"Spectacle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelligences; but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other chamber of Congress—of a government in which the executive ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... watching daily at the bedside of your Majesty's Imperial husband, while many were endeavouring to learn courage in our supremest need from the spectacle of that heroic patience, a distant writer little knew that it had been his fortune to bring to such a sufferer an hour's forgetfulness ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... select subjects for their canvases of which the progressive party of the town are heartily ashamed, they are regarded as spies rather than visitors, and are tolerated rather than welcomed. To a citizen who has for a score of years regretted the decay of his town, the spectacle of a stranger gloating over its ruins and perpetuating them on canvas is calculated to excite strong doubts as to his mental capacity and his ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... of his partner for several days, Amarendra called to inquire how the new contract fared and was thunderstruck to find Jogesh's house locked up. Hastening to Campbell & Co.'s Strand offices, he saw a notice "to let" exhibited there. This spectacle confirmed his worst fears—he had been twice swindled outrageously. His only hope lay in the scoundrel's arrest; so he laid an information at the police station, and a clever detective was told off to investigate the charge. Strange was the story which came to light. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the result of fright on the part of Domino. Why, the big and powerful black acted as though he had gone wild, jumping madly about, now fairly flying off to one side, only to whirl and dance and leap high in the air, until every one within seeing distance was staring at the strange spectacle. And this, too, in a town where bucking broncos ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... in the search, and finally produced a faded gingham apron with long, narrow strings, with which she hastily dried her tears. The sad news appealed also to Mercy Crane, who looked across to the apple-trees, and could not see them for a dazzle of tears in her own eyes. The spectacle of Sarah Ellen Dow going home with her humble workaday possessions, from the house where she had gone in haste only a few days before to care for a sick person well known to them both, was ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to-day, to find the old familiar signpost inscribed "To Stratford, 1 mile," and at the end of the mile nothing but some holes in the ground and a fragment of a broken churn here and there? Would not the spectacle of the angry ape endowed with powers of destruction that Jove never pretended to, have beggared ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... poor girl's marriage was thundered in her ears at least once a week, so that we both knew that I had no need to make court to him, indeed, I had never seen him, always having met her in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, concert, or lecture. He had lately been more domineering than usual, and I had but little difficulty in persuading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry, to make the arrangement to which he assented in the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic spectacle. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this exciting spectacle that old Wardle brought a party in that wonderful Barouche of his—which is really phenomenal for its accommodation. When Mr. Pickwick recovered his hat, he found these persons in the carriage:—1, Wardle; 2, a ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... a little north of where Trinity College now stands—"a logical location" one most learned in the traditions and history of Hartford calls it—as it afforded an excellent view of the execution to a large crowd on the meadows to the west, a hanging being then a popular spectacle ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... that any one caught sailing across to the opposite coast would be punished with death. When the meeting was over, he got his ships ready for action, and stood out to sea towards Cyzicus in torrents of rain. Off Cyzicus the sky cleared, and the sun shone out and revealed to him the spectacle of Mindarus's vessels, sixty in number, exercising at some distance from the harbour, and, in fact, intercepted by himself. The Peloponnesians, perceiving at a glance the greatly increased number of the Athenian galleys, and noting their proximity to the ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... instead of the ungovernable fury we are accustomed to ascribe to it. Dashing through the thick underwood, amidst volumes of smoke—their dark active limbs and excited features burnished by the fierce glow of the fire—they present a spectacle which it rarely falls to our lot to behold, and of which it is impossible to convey ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... with this spectacle before him, and contemplating these immeasurable consequences consciously for the last time that could allow him a retreat,—impressed also by the solemnity and deep tranquillity of the silent dawn, whilst the exhaustion of his night wanderings predisposed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... the result of your high tax? I continued with passion. It would be a blow at the democracy of dogs. It would reduce the whole of dogdom to a pampered class of degenerates. Is there anything more odious than the spectacle of a fat woman in furs nursing a lap dog in furs, too? It is as degrading to the noble family of dogs as a footman in gold buttons and gold braid is to the human family. But it is just these degenerates whom a high tax would protect. Honest fellows like Quilp here (more triumphant ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... many nights of the severe winter of 1830 as the tragedy was given, the theater was always thronged by the overflowing audience; the doors of the Cocomero were opened to the impatient people many hours before the spectacle began. Spectators thought themselves fortunate to secure a seat next the roof of the theater; even in the prompter's hole [Note: On the Italian stage the prompter rises from a hole in the floor behind the foot-lights, and is hidden from the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... time the square was crowded with the Indians, waiting to see this military spectacle. The caciques were assembled in the house of Ovando, which looked upon the square. None were armed; an unreserved confidence prevailed among them, totally incompatible with the dark treachery of which they ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Republican doctrines after they have set their heels on the amendment? Do you not see that if it will lose votes to the parties to have the plank, it will lose votes to allow women to advocate the amendment on their platforms? And what a spectacle it would be to see women pleading with men to vote for the one or the other party, while their tongues were tied on the question of their own right to vote! Heaven and the Republican and Populist State Conventions spare us such a ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... so big a part of the hourly spectacle of warfare, and makes so great a difference in the obvious conditions of the fight, that he deserves a letter to himself. But of all the differences, by far the greatest is that our troops here have a beautiful country and a civilised, enlightened population at the back of ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... skilful. He knew something of the Contessa's past, but he recognised in her the nature that has known the world's worst side and has done with it for ever, and is lifted above it, and he knew the immense influence which the spectacle of a blameless life exercises upon the opinion of a good woman who has not always been blameless herself. Whatever he had been before he met his wife, whatever strange plans had been maturing in his brain since he had married her, his life had seemed as spotless from that day as the existence ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... the day of the old-time battles, but crowned with the snow of years. One could see youths, and need no longer marvel the young Apollo was accounted fair. Flowers, fluttering mantles, purple, gold, the bravery of armour, rousing music—what was missing? All conjoined to make a perfect spectacle. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... immersion in the morass, I felt like those extinct animals who have left their interesting bones nice and dry in the blue lias, but who in daily life must have been "mud all over." I presented such a spectacle on my return, that I consider it was an instance of the greatest kindness—indeed it must have been a severe strain on the hospitality of my friends to ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... reversed. We were staring up into the faces that looked curiously down at us. Henley gripped a stay and swung himself to the rail; farther aft the negro steward hung over, his mouth wide open, grinning at the spectacle. ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... instigation of Austin, attacked and massacred the presbyterian monks of Bangor, they had been allowed a good gorge of horseflesh and bitter ale. He! he! he!" continued the man in black, "what a fine spectacle to see such a mob, headed by a fellow like our friend, the landlord, sack the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... side of the unsuspicious Tira, in the back veranda of the house, holding in her hand a plate containing a pat of butter she had just borrowed from the Doctor's housekeeper, while the latter, peeping through the curtain of vine-leaves, gazed at as pretty a spectacle as just then could have been seen anywhere in Belfield. On the grassplot, in the shade of a great cherry-tree, Laura and Helen were playing at graces. Both were full of frolicsome glee; the former, with spirits in their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... came to a halt, for there in a heap on the floor was old man McBride, with his head mashed in where some one had hit him with a sledge. There was blood all over the floor, and it was a mighty sickenin' spectacle. I sort of looked around hoping I'd see the murderer, but he'd lit out, and then I went back to the front of the store, where I seen Colonel Harbison coming across the Square. I told him what I'd seen and he went inside to look; while he was looking, along come Andy ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... horror, unable to advance or retreat, Anthony continued to gaze upon the horrid spectacle, until the hair stiffened upon his head, and a cold perspiration bedewed ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... of a fine ship, seen by the aid of the moon, with its symmetry of spars, and its delicate tracery of cordage, and the heavy and grand movements of the hull as it rolls on the sluggish billows of a calm sea, is ever a pleasing and indeed an imposing spectacle. Alida knew that more, than a hundred human beings slept within the black and silent mass, and her thoughts insensibly wandered to the business of their daring lives, their limited abode, and yet wandering existence, their frank ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the two parties sat scowling at each other. Neither dared move. Gloaming had stolen into the valley when Dite Deuchars, of Tilliedrum, rose to his feet and deliberately spat upon the coffin. A stone whizzed through the air; and then the ugly spectacle was presented, in the gray night, of a dozen mutes fighting with their poles over a coffin. There was blood on the shoulders that bore Tammas' ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... scarce seen their torches go twinkling away into darkness, when I heard the signal at the back door, and hurried joyfully to let in my friends, who had been delayed by meeting the funeral; but they had missed the other strange spectacle. ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... stored against human casualties Money the universal lever, and you are in want of it More dangerous to attack the habits of men than their religion My little English protegee No phrase becomes a proverb until after a century's experience Offering you the spectacle of my miseries Only retire to make room for another race Over-caution may produce evils almost equal to carelessness Panegyric of the great Edmund Burke upon Marie Antoinette Pension is granted on condition that his poems are never printed People ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... I witnessed another and a very different spectacle. A Methodist preacher came into the village in a little four-wheeled car, with a square black hood over it, and preached from his car, on what is termed by the common voice 'Nigger abolition.' He was accompanied by a young woman and a very pretty little child, who both sat behind him. He soon ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... that heat substance is condensed into a state which may be compared with that of our present-day gas or steam. In occult science "air" is the name ordinarily used for this condition. The first beginnings of such a state are seen after the Lords of Motion have begun their activity. The following spectacle is presented to clairvoyant consciousness. Within the heat substance there appears something like delicate formations which are set in rythmic motion by the forces of the etheric body. These formations represent the human physical body at the stage of evolution now attained ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... the herd; but the "bulls" in this case were a group of the mightiest battleships then afloat. Nelson's sudden movement was a breach of orders; it left a gap in the British line; to dash unsupported into the Spanish van seemed mere madness, and the spectacle, as the Captain opened fire on the huge Santissima Trinidad, was simply amazing. Nelson was in action at once with the flagship of 130 guns, two ships of 112 guns, one of 80 guns, and two of 74 guns! To the spectators who watched the sight the sides of the Captain seemed to throb ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... of processes has gone hand in hand with the creation of divine beings who are supposed to manifest themselves in the processes. The great spectacle of nature's productivity has been especially recognizable in the vegetable world and in the world of man; in both of these life has been perpetually unfolding itself under men's eyes as a mysterious process, which, by virtue of its mysteriousness, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... some time. The Emperor Kirjalax sent his men to him to ask if he would rather accept from the emperor six lispund of gold, or would have the emperor give the games in his honour which the emperor was used to have played at the Padreim. King Sigurd preferred the games, and the messengers said the spectacle would not cost the emperor less than the money offered. Then the emperor prepared for the games, which were held in the usual way; but this day everything went on better for the king than for the queen; for the queen has always the half part in the games, and their men, therefore, always ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... watched this pleasing spectacle his heart was all aglow within him and his face was of a radiance comparable only with that of an Easter-morning sun. To himself he was saying: "It is a dream that has come to me! With the disgraced enemy in retreat, ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... townspeople, nor operatives, nor mechanics; they were the sort of people that one never sees except on such an occasion as this. I believe if I was in the habit of attending low pigeon matches, dog fights, or steeplechases, in the "Harrow County," I should recognize most of them enjoying the spectacle of such diversions. One peculiarity I remarked amongst them, with scarcely an exception. Although in the last stage of shabbiness, their clothes had all been once of fashionable texture and good material; ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... bungling piece of work, but this man's life was given to evil doing, and the great number of crimes confessed and committed by him would seem to say that he was not deserving of any more sympathy than which he got. This was a sorry spectacle, a human being dying like a dog, but necessity, which dared not trust itself to feelings of compassion, commanded the deed, ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... moral condition of human beings guilty of such brutality as that. But we cannot call ourselves civilized while our imaginations and sympathies are so dull that the reeling drunkard is thought an amusing spectacle. ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... love and admire them, and understand them. And we who marvel at this—we who also reflect on justice and virtue, on pity and love—are we so sure that they who come after us shall not some day find, in our present social condition, a spectacle no ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... great deal of charity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the copper's cost. It is too cheap—too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do more for him, or less. Hence, "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love it profiteth ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... been uneasy; Yussuf knew the people with whom he had to deal, and he went on belabouring the man till he threw himself down and howled for mercy, while the crowd looked on as if interested by the spectacle more than annoyed; and when at last, with a final stroke across the shoulders, Yussuf threw the man off, the people only came a little ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... And gradually, before the spectacle of this profound love, of this humble and holy devotion of the unselfish martyr with timid, wistful eyes, who leaned over her children, and said to them, sweetly, "Yes, you are hungry, I know, but you ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... the young man in question, began to find that he was becoming rather ridiculous, and felt that he would rather let Micky go free than furnish a spectacle to the crowd of boot-blacks who were surveying the chase with eager interest. He accordingly stopped short, and, throwing down the "stub," ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... said, whilst awed at the spectacle of this old woman parleying with the dead, carriers and mourners had instinctively moved a few steps away from her, "so thou wouldst harm my boy! ... Thou always didst hate him ... thou with thy grand airs, and thy rough ways.... Had ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... seven miles after first hearing the sound, he reached the falls about twelve o'clock. The hills as he approached were difficult of access and two hundred feet high. Down these he hurried with impatience; and, seating himself on some rocks under the centre of the falls, enjoyed the sublime spectacle of this stupendous object, which since the creation had been lavishing its magnificence upon the desert, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... peered out. It was not a heartening spectacle. A few water- soaked tents formed the miserable foreground, from which the streaming ground sloped to a foaming gorge. Down this ramped a mountain torrent. Here and there, dwarf spruce, rooting and grovelling in the shallow alluvium, marked the proximity ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... There is a tradition in our Church, that before the Northumbrian rabble, at the instigation of Austin, attacked and massacred the presbyterian monks of Bangor, they had been allowed a good gorge of horseflesh and bitter ale. He! he! he!' continued the man in black, 'what a fine spectacle to see such a mob, headed by a fellow like our friend the landlord, sack the house of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... grand and vast Is yonder show of heavenly pageantry! How mean and narrow is the earthly stand From which we gaze on it! Magnificent, O God, art thou amid the sunsets! Ah! What heart in Rimini is softened now, Towards my defects, by this grand spectacle? Perchance, Paolo now forgives the wrong Of my hot spleen. Perchance, Francesca now Wishes me back, and turns a tenderer eye On my poor person and ill-mannered ways; Fashions excuses for me, schools her heart Through duty into love, and ponders o'er The sacred meaning in ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... cape or a delicate, time-yellowed, purple and white cashmere scarf on her bent shoulders, wearing on her gray head a shirred-silk or leghorn bonnet, and carrying in her lace-mitted hand a fresh handkerchief, her spectacle-case and well-worn Bible, and a great sprig of the sweet, old-fashioned "lad's-love." A rose, a bunch of mignonette would be to her too gay a posy for the Lord's House and the Lord's Day. And balmier breath than was ever borne by blossom is the pure ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... crowd were out of place. He wished to see the aeronauts embark, And meet some friends; but there would be a throng Of boys and drunken boors around the car, And I should not enjoy it; more than this, The rise would be a finer spectacle At home than on the ground. I gave assent, And he went out. Of course, I followed him; For I had learned to read him, and I knew There was some precious scheme of sin ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... eagles came the camp prefects and tribunes, and the senior centurions,[429] all dressed in white. The other centurions marched each at the head of his company, glittering with their armour and decorations. Gaily, too, shone the soldiers' medals[430] and their chains of honour. It was a noble spectacle, an army worthy of a better emperor. Thus Vitellius entered the Capitol, where he embraced his mother and conferred on her the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... merits of the two types, and conservative officers have been slow to accept the battle cruiser. The war has shown the necessity for both types, and no better illustration of their relative merits could be wished than that which is afforded by the spectacle of the battleships engaged in what is practically a blockade of the German fleet, while the battle cruisers have swept the German raiders, the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and their consorts, from the distant seas which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Barbarians of antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed by several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so apposite to his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian confined like a wild beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a spectacle to Asia. I might add the authority of two Italian chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date, which would prove at least that the same story, whether false or true, was imported into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution. [53] 3. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Heavens; thou com'st indeed, 410 As a poor miserable captive thrall, Comes to the place where he before had sat Among the Prime in Splendour, now depos'd, Ejected, emptyed, gaz'd, unpityed, shun'd, A spectacle of ruin or of scorn To all the Host of Heaven; the happy place Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy, Rather inflames thy torment, representing Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable, So never more in Hell then when in Heaven. 420 But thou art serviceable ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... anthropomorphists believed, man fell, and their belief was set forth in their very first religious tradition—the history of the apple, the serpent, and the Fall. And it is to the very extraordinary nature of the Hebrew race, by which they presented for the first time in history the spectacle of a people resisting nature-worship, that they owe their claim ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the high priests in the spectacle. They strongly resembled Catholic bishops in their gold-embroidered mitres, copes and vestments as, carrying pastoral crooks or sprinkling holy water, they moved around the courtyard in solemn procession ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... hatchet. As we entered he had just succeeded in broaching it, and the brown mead was foaming over, while the mob with roars of laughter were passing up their dippers and pannikins. The German soldier rapped out a rough jagged oath at this spectacle, and shouldering his way through the roisterers he sprang upon the altar. The ringleader was bending over his cask, black-jack in hand, when the soldier's iron grip fell upon his collar, and in a moment his heels were flapping ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle of men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of the purse. When Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he knew that the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after having been broken in a Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw and broken ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... not know whether or not this story is true, for I only read it in the Parisian papers. But certain it is that the episode would have made no sensation in Paris. A dog eating in a restaurant is a most ordinary spectacle. Only a few days ago I had lunch with a dog,—a very quiet, sensible Belgian poodle, very simply dressed in a plain morning stomach coat of ultramarine with leather insertions. I took quite a fancy to him. When I say that I had lunch with him, I ought to explain that he had a lady, ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... market-place and council hall, in that mind of exquisite and, as drawn by itself, exaggerated sensibility. The doings and characters of men, the workings of society, the fortunes of Italy, were watched and thought of with as deep an interest as the courses of the stars, and read in the real spectacle of life with as profound emotion as in the miraculous page of Vergil; and no scholar ever read Vergil with such feeling—no astronomer ever watched the stars with more eager inquisitiveness. The whole man opens to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... elapsed. From our terrace we could see the water, gray and olive, with huge white breakers, like gnashing teeth, coming on to rend and tear everything in their path. It was as though we stood in an amphitheater provided by nature for a great spectacle, the bold headlands standing out like the ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... wrote of "The Great Eclipse" which he saw June 16, 1806, at his Cooperstown home. This account was found after his death and appeared in Putnam's Magazine of 1869. It included a thrilling tragedy and closed as follows: "I have passed a varied and eventful life—but never have I beheld any spectacle which so plainly manifested the majesty of the Creator, or so forcibly taught the lesson of humility to man as the total ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... instant death if they did not stop their shrieks. Among the prisoners was a respectable old colored minister. They had found a few parcels of shot in his house, which his wife had for years used to balance her scales. For this they were going to shoot him on Court House Green. What a spectacle was that for a civilized country! A rabble, staggering under intoxication, assuming to be ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... an enchanting spectacle to behold the sea of human beings that surged to and fro on this immense space, and made the welkin ring with their "Vive l'empereur!"—to behold the proud, triumphant soldiers receiving from Napoleon the eagles consecrated by the priests at the altar that stood before the ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... with him, and the twain descended into the cavern-like souterrain and entered the pavilion, where the Queen saw that which wildereth the wits; and she made sure with her own eyes that the jars were full of gold. But while they enjoyed the spectacle of the treasure behold, they caught sight of a smaller jar wondrously wrought in green jasper; so Zayn al-Asnam opened it and found therein a golden key; whereupon quoth the Queen-mother, "O my son, needs ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... freakish reversion to the prankishness of a growing boy, Graham pointed his finger at Ruth, who instantly screamed. The girls looking on, laughed, and there was some excuse for their amusement. The spectacle of the sensible Ruth, shrinking and shrieking over nothing more alarming than an agitated forefinger, was ridiculous enough to be funny. Graham, encouraged by the laughter, took a step toward his sister who instantly burst into incoherent ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... practical difficulty which now confronted him, all that was merely romantic and speculative in his soul took flight, as birds that are frightened from a quiet orchard by the yelp of dogs. He became aware that he was bitterly independent of the joys he had once found in the mere spectacle of the exterior world—the play of light and shade, the changing visions of the sky, the charm of the earth. His own thoughts were now the sole realities, and the dulness which suddenly came over ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... figures of a fantasy. The road was still well filled with wains and pedestrians, following after those who had gone on ahead. The wains stopped; the pedestrians halted and gaped and gasped. Women cried out shrilly. Vaniman and Britt furnished an uncanny spectacle. The eyes which beheld them saw them only for an instant; the fog's curtain allowed each observer scant time to determine what these figures were. Britt, hairless, his face sickly white, his night gear fluttering, was as starkly bodeful as if he were newly risen from the grave, garbed in death's ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... by great circle, from Coon Butte, so that if the meteorite that made the crater was a member of a flock of similar bodies which encountered the earth moving in parallel lines, some of them might have traversed the sky tangent to the earth's surface at Cairo. That the spectacle spoken of in the chronicle was caused by meteorites he deems exceedingly probable because of what is said about "a great noise;'' meteorites are the only celestial phenomena attended with perceptible sounds. Professor ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... deposit their arms. It is said that General Gates [the American Commander] paid so nice and delicate an attention to the British military honour that he kept his army close within their lines, and did not suffer an American soldier to be a witness to the degrading spectacle of piling their arms.' Ann. Reg. xx. 173, 174. Horace Walpole, on Lord Cornwallis's capitulation in 1781, wrote:—'The newspapers on the Court side had been crammed with paragraphs for a fortnight, saying that Lord Cornwallis had declared ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... was on a coasting-vessel, young man. But we didn't carry cattle." Mr. Ebbitt inspected Horatio Hood Teddem darkly, clicked his spectacle case sharply shut, and fell to eating, as though he ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... His breath was coming in gasps. He was a terrible spectacle, but Sally was past the weaker emotions. She was back in the Stone Age, and her only feeling was one of passionate pride. She tried to speak. She struggled to put all she felt into words, but something kept her dumb, and she followed ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... nerves, usually like steel, were becoming unstrung; his mind had fallen into a morbid state, and was a prey to a thousand strange fancies. The closed doors of the cabin stood there before him, and he began to imagine that some frightful spectacle was concealed within. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... while otherwise well, and could go about his business, save once that he had a fall from the bell as it hangs in our steeple, which it was a wonder it did not kill him. But after that he also walked about, until God had made a sufficient spectacle of his judgment of his sin, and then on a sudden he was stricken, and died miserably; and so there was an end ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... which seek to amalgamate us. It is unnatural. Let each be thoroughly persuaded of his own faith;—different temperaments and habits of thought are suited by different modes and forms;—but let us treat each other as Christians, and with urbanity and kindness. That is the most sublime spectacle of union. It comes nearer to fulfilling the prayer of Christ, "that they all may be one," when we differ strongly, and yet keep the unity of the spirit. I am doubtful whether, even in heaven, there will not ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... at the awe-inspiring spectacle, and for a time none of them uttered a word. Lester was the first to break ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... hither, nor again departs from hence to some other place; but it either appears to us or it does not appear. So that we ought not to pursue it with a view of detecting its secret source, but to watch in quiet till it suddenly shines upon us; preparing ourselves for the blessed spectacle as the eye waits patiently for the rising sun." They and they only can acquire the philosophic imagination, the sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret and understand the symbol, that the wings of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... joined their fellow colonists in casting off the yoke of British rule. Those who vehemently opposed Reformed Presbyterians, for disowning the British government, joined cheerfully in its overthrow. How fickle and inconsistent is man! During the revolutionary struggle might be witnessed the singular spectacle—humbling to the pride of human reason, revolting to the sensibilities of the exercised Christian—brethren of the same communion, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, pleading with the God of justice to give success to the respective armies! East of the ocean the petition would be, "Lord, ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... door opens, and Molly enters. She looks surprised at such an unexpected spectacle as Cecil's husband sitting in his wife's boudoir, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... contains feathers. Now, if you positively refuse to drink the toast I have just named in spirits, we shall be constrained to anoint you all over from head to foot with our ointment, and then to sprinkle you with the feathers; in so doing, we shall be affording an amusing spectacle to the inhabitants of Crossbourne, and shall be doing yourself a real kindness, by furnishing you with abundant means ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... behind them walked Mr Bunker and the Countess. The attention of Lady Grillyer was divided between the agreeable conversation of her companion and the pleasant spectacle of a fabulous number of pfennigs a-year bending its titled head over her daughter. In the middle of one of Mr Bunker's most amusing stories she could not forbear interrupting with a complacent "they do make a very ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... certainly a natural institution looking to the limitations of the cow-bird? One June morning, a year or two ago, I heard a loud squeaking, as of a young bird in the grass near my door, and, on approaching, discovered the spectacle of a cow-bird, almost full-fledged, being fed by its foster-mother, a chippy not more than half its size, and which was obliged to stand on tiptoe to cram the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... conservatory next, they discovered Cecilia's sister languishing among the flowers in an easy chair. Constitutional laziness, in some young ladies, assumes an invalid character, and presents the interesting spectacle of perpetual convalescence. The doctor declared that the baths at St. Moritz had cured Miss Julia. Miss Julia declined to agree ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... said Aunt Maria, when she saw her. "Well, if you are set on making a spectacle of yourself, I suppose ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... by the King, applied a patent mixture to stop the progress of its decay, but, last autumn, when seen by the describer, its naked gigantic trunk and arms, retaining not the least symptom of animation, presented a ghastly spectacle of the ravages of time, as contrasted with the rich ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... at the residence of the Bolands, on the morning after the attack, was truly horrifying. The remains of the four men, almost burned to cinders, were dug out of the still burning ruins, nor was the spectacle in the yard and on the neighboring road less frightful; from the multitude of dead bodies with which they were strewn; for most of their stranger assailants who were killed were left on the spot—the party not ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... supreme in this little apartment, which Stendhal, one of the most ingenious of modern writers, and a keen student of Italian manners, has called a boudoir with a window opening on to a pit. The music and the spectacle are in fact purely accessory; the real interest of the evening is in the social meeting there, the all-important trivialities of love that are discussed, the assignations held, the anecdotes and gossip that creep in. The theatre ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... a more miserable spectacle than the man of fifty or sixty who has retired with ample fortune. He loafs around the house. Goes from one club to another. Gets lonely. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... my art.—Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wrack, which touch'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely ordered that there is no soul— No, not so much perdition as an hair Betid to any creature in the vessel Which ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... scarcely inferior to that of the younger generation. There was in Sir Michael's talk no hint of a Nunc Dimittis; rather a passionate regret that life was ebbing, and the veil falling over a national spectacle so ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted grievances, and calling vainly to her Majesty's Government for redress, does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain within the Queen's ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a pretty apartment here, but house-rent is awful to mention. Mrs. Bouncer (muzzled by the Parisian police) is also here, and is a wonderful spectacle to behold in the streets, restrained ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... its fluffy summit gleaming in the light of the ardent sun; the wind whirled across the barren mesa, sweeping great clouds of dust before it, and the air grew damp and cool; then, as evening came on the clouds vanished suddenly and the wind died down to a calm. For a week the spectacle was repeated—then, at last, as if weary, the storm-wind refused to blow; the thunder-caps no longer piled up against the Peaks; only the haze endured, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... however, on their feet, and Johnny had half risen; Robin lay still snoring, and Joe had retreated into the wood from the alarming spectacle ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the human race is assured by our example. No sweep of overwhelming armies, no ponderous treatises on the rights of man, no hymns to liberty, though set to martial music and resounding with the full diapason of a million human throats, can exert so persuasive an influence as does the spectacle of a great republic, occupying a quarter of the civilized globe, and governed quietly and sagely ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had these men seen Jefferson Worth hesitate. The will of the man, whose cold decision had carried him through so many critical situations and upon which the pioneers had relied in the recent time of peril, seemed to fail him at last. The spectacle told the men more clearly than words could have done what he suffered. "I—I don't know what to do," he finished weakly. "Give me time. Let me think." He bowed his face ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... seemed almost dazzlingly white, as were the few locks that appeared, neatly brushed over his temples, beneath his opera hat. His sanguine complexion, however, had all the freshness ef youth, and his eyes sparkled merrily, as though amused at the spectacle of his nose, which was immense, curved, and polished, like an eagle's beak. He wore perfectly-fitting kid gloves, and the collar of his fur wrapper, falling a little open, showed that ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... two guards obeyed him, and an alarming spectacle met their eyes. In the middle of the room, beside a big table littered with papers and military documents, lay the Emperor, stretched full length upon the thick velvet pile carpet, one hand, as if to hide something dreadful from ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... they are coercions which hold and control each in his efforts to live well. It is idle to try to get outside of this operation in order to tell which part of it comes first and makes the other. "Our age presents us the incredible spectacle that the dependence of the higher social culture on the economic development is not only clearly recognized by social science, but is proclaimed as the ideal." Social science does not proclaim this as an ideal. It does not deal in ideals. It accepts the dependence of culture on ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Portage. In short, the Canadian Pacific Railway has been opened.... For our own part, we have not the slightest doubt that the C.P.R. will be no less effective than the N.P. in creating wealth for Canada.... This will be amply proved by the spectacle of a railway 2500 miles long operated on the strength of a traffic with about 150,000 people. Such a thing was never tried before, and is unlikely ever to be tried again' ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... of Christianity, advanced throughout the world. The people of Europe, accustomed to refer the settlement of their slightest differences to the bloody arbitrament of the sword, will behold with silent wonder and amazement the spectacle of a great people unable to agree in reference to one of their peculiar domestic institutions, peacefully separating, as did the patriarchs of old; resolving themselves into two distinct political communities, not hostile, discordant, belligerent; but each, animated ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... do not say had executed, but had merely conceived in his mind the system of the sun, and the stars, and planets, they not existing, and had painted to us in words, or upon canvas, the spectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven, and illustrated it by the wisdom of astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or had he imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas, and the rivers; the grass, and the flowers, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... we to take to Spithead!" was the British tar's remark, as forty ships of the line and frigates showed their glossy sides, and canvas bosomed with the gentle air and veined with gliding sunlight. A grander spectacle never was of laborious man's creation; and the work of the Lord combined to show it to the best advantage—dark headlands in the distance standing as a massive background, long pellucid billows lifting bulk Titanic, and lace-like maze, sweet ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... slowly from the air. The night lay sublimely still, fearfully clear and cold. About ten o'clock Nature provided a spectacle. The grey troops, huddled upon the hillsides, drew a quickened breath. A Florida regiment showed alarm. "What's that? Look at that light in the sky! Great shafts of light streaming up—look! opening like a fan! What's that, chaplain, what's that?—Don't reckon the Lord's tired of fighting, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... The spectacle of a drunken man, and of this drunken man in particular, was not, I grieve to say, of sufficient novelty in Red Gulch to attract attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected a temporary ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... wind blowing, and felt his boat bobbing about inexplicably. He went out to look about him, and in the morning twilight he discovered that the whole aspect of the Mississippi had changed. With the invisible sunrise had come an awe-inspiring spectacle which excited in his ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... shabby spectacle as he moved off with his little dog Dan slinking at his heels. It should be said in behalf of Dan, however, that his bristles were up, and that he looked back and growled. It may be that the dog had the advantage of insignificance, but it is difficult ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... himself, surely long years of penitence must make a better expiation of his guilt than that one short agony—those few spasmodic throes, which render his death such a pleasant spectacle for ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for a time, and it struck me that he was leaving me to my own thoughts, so that I might be impressed by the martial spectacle, as I looked back from time to time at the wild barbaric pageant, with the torches in a long train, lighting up the dark faces of the rajah's followers, flashing from their arms, and sending back a ruddy cloud of smoke which formed like a canopy ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... of violence to a bad mind contemplating violence; hold up before a man remotely compassing the death of another person, the spectacle of his own ghastly and untimely death by man's hands; and out of the depths of his own nature you shall assuredly raise up that which lures and tempts him on. The laws which regulate those mysteries have not been studied or cared for, by the maintainers of this ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... of Oro," said the Ancient again. Then followed a terrible spectacle. The man went raving mad. He bounded into the air to a height inconceivable. He threw himself upon the ground and rolled upon the rock. He rose again and staggered round and round, tearing pieces out of his ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... which there was no outlet but by secession. The secession came. In defence of their somewhat mysterious principles no fewer than 451 ministers, on the 18th day of May, 1843, left the Church. All the world wondered. It was said that in no country other than Scotland could such a spectacle have been seen. Yet one cannot help looking back with sorrow upon the blundering that made it possible. Like the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, it was "magnificent, but ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... witnessed our approach from a distance, were all assembled in front of their wigwams to greet us, if friends—if otherwise, whatever the occasion should demand. It was the first time such a spectacle had ever presented itself to their wondering eyes. Their salutations were not less cordial than we expected. "Shaw-nee-aw-kee" and his mother, who was known throughout the tribe by the touching appellation "Our friend's wife," were welcomed most kindly, and an animated conversation ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... and by the flickering light of the candle which Marie-Anne held, he saw a spectacle which moved him more than the horrors of ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... manner, abrupt of speech. In his unconsciousness it never occurred to him that it is the little courtesies and graces of speech and action which commend a man first to the notice of the woman he wants to win. He was, though he did not know it, a melancholy spectacle; but his ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... gambling-room of the Reception. There stood Morrow with the men under foot; there was the bottles and glasses; the chips and cards, and also the distressful spectacle of Tarantula Bill Joyce, a number twelve man, all gleaming teeth, and rolling eyeballs, inserting hisself into a number nine opening, and doing ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... leader of the Left, a prophet, a person with a mission, and I daren't even dream of it. But this morning, Bruno tells me, his friend, his idol, is to stop the Pope's procession, and present a petition, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone—see my man and see the spectacle—and here I ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... include chatelains, watch chains, keys, seals, purses, slides, beads, waist buckles, dress swords, steel buttons for court dresses, bodkins, spectacle frames, knitting and netting implements, and steel snuffers. Shoe and knee buckles, which were once universally worn, alone employed five thousand persons in their manufacture, when it was the staple trade of the town. The expense and inconvenience of shoe buckles sent them ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... sight in that instant, from the river tumbling below—by sticking out a leg I could see it shining through my stirrup—to the rocky aretes and smoothed-out snowfields round the peaks. It made a big spectacle, and I suppose I must have stared at it till my eyes were dazzled, for, on turning again to follow the track, which at once dived among the pines and into the dusk again, I did not observe, until quite close upon her, a ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... essential traits and qualities of the male, the hallmarks of the unpolluted masculine, are at the same time the hall-marks of the Schalskopf. The caveman is all muscles and mush. Without a woman to rule him and think for him, he is a truly lamentable spectacle: a baby with whiskers, a rabbit with the frame of an aurochs, a feeble and preposterous ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... crossed the common room, and installed themselves in the best apartment of the hotel; while the innkeeper and his wife lighted lamps, and rushed into the cellar, where a frightful spectacle awaited them. In rear of the fortifications, in which Athos had made a breach for his exit, and which were composed of fagots, planks, and empty casks, arranged according to all the rules of strategy, were numerous pools of oil and wine, in which the bones of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... spectacle together, when a man, with hair turning grey, and wearing a black overcoat, appeared walking along the pathway, striking with his cane all the bars of the railed fence. The old servant informed them that this was M. Vaucorbeil, a doctor of some reputation in the district. She mentioned that ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the white skeleton of a human being. The flesh had been seared and burned from the face and skull by the instantaneous flash of the powder, and there lay the remains of Babette, whitely bleached, as if she had been thrown a lifeless corpse on the sea-beach. A few yards below this frightful spectacle lay a number of shattered boxes and trunks, then a confused bundle of clothes, and a sandy saturated collection of kitchen utensils and crockery. Yes, the poor dumb woman, the creature and witness of many a cruel scene, ignorant or uncertain of the warning given her by the master ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... appointment of a permanent tribunal, with a proper staff of judges. You must still be Atlas staggering under the weight of your huge Orbis Causarum. Around your feet must be millions of Hindoos, crying aloud for justice. It is only this spectacle for gods and men that will move the Government ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... his plans, movements, and personal appearance in a fog of mystery. None, not even his closest associates, know what he would be at until a job is completely finished, and finished successfully. Thus when he succeeds, his own small world is deeply impressed—even nauseated—by the compelling spectacle of a Dawson triumphant; when he fails, very few know or hear of the failure. He loves the jealousy of his equals and inferiors even more than the admiration of his superiors. Thoroughly to enjoy life he must be surrounded by both in the ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Every fact of nature comes to us each spring, if only we are sufficiently ignorant, with the dew still on it. If we have lived half a lifetime without having ever even seen a cuckoo, and know it only as a wandering voice, we are all the more delighted at the spectacle of its runaway flight as it hurries from wood to wood conscious of its crimes, and at the way in which it halts hawk-like in the wind, its long tail quivering, before it dares descend on a hill-side of fir-trees where avenging presences may lurk. It would be absurd to pretend that ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... the obvious devotion of a large and growing proportion of the time and energy of the owning and ruling classes to pleasure and excitement, and the way in which this spectacle of amusement and adventure is now being brought before the eyes and into the imagination of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Sam Hill can't a man and a woman get married without all this fuss?" he complained once. "Why should we make our private affairs a spectacle ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... telegraphs that a despatch has reached him from Egypt containing the gratifying intelligence of the liberation of two sisters who were imprisoned in the Soudan, and whose freedom has been procured by Abdel Giabbari, Mgr. Sogaro's envoy in the Soudan. The striking historical spectacle presented by General Gordon's long and lonely journey on his camel across the desert to Khartoum has been eclipsed in its sublimity by the feat which has just been performed by Sister Cipriani, who has just ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... mountain tops will be as heretofore a pure joy; not the same gladness, that can never be—but yet a joy even more tender. It will soothe me to know how happy he would have been, could he have seen the same beautiful spectacle.... He was taken away in the freshness of his manhood; pure he was, and innocent as a child. Never human being was more thoroughly modest, and his courage I need not speak of. He was 'seen speaking with apparent cheerfulness to the first mate a few minutes before ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... content, and the boy told Miss Lucy the gossip of the hospital,—that Captain Ward was to be made a major,—and she kissed him and petted him until he was glad none of the boys was around to see the sickening spectacle. And then Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay told the child of their plans,—that Miss Lucy was going to war as a nurse, and that Mrs. Barclay was to teach the Sycamore Ridge school during the winter. And in a few weeks John was out of the hero business, working in Culpepper's ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... toward the inhabitants in establishing their rule in the city, and paid for all supplies requisitioned. They were quartered in various public buildings and institutions, probably to the number of 10,000. The German troops at first seemed to present an interesting spectacle. They were mostly young men, reported as footsore from their long march in new, imperfectly fitting boots, and hungry from the lack of accompanying commissariat. This is proof that the German's military machine did not work to perfection at ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... chiefs. In the region of the great lakes, over all that vast country which feeds the market of Zanzibar, in Bornou and Fezzan, farther south, on the banks of the Nyassa and the Zambesi, farther west, in the districts of the upper Zaire, which the daring Stanley has just crossed, is seen the same spectacle—ruins, massacres, depopulation. Then will slavery in Africa only end with the disappearance of the black race; and will it be with this race as it is with the Australian race, or the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... Their influence too is much less potent than is supposed. A slightly vulgarizing tendency proceeds from them, but in waves of decreasing intensity. Their vogue is chiefly a succes de scandale. Sensible people will gape at the spectacle without admiration, and even the reader of the society column in the sensational newspapers keeps more critical detachment than he is usually credited with. In any case neither the boisterous nor the shrinking multimillionaire has any representative standing. He is not what a poor person means ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... matron, however high her quality, was ashamed to act for hire on the public stage. He adds, that throughout Greece, it was deemed the highest honour to obtain the prize in the Olympic games, and no man blushed to be a performer in plays and pantomimes, and give himself a spectacle to the people. Nulla Lacedaemoni tam est nobilis vidua, quae non in scenam eat mercede conducta. Magnis in laudibus tota fuit Graecia, victorem Olympiae citari. In scenam vero prodire, et populo esse spectaculo nemini in iisdem gentibus fuit turpitudini. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... poor tribute to such beauty. Hugh glanced away to his father, then around to the commodore, up to Watson, and back again upon the spectacle. In a tone of remote allusion the grandfather spoke: "One wants a choice partnership for a ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... in his shabby old armchair, smoking a pipe. There was tea on the table. The room seemed more dishevelled than ever. It would have been difficult to say which presented the sorrier spectacle, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window without calling from him anything worse than a fretful "I hope ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... answer me, for every thought was now engaged by the horrid spectacle before us. Two Gentlemen most elegantly attired but weltering in their blood was what first struck our Eyes—we approached—they were Edward and Augustus—. Yes dearest Marianne they were our Husbands. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... not all so loyal. There is a section which is all the more vehemently rebellious because of the spectacle of its staid and comfortable neighbours. This section is very small, but makes a considerable noise. It holds meetings and utters treasonable speeches, and denounces the 'despot' in fiery language. It protests against ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... the spectacle presented on the evening of that eventful day! A little before sunset the three adventurers were seen slowly and sadly returning to their hut—that despised hovel, under whose homely roof they had hoped never ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... The spectacle of demonstrators and riots in northern cities and the appearance in 1966 of the "black power" slogan considered ominous by many citizens were blamed for the bill's failure. Another and more likely cause was that in violating the sanctity of the all-white neighborhood ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Gueldmar, an eight miles journey through the drifted snow. All this was intensely interesting to the good, stupid, gossiping fisher-folks of Bosekop,—so much so, indeed, that they scarcely paid any heed to the spectacle of the fiery ship swaying suggestively on the heaving water, and drifting rapidly away—away towards the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Louvre quarter, but the whole evening he spent on the Place du Carrousel with the crowd outside the Tuileries, watching the departure from the palace of the infirm King of France and of his Court. The crowd was silent and obviously deeply moved. The spectacle before it of an old, ailing monarch, driven forth out of the home of his ancestors, and forced after an exile of three and twenty years and a brief reign of less than one, to go back once more to misery and exile, was pitiable ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... broken in health and fortune deplorably enough to present a truly gratifying spectacle to the supreme chief of democratic institutions. He retired to Sulaco. His wife had an estate in that province, and she nursed him back to life out of the house of death and captivity. When she died, their daughter, an only ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... house leaped three warriors, two of whom already had fitted arrows to their bows, while the third—a powerful fellow—clutched a four-foot war club. Weapons raised, faces contracted into fighting masks, they stared speechless at the spectacle of the subchief's son calmly leading ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... and miserable spectacle to behold the savages of this continent at the time when the knell of their common ruin had already sounded. Civilization had gained a foothold on their borders. The long and gloomy reign of barbarism was drawing near its close, and their united efforts could scarcely ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... of Northumberland gave a ball. It was a magnificent, fairylike spectacle. This Arabian Nights ambassador brought one of these nights to Rheims. Every woman found ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... flying like a ball across the fire, then whirling round and round in one place, then stamping his feet on the ground, while he swung his arms, and shouted at the top of his voice. It was a ludicrous spectacle. Two of the shepherds were rolling on the ground, convulsed with laughter, while the older man, with a serious, immovable face, tried to clap his hands in time to the dancing, but could not succeed in doing ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... eyes the only way to save her. Tolerance to him was not an isolated virtue, but an integral part of democracy. He took little interest in the Parliamentary side of Catholic relief, realizing its hollow unreality, and, in the case of the Bill of 1793, actually ridiculing the absurd spectacle of the Catholic cottiers being herded to the poll by their Protestant landlords. Nor was he even an extreme Democrat, for he advocated a ten-pound, instead of a forty shilling franchise. His original pamphlet of 1791 contains nothing but the ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... "A sad spectacle," he repeated, rolling his big eyes in his black and yellow face that was melancholy with the broken pathos of ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... of approbation. Priest Abraham spoke very appropriately and feelingly on the subject of temptations, applying it to his hearers, who are now so sorely beset by the Jesuits. That crowd of eager listeners presented a thrilling spectacle. I could not help thanking God for the privilege of addressing them on the things that pertain ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... had known what the answer would be—or she would not have asked the question—it made her very happy. It was delightful to hear only what one wanted to hear; to see only what one wanted to see. Life appeared as a graceful spectacle, a sort of orderly carnival refined to taste. There would, of course, be the big thrill in it—Osborn. It would be wonderful to have him coming home to her successful little dinners every evening. People didn't want a great deal, after all; all the discontented, puling, ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... foolish prejudices, and made to confess that Frenchmen may equal them in some serious things, as well as beat them in all the lighter accomplishments. French iron-clad steamers have been followed by the curious spectacle of a French actor teaching an English audience how Shakespeare should be acted. I would give a good deal to see M. Fechter in Hamlet, Othello, or Iago,—the only parts he has yet attempted; the rather, because the low condition of the stage in England, where Mr. Macready and Mr. Charles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... represented themselves as the truest friends of the Church. Had they done otherwise they would have forfeited at once the national confidence. For the nation at large, and the lower classes even more than the higher, were vehement partisans of the National Church. The now unusual spectacle of a High Church mob was then not at all unusual.[648] The enemies of the Church seemed to be effectually silenced. Rome had tried her strength against her and had failed—failed in argument and failed in policy. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Rhoda Fleming that it is unnecessarily inhumane, and that Dahlia dead were better art than Dahlia living and incapable of love and joy. But the book, as I have said, is a merciless impeachment of respectability; and as the spectacle of a ruined and broken life is infinitely more discomforting than that of a noble death, I take it that Mr. Meredith was right to prefer his present ending to the alternative, inasmuch as the painfulness of that impression ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley |
