"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a spot, optically the size of a five-centisol piece, that was the shipbuilding city of Port Carpenter. He turned the boat toward it, firing four more green smokes at three-second intervals. The manipulator-boat started to follow, and the Harriet Barne, now a distant speck in the ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... undertaking ungroomed. So he sat back on his hind legs and commenced an elaborate toilet. First he licked his tiny hands and worked them like lightning across and down his face. This he continued for a full minute, until his whiskers bristled like tiny needles, without a speck of dust throughout their length. Then he combed the matted fur of his waistcoat with his teeth, and smoothed and polished it until every hair was a gleaming strand of silk. Finally he turned his attention to his back and sides, twisting ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... a simple speck of protoplasm void of visible organization—a mere jelly to hold the invisible life power—carries within itself in that invisible spiritual element the destiny of myriads of animal beings, and according to the nature of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... any, I will call them back." He called out "Sambo!" which was the name of the Corporal, "Where track?" Sambo pointed to a blade of spinifex. I asked "Where?" He answered, "There." So I got off my horse, and there was a tiny speck of blood which had dropped on the root, and had not been washed off by the rain. It turned out the Myalls had been carrying the flesh of my horses, and the blood ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... was interrupted by O'Connell, gently laying his hand on his shoulder, and pointing to the ship-of-war at anchor, as he exclaimed—"A speck ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller. He walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square shoulders. His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory. There was no fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about his clothes. He was, Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... slept the first night in the cavern Enoch had noted. Harden never even saw the cavern but had spent the night crawling steadily toward the rim. At dawn, Forrester had made his way to the top of the butte by the same route Enoch had followed, and had seen Harden, a black speck moving laboriously on the southern horizon. He had not recognized him, and set out to overtake him. It was not until noon that he had done so. Even after he realized whom he was pursuing, he had not given up, for by that time he was rueing bitterly ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... this speck of a room, and purified it. He had literally compelled Sam to help him. That compelling was almost a modern miracle, and wrought by radiant smiles, and a firm grip on Sam's shoulder when he told ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... were of a smooth neutral tinted plaster; where they met the floor the corners were all carefully rounded off so that no dust could gather in cracks and crevices; the floor, too, was of smooth cement; there was no spot in which a speck of dust could settle in improper peace. A series of benches ran round the room, and gave harbourings to a collection of scientific instruments of strange appearance and shape; two large tables, one at either end of the room, were similarly equipped. And at a desk placed between them, and just ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though. I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee—Virginia, I mean—said as she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have plenty of time ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... Turk. "Wilt thou be beaten then, and by an Israelite? Shall this lovely maid be given to a perverter of the Scriptures, to an inheritor of the fire, to one of a race that would not bestow on their fellow-men so much as the speck out of a date-stone? It were a shame upon ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... schoolboy's mouth water, but sadly impeded the dogs. Nearing the ocean the Kolyma widens by several miles, and here we made our first acquaintance with the ice-hummocks or "torosses" formed by the breakers of the Polar Sea. Towards sunset a black speck was sighted on the snowy waste, and two hours later we reached Sukharno, the Tsar's remotest outpost on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, about eight thousand miles from Petersburg. Here there was a single hut, so low in stature and buried ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... reading in one of those historical novels once about a chap—a buck he would have been, no doubt, or a macaroni or some such bird as that—who, when people said the wrong thing, merely laughed down from lazy eyelids and flicked a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at his wrists. This was practically what I did now. At least, I straightened my tie and smiled one of those inscrutable smiles of mine. I then withdrew and went out for ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... steering for the harbour where the "Lady Alice" lay, she kept round the island to another on the other side. What she was, or why she had come to the island, I could not conjecture, I was about to return when I caught sight of a speck of white canvas above the horizon. "That probably is the 'Eagle,'" I thought. "In a few days I shall have to bid my kind friends farewell and go back to ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... black speck; it's papa! Oh, I love him, Irving. Good-by, my darlings! Good-by! They didn't want to go except for ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... first fronted me, and I was moved, and forgot my promise to Kadrab, and gave him the money. Then was Kadrab wroth, and kicked the old beggar with his fore-foot, lifting him high in air, and lo! he did not alight, but rose over the roofs of the houses and beyond the city, till he was but a speck in the blue of the sky above. So Kadrab bit his forefinger amazed, and glanced at his foot, and at what was visible of the old beggarman, and again at his foot, thinking but of what he had done with it, and the might manifested in that kick, fool that he was! All the way homeward he kept scanning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... having heard of the attack of the savages and the destruction they had caused, made his way to the scene of the ruins. He could find no trace of the Godfreys and was returning by the border of the lake to his log cabin, when he saw the sloop far in the distance like a speck on the frozen surface of the lake. He hastened out to where she lay. To his surprise and joy he found out, when nearing the little craft, signs of life on board. Sparks were issuing from the cabin. Very soon he was on board. He was met at the companion-way by ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... through the winter weather, Behind the shutters by a light's faint speck, Poring o'er books, their faces close together, The lame girl's arm around her mother's neck. They dressed their windows not one time but twenty, Each change more pinched, more desperately neat; Alas! ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... dark heavens a tiny speck of red light glowed, lingered a moment and vanished. Then another, then a green ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... ever with our faith. Its ideal perfection would be that it should be unbroken, undashed by any speck of doubt. But the reality is far different. It is no full-orbed completeness, but, at the best, a growing segment of reflected light, with many a rough place in its jagged outline, prophetic of increase; with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... beginning of his fourth month of solitude, the mucker saw a smudge of smoke upon the horizon. Slowly it increased in volume and the speck beneath it resolved itself into the hull of a steamer. Closer and closer to the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and Stuart Mill; with the naturalists, to sound the depths of the argument as to the origin of species and the genesis of man; with the astronomers, to leave the narrow bounds of earth, and explore the illimitable spaces of the universe, in which our solar system is but a speck; with the mathematicians, to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and assumption, and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact science:—to come back anon to lighter themes, and to revel in the grotesque ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... pardonable fashion of congealing under the stress of the Canadian winter, they generally showed signs of a thaw at the approach of spring. At the present moment he had no thought, no eyes, for anything save a mist-enshrouded speck far off across the waters of Lake Ontario. All the impatience and longing of the week just past found vent through his eyes, as he watched that pale, uncertain, scarcely visible mote on the horizon. As he reached the shore the fog lifted a little, and a great sunbeam, leaping ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... of Ida[32], there was a white Bull, which was the Glory of the Farmer to whom he belonged. This Bull had a beautiful black Speck between his Horns, all the rest of his Body being as white as Milk. With him the Gnossian and Cydonian Heifers were all in love, and eagerly longed to be embraced by him in the tenderest manner in which Bulls embrace the Fair ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... shoes neatly, buttoned his jacket closely over his shirt, and was just pinning up the rent in his hat, when Rags considerately brought another suggestion in the shape of an old chicken-wing, with which he brushed every speck of dust from his clothes. This done, and being no respecter of persons, he took the family comb to Rags, who woke the echoes during the operation, and hoped to the Lord that the squirrels would run slowly and that the field-mice would be very tender, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fault with her where I default ne'er find, * Save haply that a speck in either eye may show: But if her eyes have fault, of fault her form hath none, * Slim-built above the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... take the trouble to read the book. There is ample evidence (though even this is of a mystical and indirect kind), there is ample evidence that Fielding probably thought that it was better to be Tom Jones than to be an utter coward and sneak. There is simply not one rag or thread or speck of evidence to show that Fielding thought that it was better to be Tom Jones than to be a good man. All that he is concerned with is the description of a definite and very real type of young man; the young man whose passions and whose selfish ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... his handkerchief carefully, wiped the last speck of Dry Lake dust from his shiny toes. "Yuh won't crawfish on me, if I tell yuh?" he inquired anxiously, standing up ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... looked, and behold! In a point to aeons withdrawn.... A scarce visible speck of light, His own sun like a mite, And the blur of ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... undistinguish'd quite, Save when she wheels direct from shade to light: The flutt'ring songstress a mere speck became, Like fancy's floating bubbles in a dream; He sees her yet, but yielding to repose, Unwittingly his jaded eyelids close. Delicious sleep! From sleep who could forbear, With no more guilt than Giles, and no more care? Peace o'er his slumbers ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... indeed have the least word to say on such matters, beyond suggesting them to the imagination of readers. The operas, the carnival gayeties, the intricate considerations and diplomacies of this Winter, at Berlin and elsewhere, may be figured: but here is one little speck, also from the Archives, which is worth saving. Princess Ulrique is in her twenty-third year, Princess Amelia in her twentieth; beautiful clever creatures, both; Ulrique the more staid of the two. "Never saw so gay a Carnival," said everybody; and in the height of it, with all manner of gayeties ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the offices," Volpatte went on, engrossed in his story of travel; "whole houses and streets and districts. I saw that my little corner in the rear was only a speck, and I had full view of them. Non, I'd never have believed there'd be so many men on chairs while ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... at last. Each anxious heart welcomed and yet dreaded to see the new day. Sailors and officers swept the sea as it grew lighter, and, to their dread, just as the sun rose over the glossy surface of the sea, a snowy speck appeared far ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... better of him than she had done for a long time. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he was more in her thoughts than he had been; for, in the reign of Claudius, Barker had dwindled to a nearly insignificant speck in the landscape, dwarfed away to nothing by the larger mould and ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... a tiny speck of a boat way out on the horizon. Captain Dan said it was Shorty's boat with Adams. I suggested that, as we had to wait for wind to fly the kite, we run in and attract Shorty's attention. I certainly wanted some one else to ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... again to look at her necklace in the pool, and caught sight of a speck of vivid scarlet on the brow of the hill—another and another. They were the huntsmen returning from their unsuccessful run, for she had seen the breathless panting fox an hour before when he crossed the moor and made for his covert on the rocky sides of the cliffs. Once there, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... except the Night-hawk, and he told the OLD-man that he would help him all he could; so he flew away up in the air—so far that he looked like a black speck. Then he came down straight and struck that rock an awful blow—'swow!'—and broke it in two pieces. Indeed he did. The blow was so great that it spoiled the Night-hawk's bill, forever—made it queer in shape, and jammed his head, so that it is queer, ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... distracted between the fear of injury to her beloved work and her desire to get off the island. But the little boat pulled swiftly down the channel, its owner evidently not desirous of being caught himself on the mud-flats, and was soon a speck on ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... nearer and nearer to the doomed ship, under the guidance of her able coxswain. As it passed under the stern a cheer burst from the crowd of eager faces that gazed over the side of the "Trident." Yet there were many hearts there that grew faint and chill when they beheld the little white speck that seemed to be their only hope of rescue in that dark hour. "What hope was there that such a nutshell should save them all?" they thought, perchance, on seeing it approach. They little knew the wonderful vitality of ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... trees cracked, and the grass lay limp beneath the downpour like the hair of a drowned woman, he all but ceased to breathe, and seemed to be passing away, shattered by the hurricane. But at the first gleam of light, at the tiniest speck of blue between two clouds, he breathed once more and drank in the soothing calm of the drying leaves, the whitening paths, the fields quaffing their last draught of water. Albine now also longed for the sun; ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... panful was dried and blown, the gold was weighed, and put into a large white breakfast cup, the bottom of which was soon heaped up with shining particles, varying in size from the smallest visible speck, to little lumps like grains ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in space; a pygmy in comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist: It moved and moved, and took at last A certain ...
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... forests. Hence the lake stretched northward, like some broad river, trenched between mountain ranges still leafless and gray. Then they looked down on Ticonderoga, with the flag of the Bourbons, like a flickering white speck, waving on its ramparts; and next on Crown Point with its tower of stone. Lake Champlain now spread before them, widening as they flew: on the left, the mountain wilderness of the Adirondacks, like a stormy sea congealed; on the right, the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the cry, "A wreck! a wreck! Pull mates, and waste no breath!"— They knew it, though 'twas but a speck Upon the edge ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... hollow or ravine to the left, and a few farm-houses sat among the trees on the hill-tops beyond. A battery was planted at each house, and we could see the lines of red-clay parapets marking the sites. From the roof of one of the houses floated a speck of canvas,—the revolutionary flag. A horseman or two moved shadow-like across a slope of yellow grain. Before and back the woods belted the landscape, and some pickets of both sides paced the river brink: they did not fire ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... speck was observed by the blacks. Their shouts attracted the attention of Don Benito, who, with a return of courtesy, approaching Captain Delano, expressed satisfaction at the coming of some supplies, slight and temporary as they must ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... murmured at intervals, and followed by chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With regard to his boots, he need have had no anxiety. They were of the shiniest patent leather, much too tight, and without a speck of dust upon them. But his nervousness infected me with a cruel dread. All those eyes were going to watch how we comported ourselves in jumping from the landing-steps into the boat! If this operation, upon a ceremonious occasion, has terrors even for a gondolier, how ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... once, and she rowed out from the port. Having proceeded some three or four miles, they lowered her sails, and lay to in the course a galley making for the port would take. A sailor was sent up to the masthead to keep a lookout. Late in the afternoon he called down that he could make out a black speck some twelve miles away. She carried no sails, and he judged her to ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... shore, Wave you farewell, and strain our eyes Till that bright speck which is your sail Is ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... half-pausing among the palmettos and rushes as the hurtling mass thundered by; then pushed quickly into the whirling dust of the track and hurried on between the clicking rails, not knowing that yonder dark, dwindling speck behind was bearing away from him strange tidings from ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... mass of long-winded ceremonial nothingnesses, and intricate Belleisle cobwebberies, we seize this one poor speck of human foolery in the native state, as almost the memorablest in that stupendous business. Stupendous indeed; with which all Germany has been in travail these sixteen months, on such terms! And in verity has got the thing called "German Kaiser" constituted, better or worse. Heavens, was a Nation ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... with arms uplifted, and holding deadly weapons, as if ready and determined to strike with well-aimed precision. But, strange to say, they all remained as motionless as statues, until we had gone on so far as to leave them a mere speck on ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... have done, and had been perfectly sinless and holy, and yet to-night I was to commit one sin, that sin, however small a sin in man's eyes,—that sin would be quite enough to shut me out of heaven. The gates would be shut against me for that one sin. No soul on which there is a speck of sin can ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... reached Paris, and he finally determined to take the course and reach the high position which the selfish hopes of his would-be mother-in-law pointed out to him. His cousin counted for no more than a speck in this brilliant perspective; but he went to see Annette. True woman of the world, Annette advised her old friend to make the marriage, and promised him her support in all his ambitious projects. In her heart she was enchanted to fasten an ugly and uninteresting ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... distances." A little later on, although he disapproved of "gaping," as he called it, he taught Miriam so much of geometry as was sufficient to make her understand what he meant when he told her that a fixed star yielded no parallax, and that the earth was consequently the merest speck of dust in the universe. She found his simple trigonometry very, very hard, but to her husband it was easy, and with his help ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... whirlwinds of dust that arose settled quickly down, the desultory breezes which had caused them departing as mysteriously as they had come. In the blighting heat the country lay, dead, spreading to the infinite horizons; in the sky no speck floated against the dome of blue. More desolate than a derelict on the calm surface of the trackless ocean Lazette lay, its huddled buildings dingy with the dust of a continuing dry season, squatting in their dismal lonesomeness in the shimmering, ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... thinking I loved you so little as to be biased against our marriage because of money troubles. Pooh!" she flicked away a speck of dust from his coat, "I don't care that for ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... rise high out of the water and the sharp-nosed whaleback for'ard go down as if weighted heavily. And it was—with a bag of dollars lashed underneath. When in the early morning the whaleship sighted the drifting speck, floating on the bosom of a now placid sea, the thoughtful Down-East skipper—observant of the canoe's bows being under water—lowered a boat and pulled over to it. He took the bag of dollars and muttering something about ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... glints in heaven may be a lowin' sun, Though like a speck of light it seem amid the welkin dun; The humblest sodger on the field may win a warrior's crest: The birdie sure to sing is the ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they stood upon the broad gravel-walk before the Warren-house. The building was profoundly dark, and none were moving near it save themselves. From one solitary turret-chamber, however, there shone a ray of light; and towards this speck of comfort in the cold, cheerless, silent scene, Mr Willet bade his ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... room carefully shaded, and as cool as was possible in such heat. The floor had been sprinkled with water, flowers stood wherever there was room for them, and all his properties in scrolls and other matters had found places in chests or on shelves. There was not a speck of dust to be seen, and a sweet pervading perfume greeted his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had lost a leg in the War. It was extraordinarily gratifying to Soames to have left him five thousand pounds of Timothy's money. They sat down together in the little drawing-room, whose walls—like a vision of heaven—were sky-blue and gold with every picture-frame unnaturally bright, and every speck of dust removed from every piece of furniture, to read that little masterpiece—the Will of Timothy. With his back to the light in Aunt Hester's chair, Soames faced Gradman with his face to the light, on Aunt Ann's sofa; and, crossing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... mountain to the west. It comes up out of the distance and goes down into the distance again, and it is named Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean. To the northward red rocks, smooth and bare of soil, and without any speck of moss or herbage, slope up to the very lips of the Polar wind, and there is nothing else there by the noise of his anger. Very peaceful are the Inner Lands, and very fair are their cities, and there is no war ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... Eskimo, and it was with this thought of the lifelessness and mystery of a dead and empty world that Philip turned his eyes from the sun into the gray desolation that reached from Pierre Thoreau's door to the end of the earth. Far off to the north he saw a black speck moving in the chaos of white. It might have been a fox coming over a snow-dune a rifle-shot away, for distances are elusive where the sky and the earth seem to meet in a cold gray rim about one; or it might have been a musk-ox or a caribou at ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... impressed Anthony as a cold-blooded, highly schooled person, absolutely devoid of sentiment. His face was stony, his eyes were cool, even his linen partook of his own unruffled calm. He seemed by no means effeminate, yet he was one of those immaculate beings upon whom one can scarcely imagine a speck of dust or a bead of perspiration. His hair—what was left of it—was parted to a nicety, his clothes were faultless, and he had an air of ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... all for mercy's sake. When the reapers in harvest-time saw a figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, or the family at the foot of Glen Urtach, gathered round the fire on a winter's night, heard the rattle of a horse's hoofs on the road, or the shepherds, out after the sheep, traced a black speck moving across the snow to the upper glen, they knew it was the doctor, and, without being conscious of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... their business—spiders, butterflies, and centipedes, ants, beetles, and flies, and mysterious entities that crawl nameless under foot. A pea-hen shrieks in the grass, and a kite whistles aloft. A remote speck in the sky denotes a watchful vulture, alert for any mishap to the citizens of the woods, and a crash of twigs may mean anything from a buck to a rhinoceros. There is a hectic on the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... crosses or curses; but that to come with neither. There shall be no more curse: and as for crosses, all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of them that dwell there. There will be nothing but ravishing pleasures, and holy; there will be no cessation of joys, nor any speck of pollution. 'In thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... A dust-speck, facing the infinitudes Of Thine unfathomable dome, a night like this,— To stand full-face to Thy High Majesties, Thy myriad worlds in solemn watchfulness,— Watching, watching, watching all below, And man in all his wilfulness ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... says Jacka, "for I was just about stepping down to call you. See that lugger, yonder?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a speck in the grey from which the Van der Werf was now running at something ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you will have seen how England is flooded, and you will like to hear that this tiny speck has escaped. The Lodden is over the park, and turns the beautiful water meadows down to Strathfieldsaye into a no less beautiful lake, two or three times a week; but then it subsides as quickly as it rises, so there ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... was distinctly coming on. Billy opened one eye, then the other, and hastily scanned the sky in either direction for an aeroplane, but the sky was as clear as crystal without a speck, and the sound was ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... from his table; He kisses his child and wife; Then he haunts a wood, till he orphans a brood, Or robs a deer of its life. He aims at a speck in the azure; Winged love, that has flown at a call; It reels down to die, and he lets it lie; His pleasure was ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... time that of my fellow-pupil whom I have maligned.' Now, young gentlemen, it gives me pain to address you all for one boy's sin, and I have only this to say, that you whose consciences are clear can let it pass away like a cloud; to him who has this black speck upon his conscience I only say I am waiting; come to me when the examination is done.—Mr Morris, it is ten minutes past ten. At one o'clock your examination is over, and the studies are at an end for the day.—Now, my dear boys, I wish you all success, and I trust that you will show Mr Morris ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... wrongs The bears aveng'd, at its departure saw Elijah's chariot, when the steeds erect Rais'd their steep flight for heav'n; his eyes meanwhile, Straining pursu'd them, till the flame alone Upsoaring like a misty speck he kenn'd; E'en thus along the gulf moves every flame, A sinner so enfolded close in each, That none exhibits token of the theft. Upon the bridge I forward bent to look, And grasp'd a flinty mass, or else had fall'n, Though push'd not from the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... be plenty to do in a short while, but meanwhile he enjoyed the sensation of being on a tiny world in space with only a handful of Planeteers for company. He smiled. "King Foster," he said to himself. "Monarch of a thorium space speck." It was a rather nice feeling, even though he laughed at himself for thinking it. Since he was in command of the detachment, he could in all truth say this was his own personal planet. It would be a good bit of space humor to spring on the folks ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... begun the deluge lessened. The walls, running with mud, were crumbling and falling here and there in miniature landslides. Scamp was plunging badly in the soft ground, and so Roy slowed him down to a trot. He could not, he told himself grimly, get one speck wetter. There was little use in hurrying. With sudden recollection of his bundles, Roy glanced back. Only a wisp of wet brown paper sticking to the cantle remained; the water had soaked the wrappings—baking powder, flavoring extract, dried fruit, and all the rest ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... on before entering the drawing-room, and be careful that there is no speck of mud upon your ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... flotilla that accompanied us during the last two days was made up mostly of American and British destroyers, though there were two French boats among them. They made a lively scene, and surely gave us great protection. If a speck would appear on the horizon, two boats would be off to investigate it, and would return later to join the fleet. We were also accompanied on the last day of the voyage by two airplanes as a further protection ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... cried Yvon, as soon as his head appeared above the water, and he began to swim as tranquilly as if he had been bathing in the lake of the old castle. Happily the moon was rising. Yvon saw, at a little distance, a black speck among the silvery waves—it was land. He approached it, not without difficulty, and finally succeeded in gaining a foothold. Dripping wet, exhausted with fatigue, and out of breath, he dragged himself on the sand, then, without ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... about, but he passively refused. The boy still swam, but the boat was not yet half-way, and headed too much to the left. There was no tiller, and the men could only guess at their course. We guided them by signs, watching the boy's head, now a mere speck, seen at intervals under the lowering sky. He struggled gallantly; the boat drew nearer, and one of the men stood up and looked around. We watched with breathless suspense for the reappearance of the brave young swimmer, but we watched in vain. Poor boy! who can know what was the agony of ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... sea for something, and presently he found it. Viewed from the height at which they flew it looked no more than a white speck in a great blue saucer, but presently the machine began to dip, falling at a terrific rate of speed, which took away the breath of the man who was hanging on with both hands ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... mine. Ere our household shake off slumber, the rocks will have again closed over the chasm not to be re-opened by me, nor perhaps by others, for ages yet unguessed. Think of me sometimes, and with kindness. When I reach the life that lies beyond this speck in time, I shall look round for thee. Even there, the world consigned to thyself and thy people may have rocks and gulfs which divide it from that in which I rejoin those of my race that have gone before, and I may be powerless to cleave ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... New Orleans victory; voted against Jackson, but lived long enough to wish we had another just like him; remembered when the first steamer struck the North river with its wheel-buckets; was startled by the birth of telegraphy; saw the United States grow from a speck on the world's map till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen. He was born while the Revolutionary cannon were coming home from Yorktown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the great Rebellion. He lived to speak ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... word Against the good and gracious Lord, from out their lips be heard. But with their wildly gleaming eyes they gazed out o'er the main. Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again. On the horizon's distant verge not even a speck was seen, But the cresting foam of breaking waves still shimmering between. And fiercer yet, as hour by hour went slowly creeping by, The famine wrung their tortured frames till it were bliss to die. And hopes of further aid grew faint, and it did seem that they Out on the waste ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... full in the face. It was like seeing suddenly at close quarters some great bright monument that one has long known only as a sun-caught speck in the distance. He saw the large violet eyes open to him, and their lashes curling to him; the vivid parted lips; and the black ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... having mastered his passion. Laura had become but a speck on the distant horizon, a passing incident of his youth. But he sighed for Avignon. There was life and animation, music, literature, art, oratory and the society of great men. Besides he wanted to prove to his own satisfaction ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... crystal may be, when reduced even to small size it will be found that the crystals are still of the same shape. If this process is taken still further, and the substance is ground to the finest impalpable powder, as fine as floating dust, when placed under the microscope each speck, though perhaps invisible to the naked eye, will be seen a perfect crystal, of the identical shape as that from which it came, one so large maybe that its planes and angles might have been measured and defined by rule and compass. This shows how impossible it ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... a fair wind, and the fatherland in sight, a sea like a mill-pond, the melancholy sound of the ripples, a fair, solitary vessel, gliding across the surface of the water like a woman stealing out to a tryst—it was a picture full of harmony. That mere speck full of movement was a starting-point whence the soul of man could descry the immutable vast of space. Solitude and bustling life, silence and sound, were all brought together in strange abrupt ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... musicians, at table with his own family, at the Palace, while he is playing without a thought of what he is playing, for the entertainment of Royal folk—it is in that future, that future which a speck may bring toppling to earth—no matter, it is ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... "Reverend Abraham, can you see well afar off?" and when I answered that I once could see very well, but that the many tears I had shed had now peradventure dimmed my eyes, he pointed to the Streckelberg, and said, "Do you then see nothing there?" Ego. "Naught save a black speck, which I cannot make out." Ille. "Know then that that is the pile whereon your daughter is to burn at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and which the constables are now raising." When this hell-hound ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... want these would-be murderers to know how their trick failed. That's the reason I didn't pound the brute to a jelly on the bed, for it would have made such a mess on the sheet. Now there isn't a speck on it. I'll take the vase with me into my room and finish the cobra off. In the morning I'll get rid of its body somehow. When these devils find tomorrow that you're not dead, they'll be very puzzled. Now, the question is, what are you ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... the woods that same afternoon by way of the bridge, in order to buy some provisions at the brick store. When he was still a long distance from the bars that divided the lane from the highroad, he espied a dark-clad little speck he knew to be Rodman leaning over the fence, waiting and longing as usual for his home-coming, and his heart warmed at the thought of the boyish ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... D, an older blossom, with similar analyses (E and F). Both sorts are to be found upon every spike of bloom, as the inflorescence begins at the base and proceeds upward. As we look into the more open flower we observe a dark-colored speck, which, by analysis, proves to be the lid of the anther. This portion is further shown enlarged in Fig. 20, A. If we gently lift it with a pin, we disclose the pollen masses in the cavity (B) thus opened (C, profile section), the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... shaggy mane by which came his name floating over his shoulders. Out into the sunshine of a perfect day the riders went, and the group around the platform stood silently and watched until they were a speck in the distance blurring with the sunny plain and ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... Some prepossession, such as starts amiss, by but a hair's-breadth at the shoulder-blade, the arm o' the feeler, dip he ne'er so brave; and so leads waveringly, lets fall wide o' the mark his finger meant to find, and fix truth at the bottom, that deceptive speck." ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... point of land and came in view of a short line of beach. Deep set in a narrow bay, it might have escaped the eye of a less observant person than Marian; so, too, might the white speck that shone from the brown surface ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... they were singing a second song, something happened. A light speck was seen moving through the air. It came nearer and nearer. At last it circled round the pen, where the grain was scattered. Then it flew slowly to the ground. It ...
— Five Little Friends • Sherred Willcox Adams
... when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn't come back? Suppose it were to drop out of the string of white faces like the pearl out of my chain I never ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... broadcloth." "Oh, don't, don't," she protested, on the point of tears, but he smiled and patted her bowed shoulder. "I got over that long ago, honey," he said gently. "I kicked powerful hard with my one foot at first, but the dust I raised wasn't a speck in the face of God Almighty. There, there, we'll have a fine sunrise, and I'm going out to watch it from my old bench—unless you'll find something for a single hand to do." She shook her head, smiling ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... day. Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds; And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear, Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere. 35 —Now less and less!—and now a speck is seen!— And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between!— With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brow To every shrine with mingled cries they vow.— "Save Him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside; 40 "Bear Him, ye Winds! ye Stars ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... as in politics, theology, or that most disputatious of all things disputable, metaphysics, the nearer the reasoners approach each other in points that to an uncritical bystander seem the most important, the more sure they are to start off in opposite directions upon reaching the speck of a pin-prick. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... easy," said Sahwah soothingly. "They haven't upset. There isn't a speck of water in the boats. They've simply floated off and left the folks somewhere. What were the Hares doing out in boats, anyway?" she mused. "But if they're along the shore here somewhere we ought to ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... Rito became suspicious. Again he looked, but the spot or object, whatever it might be, had gone out of sight altogether. He crawled over to the man nearest him, told him what had occurred, and returned to his post. The dark speck or thing had not reappeared; but on the right side of the gallery formed by the trees it seemed as if, somewhat nearer to his own position, something black became apparent and disappeared in an instant. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... it were o'er! A heavy gloom Hangs on my spirits, like some threat'ning cloud O'erspreading the wide firmament, without One speck of blue, like hope, to cheer th' horizon. Yet, from what cause it springs, I cannot tell. His sword I fear not. It is mine estate, So promising. He that hath nought to lose, Is spurr'd to action with the hope ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... initiated said, was De Lancy's South African wife, with a rooted objection to being a lady or "moving in social circles"; whose pleasure lay in managing this big household under De Lancy's guidance. There were those who said they had seen her brush a speck of dust from De Lancy's coat-collar, as she emerged from her morning interview with him; and others who said they had seen her hidden in the shrubbery listening to the rather flaccid conversation of her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... back again at the water in bewilderment, as if her senses were the victim of some sleight of hand. Not a speck or spot resembling a man's head or face showed anywhere. By this time she was alarmed, and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond the scene of her husband's bathing a small area of water, the quality of whose surface ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... Zachariah dwelt on the first floor. He was too weak to go upstairs by himself, and he and his friend therefore walked into the front room together. It was in complete order, although it was so early in the morning. Everything was dusted; even the lower fire-bar had not a speck of ashes on it, and on the hob already was a saucepan in which Mrs. Coleman proposed to cook the one o'clock dinner. On the walls were portraits of Sir Francis Burdett, Major Cartwright, and the mezzotint ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... his page, and so leaves it. These are deficiencies lying very bare to criticism; and I confess I never could completely understand them in such a man. He that would have ordered arrest for the smallest speck of mud on a man's buff-belt, indignant that any pipe-clayed portion of a man should not be perfectly pipeclayed: how could he tolerate false spelling, and commas shaken as out of a pepper-box over his page? It is probable he cared little about Literature, after all; cared, at least, only about ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... noticing the giver, or thanking him. The wound was bound up, and the party proceeded along the hill towards the back part, from which they enjoyed an extensive view across the green labyrinth of the park to the wide-spreading ocean. The view was truly a magnificent one. A slight speck was observed on the horizon, between the dark flood and the azure sky. "A telescope!" called out Mr. John; but before any of the servants could answer the summons the gray man, with a modest bow, drew his hand from his pocket, and presented a beautiful Dollond's telescope to Mr. John, who, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... afternoon, to get a little fresh air to strengthen me for the coming night, when I had determined to watch with Polly beside little John, if he was still living. My young friends, Bob and Harry, joined me, and we were pacing up and down together watching the tide come in when we thought we saw a dark speck far out to sea. ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... no, not if you was to give me a thousand pounds. Talk o' spirits! I tell you there was millions on 'em! And the lights and the colours—oh, but it's no good talkin'! I looked back and wanted to know where the earth was, and there I see it, dwindled to a speck o' light. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... companions becoming counts, dukes, and marshals of the empire, whilst he remained an untitled general of division; he and his officers, as one of them told me, then felt themselves little better circumstanced than myself—than prisoners in an almost forgotten speck of the globe, with their promotion suspended. Rumours of a premeditated attack at length reached the island, which it was said the captain-general heard with pleasure; and it was attributed to the prospect of making military levies on the inhabitants, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... he does with it. You pick up every single speck," ordered the girl; and the boy scraped the floor with his sharp finger-nails, and crammed the candy and dust into a small paper bag. The girl stood watchfully over him; not the smallest particle escaped her eyes. "There's ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sun, large and important as he is, is but a speck in creation. These myriads of stars that shine nightly in the heavens are all suns. It is calculated that the union of the telescope with the photographic plate brings five hundred millions of these stars into view. Some of them are demonstrated to be hundreds of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Sieberer's face, but it disappeared quickly when he happened to turn his eyes to the neighboring mountains. He looked keenly and searchingly toward the mountain-path leading to Mittewald. He saw there a small black speck which was advancing with great rapidity. Was it a bird? No, the speck had already become larger; he saw it was a human being—a woman speeding along the mountain-path. Now she was so close to them that he could distinguish ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... a schooner of about ninety tons being then so far completed, as to be nearly ready to be put in the water. Such was the state of things, when, one fine night, we arrived in the manner already related. The French kept constant look-outs, and it seems we were seen, a distant speck on the ocean, just as the sun set, while the low trees of the island eluded our vigilance. By the aid of a good night-glass, our movements were watched, and a boat was about to be sent out to warn us of our danger, when we passed within the reef. Captain ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... viewpoint he could not give any direct proof regarding this idea of a pre-existence of the soul, still he could not deny it entirely when he said: "The shaping forces which have made our bodies and our minds what they are may always have been psychical forces—from the first living slime-speck to the complex intelligences of to-day." "The old transmigrationist's view would thus possess a share of truth and the actual man would be the resultant not only of intermingling heredities on father's and mother's sides, but of intermingling heredities, one of planetary and one of cosmic ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda
... lo, How small the biggest parts of earth's proud title shew! Where shall I find the noble British land? Lo, I at last a northern speck espy, Which in the sea does lie, And seems a grain o' the sand. For this will any sin, or bleed? Of civil wars is this the meed? And is it this, alas, which we, Oh, irony of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt |
