"Compasses" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a difficulty in understanding how ideas can be causes, which to us seems to be as much a figure of speech as the old notion of a creator artist, 'who makes the world by the help of the demigods' (Plato, Tim.), or with 'a golden pair of compasses' measures out the circumference of the universe (Milton, P.L.). We can understand how the idea in the mind of an inventor is the cause of the work which is produced by it; and we can dimly imagine how ...
— Sophist • Plato
... to a creek, and pointed out the place where he had crossed. Jackey said "I threw him down one fellow compass somewhere here." It was immediately found, it was one of Kater's prismatic compasses, the name Chislett, London, engraved on the back. Jackey then went to a place where he "plant him sextant," but the flood had been over the spot and washed it away. When returning I found the trough for an artificial horizon washed upon the banks of the creek, this had been left with the ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... were cleaned with a hoe and broom; it looks as if it had been brushed. The little beds that stand out so sharply against the yellow gravel of the walks look, not as if they had been dug by a cord, but as if they were drawn on the ground with a ruler and compasses, the box edging has the air of being daily attended to by the most accurate barber in town with comb and razor. And yet the blue coat which, if one stands on the piazza, one may see twice daily stepping into the little garden and every ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... the air like a burgee. Next thing I knew we was scooting back towards Dillaway's, with the sail catching every ounce that was blowing. Jonadab was braced across the tiller, and there, behind us, was the Honorable Philip Catesby-Stuart, flat on his back, with his blanket legs looking like a pair of compasses, and skimming in whirligigs over the slick ice towards Albany. HE hadn't had nothing to hold onto, you understand. Well, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have b'lieved that a human being could spin ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... swollen feet." A person with no recognized position, but one who occasionally does inferior work of this nature for us, recently surprised Kin Yen without warning, and found him in his sumptuously appointed picture-room, busy with compasses and tracing-paper. About the place were scattered in elegant confusion several of his recent masterpieces. From the subsequent conversation we are in a position to make it known that in future this refined and versatile person will confine himself entirely to illustrations of processions, funerals, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... decanters, cages, boxes, jars, pots, skulls, books, snake skins, wands, waxen images, pins and needles, locks of hair, crystal balls, playing cards, dice, witch-hazel forks, tails of animals, spices, bottles of ink in several colors, clay pipes, a small brass scale, compasses, measuring cups, a piggy bank which squealed off and on in a peevish way, balls of string and ribbons, a pile of magazines called The Warlock Weekly, a broken ukulele, little heaps of powder, colored stones, candle ends, some potted ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... two steersman and a cook—eight men all told—formed the crew of the aeronef, and proved ample for all the maneuvers required in aerial navigation. There were arms of the chase and of war; fishing appliances; electric lights; instruments of observation, compasses, and sextants for checking the course, thermometers for studying the temperature, different barometers, some for estimating the heights attained, others for indicating the variations of atmospheric pressure; a storm-glass ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... heard lustily singing; with the aid of a pair of compasses he had drawn some lines and now proceeded to cut a large fan; this he adroitly, with his tools, folded into the shape of a pointed mushroom. Zidore was again heating the irons. The sun was setting just behind the house, and the whole western sky was flushed with rose, fading to a soft ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... run right on a whale. Casks of water were thrown out of the ship to make her lighter, but the bottom of the ship was badly injured. The men on board had to get out the boats at once. They took food and water with them, and compasses to sail by. Soon after the boats got clear of the ship she filled with ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... numerous arrangements that have been devised for drawing circles in diagrams, sketches, etc., one of the simplest is doubtless that which is represented in the accompanying figure, and which is known in England as the "scholar's compasses." It consists of a socket into which slides a pencil by hard friction, and to which is hinged a tapering, pointed leg. This latter and the pencil are held at the proper distance apart by means of a slotted strip of metal and a binding screw. When the instrument is closed, as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... a certain bird carved holes in the trunks of trees, he learned how to make and use the chisel. Then he invented the wheel which potters use in molding clay; and he made of a forked stick the first pair of compasses for drawing circles; and he studied out many other curious and ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... the parallel position into any degree of obliquity. And furthermore, merely by halting and facing half round at the due intervals, you shove yourself to right or to left as required (always to right in this Leuthen case): and so—provided you CAN march as a pair of compasses would—you will, in the given number of minutes, impinge upon your Enemy's extremity at the required angle, and overlap him to the required length: whereupon, At him, in flank, in front, and rear, and see if he can stand ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... than once of this sombre country—a land of undergrowth, thicket, ooze; where sight failed, and attacks had to be made by the needle, the officers advancing in front of the line with drawn—compasses! ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... by our client, Miss Maud Chilvers, of the Goat and Compasses, Aldershot, to institute proceedings against you for Breach of Promise of Marriage. In the event of your being desirous to avoid the expense and publicity of litigation, we are instructed to say that Miss Chilvers would be prepared to accept the sum of ten thousand pounds ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... argument, which is most weighty: As the head is the chief of the body, and as the body without a chief is worse than a beast, unless the chief has a good understanding with the body, and unless everything be as well regulated as if it were measured with a pair of compasses, we see certain confusions arrive; the animal part then endeavours to get the better of the rational, and, we see one pull to the right, another to the left; one wants something soft, another something hard; in short, everything goes topsy turvy. This is to show that here ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... society, where the rights and duties of women have been most fully recognized and most accurately defined. Mind is not to be weighed in scales. It must be judged by its uses and its influence. And who that compasses the peculiar purpose of woman's life; who that understands the meaning of those good old Saxon words, mother, sister, wife, daughter; who that estimates aright the duties they involve, the influences they embody in giving character to all of human kind, will hesitate to place her intellect, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... hunger rather than ask for help." Next door was Death-by-Cold, and when I came opposite him I could hear much shuddering and shivering, and at his door, were many books, pots and flagons, a few sticks and bludgeons, compasses, cords and ship's tackle. "Scholars have gone this way," said I. "Yea, lonely and helpless, far from the succour of those who loved them, their very garments stolen from them. Those," he continued, pointing to the pots, "are relics of the boon companions, whose feet were benumbed ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... Geographics, Topographics came, through the Eye, almost of their own accord. The ways of Man, how he seeks food, and warmth, and protection for himself, in most regions, are ocularly known to me. Like the great Hadrian, I meted out much of the terraqueous Globe with a pair of Compasses that ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... of the brig's cargo has been lost, I regret to say, but a good deal of it has been washed ashore and saved in a damaged state. The captain says that defective compasses were the cause of the disaster. There is not time to give you a more particular account, as it is close upon post-time. Miss Annie sends you her kindest love, and bids me say she is none the worse of what she has passed through.—I am, sir, your ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... may mean! Excursions and speculations of this kind are vain and unprofitable, hardly more reputable than the profanities of the Dumfries craniologists who, in 1834, in the early hours of April 1st,—a day well chosen,—desecrated the poet's dust. They fingered his skull, 'applied their compasses to it, and satisfied themselves that Burns had capacity enough to write Tam o' Shanter, The Cotter's Saturday Night, and To Mary in Heaven.' Let us take the poet as he comes to us, a gift of the ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... map at random, set a scale in one corner of it at a venture, and write up a story to the measurements. It is quite another to have to examine a whole book, make an inventory of all the allusions contained in it, and with a pair of compasses, painfully design a map to suit the data. I did it; and the map was drawn again in my father's office, with embellishments of blowing whales and sailing ships, and my father himself brought into service a knack he had of various writing, and elaborately FORGED ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... while sleeping in a tent, I often awakened to hear something scamper up its steep side and then laughed to see the shadow of a comical little body toboggan down the canvas. Our pocket-knives, compasses and all other small objects were never safe unless securely packed away out of reach of ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... this to be the moment of her immortality. Her form is all but in profile, swaying far forward, but her face is full-turned to us. Her arms float upon the air. Below the stark ruff of muslin about her waist, her legs are as a tilted pair of compasses; one point in the air, the other impinging the ground. One tiptoe poised ever so lightly upon the earth, as though the muslin wings at her shoulders were not quite strong enough to bear her up into ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... being altogether out of the question, she merely slipped her hand into Mona's and gave it a hearty squeeze which was cordially returned by Mona, at the same time furtively wiping some imperceptible spots of dust off her cheek, while she narrowly examined the points of her compasses which she still ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... radiant with the beams of hope and promise. Let those who denounce and deplore this harsh unpeopling come and stand upon the cold, bleak summit of one of these Sutherland mountains. Let them bring their compasses, or some other instrument for measuring the angles, sines and cosines of human conditions. Plant your theodolite here; wipe the telescope's eye with your handkerchief; look your keenest in the line of the lineage of these evicted thousands. Steady, now! while the most tranquil light of the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... is shown to the visitor, where that prince of bigots, Philip II., passed the last days and hours of his life. It is a scantily furnished apartment, with no upholstery, hard chairs, and bare wooden tables; with a globe, scales, compasses, and a few rude domestic articles, writing material, half a dozen maps, and three or four small cabinet pictures on the walls, forming the entire inventory. A large chair in which he sat, and the coarse hard bed on which he slept and died, are also seen in ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... were the maps of the Middle Ages, "joyous charts all glorious with gold and vermilion, compasses and crests and flying banners, with mountains of red and gold." The seas are full of ships—"brave beflagged vessels with swelling sails." The land is ablaze with kings and potentates on golden thrones under canopies of angels. While over ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... manage to tint and gradate tenderly with the pencil point, get a good large alphabet, and try to tint the letters into shape with the pencil point. Do not outline them first, but measure their height and extreme breadth with the compasses, as a b, a c, Fig. 3, and then scratch in their shapes gradually; the letter A, inclosed within the lines, being in what Turner would have called a "state of forwardness." Then, when you are satisfied with the shape of the letter, draw pen-and-ink lines firmly round the tint, ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... sticking to the grease in a little hollow at the end of the lead, showing whereabouts she is. Then the quadrants, chronometers, and other nautical instruments are of superior construction, and their use better understood; and, lastly, compasses indicate more truly the direction in which the ship is sailing. Not that compasses themselves are at fault, but that—as papa explained to us—every compass of a ship is influenced by the iron on board the vessel. Now, before ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Desmond, "I shall probably make use of the boy who has been attending to me at the Goat and Compasses—a clever little ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... that they might be sure to avoid one another. Yet, after all this, it was their perpetual fortune to meet, the reason of which is easy enough to apprehend, for the frenzy and the spleen of both having the same foundation, we may look upon them as two pair of compasses equally extended, and the fixed foot of each remaining in the same centre, which, though moving contrary ways at first, will be sure to encounter somewhere or other in the circumference. Besides, it was among the great misfortunes of Jack to bear a huge personal ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... parts. Her cheeks are round and fair. Each has its dimple and blush. They are thoroughly healthy, Mrs. Smith's digestion is unexceptionable. You might indicate the contour of these cheeks with a pair of compasses; you might paint them with your thumb. Poor Mrs. Smith's talk, or babble rather, is of her husband, her children, her home. It is a mere purring over them. She never cuts them to pieces, and holds them up to scorn and mockery. She never penetrates their weaknesses. She does ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... distraught ambition compasses, And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... The Astronomers Ryng, The Astronomers staffe, The Astrolabe vniuersall. An Hydrographicall Globe. Charts Hydrographicall, true, (not with parallell Meridians). The Common Sea Compas: The Compas of variacion: The Proportionall, and Paradoxall Compasses ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... of you," said she, "if you would look after my goods while I put the horse and cart up. I'm only going a couple of yards, to the Golden Compasses, in the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... to pant. He was broader and stockier than Payne and less favorably built for wedging his weight through the growth. Neither spoke a word. At the pauses they consulted compasses, laid out the trail straight north and drove on. Payne's breath also soon was coming in sharp pants; and the leg muscles of both began to weaken with the treacherous going. Grimly they held to their pace, waiting the release of fresh reservoirs of ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... extent by the discovery of the outermost planets. The finding of Uranus plainly doubled its breadth; the finding of Neptune made it more than half as broad again. Nothing indeed can better show the import of these great discoveries than to take a pair of compasses and roughly set out the above relative paths in a series of concentric circles upon a large sheet of paper, and then to consider that the path of Saturn was the supposed boundary of our solar system prior ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... stood buried in deep thought, when it occurred to me to try out one of the compasses I had brought and ascertain if it remained steadily fixed upon an unvarying pole. I reentered the prospector ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Points of Pins are yet more blunt, and the Points of the most curious Mathematical Instruments do very seldome arrive at so great a sharpness; how much therefore can be built upon demonstrations made onely by the productions of the Ruler and Compasses, he will be better able to consider that shall but view those points and lines ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... were sometimes permitted to take walks with the guards about the country. In this way the men who were to escape were able to learn about the roads and the best hiding places. They managed to secure maps and compasses by bribing ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... extinguishing literary compositions, by dispersing the five colours and by sticking the eyes of Li Chu, then, at length, mankind under the whole sky, will restrain the perception of his eyes. By destroying and eliminating the hooks and lines, by discarding the compasses and squares, and by amputating Kung Chui's fingers, the human race will ultimately succeed in constraining his ingenuity,"—his high spirits, on perusal of this passage, were so exultant that taking advantage of the exuberance caused ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to take to 'em. So do you and the stooard putt your heads together an' git up as much provisions as you think the boats will safely carry. Only necessaries, of course, an' take plenty o' water. I'll see to it that charts, compasses, canvas, and other odds ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... as that. At any rate he beat them off, and not a prize could either of them make out of his convoy, though I believe his ship was never fit for anything afterwards, and was broken up as soon as she was out of commission. We have got her compasses, and the old flag which flew at the peak through the whole voyage, at home now. It was my father's own flag, and his fancy to have it always flying. More than half the men were killed, or badly hit—the dear old father amongst the rest. A ball took off ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... savant's or a child's pleasure in arranging his scientific traps. His books, his herbals, his set of pigeon-holes, his instruments of precision, his chemical apparatus, his collection of thermometers, barometers, hygrometers, rain-gauges, spectacles, compasses, sextants, maps, plans, flasks, powders, bottles for medicine-chest, were all classed in an order that would have shamed the British Museum. The space of six square feet contained incalculable riches: ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... With compasses 55 (again referring you to tool plate, as I shall often have to do), I find the centre of the wood at both ends, and I make a dot at each, then draw a distinct line down this centre, having placed a straight edge ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... at Jarra. Of these Ali took possession, and Park was unable to obtain even a clean shirt or anything he required. The Moors next stripped him of his gold, his watch, the amber he had remaining and one of his pocket compasses. Fortunately he had hidden the other in the sand near his hut. This, with the clothes on his back, was the only thing Ali ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... even the charts, lighthouses, and signals of a thoroughly surveyed coast you will appreciate that setting forth on such a voyage for whale-oil (then used almost exclusively for lighting purposes) took courage. Of course the captains of the ships had compasses for the compass came into use just before the beginning of the Fifteenth Century and was one of the things that stimulated the Portuguese and Spaniards to start out on voyages of discovery. The Spaniards built ships that were then considered the largest and finest afloat, ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... and its branch, the Mistigougeche, were surveyed by an azimuth compass of Smallcaldus construction, and the distances measured by a micrometric telescope by Ertil, of Munich. The courses of the rest of the lines were determined by compasses of similar construction, and the distances measured by chains of 100 feet constructed by Dollond, of London, and Brown, of New York. An exception to this general rule exists in the survey of the eastern side of Rimouski. The courses and distances thus measured, and corrected for the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... horn are all measured from the pallet center, while the impulse angle and the crescent are measured from the balance center. A sensible drawing board measures 17 x 24 inches, we also require a set of good drawing instruments, the finer the instruments the better; pay special attention to the compasses, pens and protractor; add to this a ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner
... dubbing at our ugly carcasses. Peter, you're not fond of flatfish, are you, my boy? We may thank Heaven and the captain, I can tell you that, my lads; but now, where's the chart, Robinson? Hand me down the parallel rules and compasses, Peter; they are in the corner of the shelf. Here we are now, a devilish sight too near this infernal point. Who knows how her ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of Touch varies materially in different parts of the body. Experiments have shown that a pair of compasses would register impressions as a very slight distance apart when applied to the tip of the tongue. The distance at which the two points could be distinguished from one point, on the tip of the tongue, was called "one line." Using this "line" as a standard, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Keys went ashore to compare the compasses. From the quantity of iron contained in the rocks it was necessary to select a spot free from their influence. A sandy beach at the foot of Escape Cliffs was accordingly chosen. The observations had been commenced and were about half completed, when on the summit of the cliffs, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... applications of the said invention which may be enumerated, it is particularly advantageous for rendering visible clock or watch faces and other indicators—such, for example, as compasses and the scales of barometers or thermometers—during the night or in dark places during the night time. In applying the invention to these and other like purposes there may be used either phosphorescent grounds with dark figures or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... acre was commonly not a square of 210 feet, but a rectangle 300 feet long and 150 feet broad, divided into square halves and rectangular quarters, and further divisible into "compasses" five feet wide and 150 feet long, making one sixtieth of an acre. The standard tasks for full hands in rice culture were scheduled in 1843 as follows: plowing with two oxen, with the animals changed at ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... following the advice, found it sufficiently answered all the necessities of the situation. But when he went to arrange with the Prince Consort about the statue, he was rather puzzled what he should do about measuring the face, which he always did for portrait sculpture with a pair of compasses. All these difficulties were at last smoothed over; and Gibson was also permitted to drape the queen's statue in Greek costume, for in his artistic conscientiousness he absolutely refused to degrade sculpture by representing women in the fashionable ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... probably in obedience to a sign from the master, the boys in my immediate neighbourhood began to maltreat me. Some pinched me with their fingers, some buffeted me, whilst others pricked me with pins, or the points of compasses. These arguments were not without effect. I sprang from my seat, and endeavoured to escape along a double line of benches, thronged with boys of all ages, from the urchin of six or seven to the nondescript of sixteen or seventeen. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... perfectly conspicuous dot is engraved—the intersection of two lines of construction that it was doubtless desired to efface, but the scarcely visible trace of which subsists. Upon measuring with the compasses the distance between the insertion of the thread and this dot, we find exactly the distance, N P, of our diagram. Therefore there is no doubt that this dot served as a datum point. The existence of the bead upon the thread ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... cheeks glowed and his eyes sparkled with excitement. "How lovely those twigs are! and then the leaves! I don't think any leaf is as handsome as an oak-leaf, and just look up there! see how perfectly round the shape of the tree stands out against the sky, as if it had been marked by a pair of compasses. Oh, I wish I could sit all day long drawing this tree; there isn't anything more ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... generally will do so, that the first attempt will not succeed, because the distance between the lines measured, or the arc of the circle, will not divide the circle without having the last division either too long or too short, in which case the circle may be divided as follows: The compasses set to its radius, or half its diameter, will divide the circle into 6 equal divisions, and each of these divisions will contain 60 degrees of angle, because 360 (the number of degrees in the whole circle) /6 (the number of divisions) 60, ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... wooden wall compasses us all about; above it the pine-trees look down a little superciliously, nudging each other in a way that is peculiarly trying to a debutante. Over the wall, on the right side, is the men's section. We hear ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... add anchors, chains and ropes, small boats, poles and sweeps, parallel rulers, dividers and charts, anchor-lights, lanterns and side-lights, compasses, barometers and megaphones, fenders, grapnels and boathooks—until the landlubberly owners are almost frightened back to solid land; and then all is ready for a ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Yachi. The direct distance between the cities of Yun-nan and Ta-li I find by measurement on Keith Johnston's map to be 133 Italian miles. [The distance by road is 215 English miles. (See Baber, p. 191.)—H.C.] Taking half this as radius, the compasses swept from Yun-nan-fu as centre, intersect near its most southerly elbow the great upper branch of the Kiang, the Kin-sha Kiang of the Chinese, or "River of the Golden Sands," the MURUS USSU and BRICHU of the Mongols and Tibetans, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... like compasses,—and the way he grasped his gown-wings seemed to turn him to a pair of scales. His lowering smile embraced the room, deprecating strong expressions. "After all," he seemed to say, "we are men of the world; we know there ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and sharpening the stump. Another, who was in a fever "to attack," slept wholly dressed for three days. A carpenter named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him: "Whither are you going?" "Eh! well, I have no weapons." "What then?" "I'm going to my timber-yard to get my compasses." "What for?" "I don't know," said Lombier. A certain Jacqueline, an expeditious man, accosted some passing artisans: "Come here, you!" He treated them to ten sous' worth of wine and said: "Have you work?" "No." "Go to Filspierre, between the Barriere Charonne and the Barriere Montreuil, and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... power, boy. It is not the power I question, but the will. We live in dangerous days. Art willing to partake of the peril which compasses the steps of those who tread in the old ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the Dutch compasses varied as they used to do a whole point, while those of Genoa, which used to agree with them, varied but a very little, though afterwards sailing farther east they varied more, which is a sign that we were 100 leagues west of the Azores or somewhat more; for when we were just 100 leagues ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... geological specimens, dislocated microscopes, pieces of Roman pavement, curiosities innumerable and indescribable; among which roamed blotting-books, memorandum-books, four pieces of Indian rubber, three pair of compasses, seven paper-knives, ten knives, thirteen odd gloves, fifteen pencils, pens beyond reckoning, a purse, a key, half a poem on the Siege of Granada, three parts of an essay upon Spade Husbandry, the dramatis personae of a tragedy on Queen Brunehault, scores of old letters, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has a resource in his good opinion of himself, and 'will roar you an 'twere any nightingale'. Snug the Joiner is the moral man of the piece, who proceeds by measurement and discretion in all things. You see him with his rule and compasses in his hand. 'Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.'—'You may do it extempore,' says Quince, 'for it is nothing but roaring.' Starveling the Tailor keeps the peace, and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. 'I believe we must ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... frequently. When the joyous chance does come, the son of the forest promptly rises to the occasion. No elderly gentleman whose feet are studded with corns could bear the agony of patent leather boots in a heated ballroom with grander stoicism than that exhibited by our savage when he compasses the means of indulging in a thorough uncompromising shave. The elderly man of the ballroom sees the rosy-fingered dawn touching the sky into golden fretwork; he thinks of his cool white bed, and then, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... parable, though its inner meaning be dark or dubious. The philosophy of friendship deals with those mathematical and physical conceptions of distance, likeness, and attraction—what if the law of bodies govern souls also, and the geometer's compasses measure more than it has entered into his heart to conceive? Is the moon a name only for a certain tonnage of dead matter, and is the law of passion parochial while the law of gravitation is universal? Mysticism will ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... shadows grow and live as here, where the atmosphere and the level light of evening combine to form the quaintest shadows on earth. The giraffe has for his counterpart a set of shadow legs ten yards long, and the elephant in his shadow state goes on stilts. A man is followed by a pair of black compasses, and a squat tent flings to the east the shadow ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... made their escape; but the seamen on the watch, in consequence of the heavy rain, having cased themselves in double or treble dresses, supplied their supernumerary articles of clothing to those who had none. We happily succeeded in bringing away two compasses from the binnacle, and a few candles from the cuddy-table, one of them lighted; one bottle of wine, and another of porter, were handed to us, with the tablecloth and a knife, which proved very useful; but the fire raged so fiercely ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... been worn, my mother said. Under that the miscellany began—a quadrant, a tin cannikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch, and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... covered by a robe of white linen, and whose feet were bare, notwithstanding the cold. He was not a beggar, for his robe was new and nice, and near him on the ground were seen, lying in a cloth, a square, a hatchet, a pair of compasses, and the other tools of a carpenter's apprentice. Under the light of the stars, his face, with its closed eyes, bore an expression of divine sweetness, and his long locks of golden hair seemed like an aureole about his head. But the child's feet, blue in the cold of that ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... scribe, or copyist, had in addition to his quill, ink, and vellum, a pair of compasses to prick off the spacing of his lines, a ruler and a sharpened instrument or pencil with which to draw the lines upon which he was to write, a penknife for mending his pens, an erasing knife for corrections, and ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... good; all gum and sticky stuff; make fingers dirty; all wash out; leave nothing.' In the South Sea and Sandwich Islands, and in the Malay Peninsula, the natives make the same complaints as to the Manchester cottons. At Hongkong some of the large shops had fifty expensive English ships' compasses on hand; they were all quite unsaleable owing to the liquid having gone bad, in consequence of its not having been properly prepared. Some American compasses of the same quality were in good order and not in the least affected by the climate. It will be a bad day when the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... not profess to teach Emile geometry; he will teach me; I shall seek for relations, he will find them, for I shall seek in such a fashion as to make him find. For instance, instead of using a pair of compasses to draw a circle, I shall draw it with a pencil at the end of bit of string attached to a pivot. After that, when I want to compare the radii one with another, Emile will laugh at me and show me that the same thread at full stretch cannot have given distances of unequal ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... North Magnetic Pole it stands on its other end. At the intermediate positions near the equator the whole force is exerted, swinging the needle in the horizontal plane, and in such regions ordinary ships' compasses pivoted to move freely only in a horizontal plane give the greatest satisfaction. On approaching the magnetic poles, compasses become sluggish, for the horizontal deflecting force falls off rapidly. The force, acting in a vertical direction, tending to make the needle dip, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... branch pipe. Good workmanship will result in having a good substantial collar around the opening. The branch should now be fitted. Clean the pipe with the shave hook for about 2 inches on each side of the opening. With compasses set at 1-1/8 inches, mark off a space on each side of the branch on the run, or on the 5/8-inch pipe. On the sides of the pipe the two lines should be joined with an even and symmetrical curve. ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... up a pair of compasses, spread them out on the paper of figures before him, and looked up again ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... they ought to keep the very best time—that I've always heard. My poor Mr. Budd had two, and they were as large as compasses, and sold for hundreds after ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the sphere which they showed to have been made long before; and which if it had other reddish lines girdling the sphere, these latter did not pass through the poles as this line did, but started from the center of the compasses placed on the equinoctial, and were in proportion to other circular lines. But this line was in proportion to no other line, saving one corresponding to the number of the three hundred and seventy leagues reckoned from the island ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... wait aright for Christian perfection? Impartially admit the two Gospel axioms, and faithfully reduce them to practice. In order to this, let them meet in your hearts, as the two legs of a pair of compasses meet in the rivet which makes them one compound instrument.... When your heart quietly rests in God by faith, as it steadily acts the part of a passive receiver, it resembles the leg of the compasses which rests in the centre of a circle; and ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... built himself a large square hut near the seashore—that is to say, he had, with the expenditure of a great amount of midnight oil, a pair of compasses, a box of paints, and a T-square, evolved a somewhat complicated plan whereon certain blue oblongs stood for windows, and certain red cones indicated doors. To this he had added an elevation in the severe ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... represent the actual amount of the variation, not on any reduced or enlarged scale, but as it were life-size. Whatever number of inches or decimals of an inch the species varies in any of its parts is marked on the diagrams, so that with the help of an ordinary divided rule or a pair of compasses the variation of the different parts can be ascertained and compared just as if the specimens themselves were before the reader, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... obedience to a sign from the master, the boys in my immediate neighbourhood began to maltreat me. Some pinched me with their fingers, some buffeted me, whilst others pricked me with pins or the points of compasses. These arguments were not without effect. I sprang from my seat, and endeavoured to escape along a double line of benches, thronged with boys of all ages, from the urchin of six or seven, to the nondescript of sixteen or seventeen. It was like running the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... first set up masts in ships, and yards, and his son made sails for them: but Perdix his nephew excelled him; for he first invented the saw and its teeth, copying it from the back-bone of a fish; and invented, too, the chisel, and the compasses, and the potter's wheel which molds the clay. Therefore Daidalos envied him, and hurled him headlong from the temple of Athene; but the Goddess pitied him (for she loves the wise) and changed him into a partridge, which flits forever about the hills. And ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... of a spirit and beer shop at the lower end of Market or High Street, Plymouth, may be seen the following very salutary aid disinterested piece of advice. It is printed in the triangle formed by the spread of a gigantic pair of compasses, which gives ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... I've a good collection; altimeters and compasses and glasses. This lens I always carry with me, because I'm afraid ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... Lulworth, with a narrower entrance, its water blue as a sapphire shot with amethystine violet, its cliffs taller, steeper, hung with matted creeper and, high aloft, holding the heaven in a three-part circle almost as regular as you could draw with a pair of compasses. We were floating in the cup of a dead volcano, broken on the seaward side; and broken many hundreds of years ago—for on our starboard hand, by the edge of the rent, swept down a slope of turf, cropped by the gales, green as an English park; with a thread of a stream dropping to a small wilderness ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Goldwing Club. Snug Harbor; or, the Young Mechanics. Square and Compasses; or, Building the House. Stem to Stern; or, Building the Boat. All Taut; or, Rigging the Boat. Ready ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Seven months had elapsed since I had seen either a road or a bridge although during that time I had travelled over two thousand four hundred miles. Right glad was I, like Gilpin's horse, "at length to miss the lumber of the wheels," the boats, carts, specimens, and last but not least, Kater's compasses. No care had I now whether my single step was east or north-east, nor about the length of my day's journey, nor the hills or dales crossed, as to their true situation, names, or number, or where I should encamp. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... at the fifth, that of one of the rodentia; at the sixth, that of one of the ruminantia; at the seventh, that of one of the digitigrada; at the eighth, that of one of the quadrumana; till at length, at the ninth, it compasses the brain of Man! It is hardly necessary to say, that all this is only an approximation to the truth; since neither is the brain of all osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all the species of any one of the above order of mammals, by any means precisely ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... is in charge of experienced navigators. Her compasses and other instruments are the most ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a few convulsive efforts, the red legs took the shape of a pair of compasses, and the intelligent pupil triumphantly shouted, "It's a We, Dranpa, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and bones; he knew by heart the famous "Guide to Painting," drawn up by the monk Denys and his pupil Cyril of Scio. In short, he was thoroughly acquainted with all the receipts by means of which works of genius are produced, and thus, with the aid of compasses, he painted from inspiration, those good and holy men who strikingly resembled certain figures on gold backgrounds in the convents of Lavra and Iveron. But one thing brought mortification and chagrin to Father Alexis,—Count ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... manner, and coughed, or sneezed at the same time. If Mr. Jackson took an accurate survey of the room with his one eye, Mr. Smith's solitary orb followed in the same direction. When Jeremiah admired the Compasses in the arms of the Carpenter's Company over the chimney-piece, or the portraits of the two eminent masters of the rule and plane, William Portington, and John Scott, Esquires, on either side of it, Solomon ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of nine verses hath yet moe then the eight, and the staffe of ten more then the ninth and the twelfth, if such were allowable in ditties, more then any of them all, by reason of his largenesse receiuing moe compasses and enterweauings, alwayes considered that the very large distances be more artificiall, then popularly pleasant, and yet do giue great grace and grauitie, and moue passion and affections more vehemently, as it is well to be ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... Chaos, and the world unborn; For Chaos heard his voice: Him all his train Followed in bright procession, to behold Creation, and the wonders of his might. Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand He took the golden compasses, prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe, and all created things: One foot he centered, and the other turned Round through the vast profundity obscure; And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, This be thy just circumference, O World! Thus God the Heaven ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... in Capitolio, is a flat stone on the floor professing to be the Grabstein der Brueder und Schwester eines ehrbaren Wein-und Fass-Ampts, Anno 1693; that is, as I suppose, a vault belonging to the Wine Coopers' Company. The arms exhibit a shield with a pair of compasses, an axe, and a dray, or truck, with goats for supporters. In a country like England, dealing so much at one time in Rhenish wine, a more likely origin for such a sign could hardly be imagined. For this information I am ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... the Mainland of Orkney, at Marwick Head. So far as has yet been ascertained, they are all of one species, and more nearly resemble a small Cyclas than any other shell. They are, however, more deeply sulcated in concentric lines, drawn, as if by a pair of compasses, from the umbone, and somewhat resembling those of the genus Astarte, than any species of Cyclas with which I am acquainted. In all the specimens I have yet seen, it appears to be rather a thick dark epidermis that survives, than the shell which it covered; nay, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... arrayed in a close-fitting pale blue dress, cut in semblance of an ancient kirtle, and with a huge chatelaine, from which massive chains dangled, not to say clattered-not merely the ordinary appendages of a young lady, but a pair of compasses, a safety inkstand, and a microscope. Her dark hair was strained back from a face not calculated to bear exposure, and was ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the artist's work so highly, he skinned the chieftain's thighs, and covered his cartouch box with it!—I was astonished to see with what boldness and precision Aranghie drew his designs upon the skin, and what beautiful ornaments he produced: no rule and compasses could be more exact than the lines and circles he formed. So unrivalled is he in his profession, that a highly finished face of a chief from the hands of this artist, is as greatly prized in New Zealand as a head from the pencil of Sir Thomas ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the one where we saw the naval instructor teaching navigation, four in each ship. In the Hindostan we find two Frenchmen teaching their classes how to read and write French, and two drawing studies, in one of which they are taught to draw models with the aid of ruler and compasses. In the other they are learning the use of paints and paint-brushes. It is so useful for a young boy to be able to make sketches in water colours of all the pretty places he goes to; some of them are really quite clever at it ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various |
