently that three of the men who sprang to order were hurled by it into the lee scuppers. Gascoyne darted towards the broken spar and held it fast, while Manton quickly severed the ropes that fastened it to the sail and to the deck, then the former hurled it over the side with as much ease as if it ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne |
