"Span" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the night and early hours of this bright, beautiful morning—and it was bright and sunny overhead despite the old fellow's precautionary umbrella—had helped turn out the spick and span gentleman who was now making his way carefully over the unpaved road which stood ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is here that he gradually begins to acquire the habit of considering what are the conditions of wise social activity, its limits, its objects, its rewards, what is the capacity of collective achievement, and of what sort is the significance and purport of the little span of time that cuts off the yesterday of ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... in silence for a moment or two, and were approaching the end of the center span, when the lawyer glanced about him wildly; he realized that he was letting slip his one ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... is fair in "love and war." This being a creed very staunchly adhered to by the private soldier when campaigning, the mess-servants of the staff of the Cavalry Brigade saw fit in the early morning to steal a span[26] of mules which had strayed from the protection of their rightful owners. Now the Brigade state fourgon with a span of four mules was a big enterprise, and if treated gently might have ministered to the comfort of the staff for many months. But no; the brigadier's ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... twenty feet below the surface of the water, and that its construction cost nine millions of dollars and six years of time. Its great height above the river is also completely concealed by the breadth of its span. The largest steamboat on the river passes under it at the highest stage of water, and yet the curve of the arches appears to have been selected ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... was at a spot called the Yellow-wood River, where the mid-day halt was disturbed by an assembly of natives with a hostile appearance. Captain Gardiner sent orders to collect the oxen, and in- span (i.e. harness) them as soon as possible, but without appearance of alarm, and in the meantime he tried to keep the natives occupied. To one he lent his penknife, and after the man had vainly tried to cut off his own beard with it, he offered to shave him, lathered him well, and ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment diminished the narrow span of life ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... ends of the line advanced faster than the centre, so that in a short time the birds formed a vast crescent, which stretched across a good-sized bay; and as the distance from one bird to another was measured exactly by the span of their wings, not a single fish could break through the circle of menacing beaks. Indeed, the pelicans enclosed the fish with their united wings in a regular line as close and compact as a trawl or drag-net. As the circle gradually contracted, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... time after the tide had begun to flow, the artificers were occupied in removing the forge from the top of the building, to which the gangway or wooden bridge gave great facility; and, although it stretched or had a span of forty-two feet, its construction was extremely simple, while the road-way was perfectly firm and steady. In returning from this visit to the rock every one was pretty well soused in spray before reaching the tender at two o'clock ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... draught, good sir; its brevity Gives you and me our measures, and thereby Has docked your virtue to a tankard's span, And left of ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is a true gentleman from Pennsylvania, then ordered the darkies to harness the span. After the inevitable delays which always attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. Our host had a lame hand, and ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... soon find out. Mr. Minturn, come with me and don a pair of overalls. You shan't put me to shame, wearing that spick-and-span suit, neither shall you spoil it. Oh, you're in for it now! You might have escaped, and come another day, when I could have received you in state and driven you out behind father's frisky bays. When you return to town with blistered hands and aching bones, you ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the sea. Captain Johns was every inch a sailor. He told us midshipmen that he intended we should become sailors, and he began by sending us aloft the first calm day to black down the rigging and grease the masts. I began to go aloft with my span new uniform on. "No! no!" he said, calling me down, "the second mate will serve you out a shirt and trousers fit for that work." The mates laughed and the men laughed also. I got the shirt and trousers, and spent a couple of hours aloft, making good use of tar-brush and ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... second to the third epoch of civilisation. In the future the centres of civilisation will have to be sought in proximity to the equator; while those countries which, during the last centuries—a short span of time—have held up the banner of human progress will ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Before this one he laid his request, and entreated that he might be admitted among the royal couriers. The overseer measured him with his eyes from head to foot, and said: "How! with thy little feet, which are scarcely a span long, wishest thou to become a royal messenger? Away with thee! I cannot ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... three had been leaders of men. All had grown old and gray in service. Calhoun was already broken in health and in a few months was to be borne from the political arena forever. Clay and Webster had but two more years in their allotted span. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... hope of fortune must needs have come to Selwyn at last, they made shift to resign themselves, and were wont to talk freely of the dead with that affectionate and immediate interest which seems to prolong the span of a mortal's day on earth, like the tender suffusive radiance of the afterglow of a ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... woody substance, but is compacted of many leaves wrapped close upon each other, adorned with leaves from the very ground instead of boughs, which are mostly two yards long and a yard broad, having a very large rib in the middle. The fruit is a bunch of ten or twelve plantains, each a span long, and as thick as a man's wrist, somewhat crooked or bending inwards. These grow on a leafy stalk on the middle of the plant, being at first green, but grow yellow and tender as they ripen. When the rind is stripped off, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... overflowing. As she looked around deprecatingly, and half-ashamed, she saw that there was a prospect of a general shower, and that many of the women were sniffling audibly, and the brusque young farmer stood near, looking as if he could more easily hold a span of run-away horses than he ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... court asserted the complete control of Congress over inter-state commerce so far as navigation was concerned. The deeper significance of this interpretation of the commerce clause appeared only when railroads began to span the continent and the jurisdictional lines of States were crossed and re-crossed by an ever-increasing ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... projected and arranged by Mrs. Lillie, in strict counsel with her friend Mrs. Follingsbee, who had lived in Paris, and been to balls at the Tuileries. Of course, it was a tip-top New-York-Paris party, with all the new, fashionable, unspeakable crinkles and wrinkles, all the high, divine, spick and span new ways of doing things; which, however, like the Eleusinian mysteries, being in their very nature incommunicable except to the elect, must be left to ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... than half are navigable. Step by step the volume of the main stream is augmented. We can see that for ourselves on our way through Europe. At Budapest, which is cut in two by the river, and where five handsome bridges connect the banks, we seem almost to be on a lake. The Elizabeth Bridge has a span of 950 feet. Farther down, on the frontier of Wallachia, the river is nearly two-thirds of a mile wide; but here the current is slow; creeks of stagnant water are formed, and marshes extend far along the banks. And at the point where the Rumanian railway crosses the Danube, we find at Chernovodsk ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... debating, the door of the room again opened. There appeared an athletic, adventurous-looking officer in brilliant uniform who was smiling at something called after him from the antechamber. His blue coat was spick and span and very gay with double embroidery at the collar, coat-tails, and pockets. His white waistcoat and trousers were spotless; his netted sash of blue with its stars on the silver tassels had a look of studied elegance. The black ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thousand apiece, but in China there has recently come a forward movement. A fund of twenty million dollars is to be spent in constructing a national system of telephone and telegraph. Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight to a new exchange, spick and span, with a couple of ten-thousand-wire switchboards. Others are being built in Canton, Hankow, and Tien-Tsin. Ultimately, the telephone will flourish in China, as it has done in the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. The Empress of China, ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... advantage to be a clear first there, since the fortunate party could then make the round unhindered and in the least space. The struggle for the point began quite a quarter of a mile away. Each crew applied itself to quickening the speed—every oar dipped deeper, and swept a wider span;—on a little, and the keepers of the galley could hear the half groan, half grunt with which the coming toilers relieved the extra exertion now demanded of them;—yet later, they saw them spring to their feet, reach far back, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... child's soul, stranger though I was, I would have earnestly besought her, to take away that romance, to step with her to the point but just before them—open the "Book of books," and let her read of Him "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span; who hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end; whose way is in the sea, and his path in the great waters. The Lord, whose name alone is excellent, his glory above ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Aunt Hetty Freeman was known as one of the best housekeepers in Brewster, and no one had ever seen her looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... of troublous feelings, Nor quells the cares that sport and play Round gilded ceilings. More happy he whose modest board His father's well-worn silver brightens; No fear, nor lust for sordid hoard, His light sleep frightens. Why bend our bows of little span? Why change our homes for regions under Another sun? What exiled man From self can sunder? Care climbs the bark, and trims the sail, Curst fiend! nor troops of horse can 'scape her, More swift than stag, more swift than gale That drives the vapour. Blest in the present, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... really of ignorance, not of knowledge, for, to speak deliberately and in view of the highest truths, it is not easy to distinguish elementary knowledge. There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which the arches of science can never span. A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land. They must not yield wheat and potatoes, but must themselves ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... insurance against unemployment, sickness, invalidity, and widowhood. The circumstances and conditions are entirely different. The prospect of attaining extreme old age, of living beyond threescore years and ten, which is the allotted span of human life, seems so doubtful and remote to the ordinary man, when in the full strength of manhood, that it has been found in practice almost impossible to secure from any very great number of people the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... true surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us, when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... with my partner at night talking of the start the next day, I began to feel not a fear but a certain respect for that narrow little path which was not an arm's span in width, but which was nearly eight hundred miles in length. "From this point, Burton, it is business. ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... The huge cables that support it stretch like the strands of a monster spider-web from the tops of two towers, each two hundred and seventy-six feet high and standing one thousand five hundred and ninety-five feet apart. The above is the length of the central span; the two other spans, from the land to the towers, are each nine hundred and thirty feet long in addition. The roadway, one hundred and thirty-five feet above the river, is divided into five parts. The two outside ones are for vehicles, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... old theory, recently developed before the Hellenic Society by Mr. JAY HAMBRIDGE, that certain formulae of proportions found in nature—notably in the normal ratio between a man's height and the span of his outstretched arms (2: [**square root] 5)—constituted the basis of symmetry in the art of the Greeks and, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... have marriage contracts for definite periods. With the increased state of health, and the full span of life confronting every man, we must face the problem squarely. Now what stands in ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... Aniline. Discovered 1826 (anil. Span. indigo). First prepared from indigo by means of caustic potash, found in coal, 1834. Manufactured on a large scale after Perkin's ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet
... ability, and taste; that the accident of our having been born on different sides of the Channel is no ground for supposing either that I am a brute or that he is a ninny. But, in that case, how does it happen that while on one side of that 'span of waters' Racine is despised and Shakespeare is worshipped, on the other, Shakespeare is tolerated and Racine is adored? The perplexing question was recently emphasised and illustrated in a singular way. Mr. John Bailey, in a volume of essays entitled 'The Claims of French Poetry,' ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... to-day, so that we can go there now whenever we can get the house ready. Then we shall have horses and vehicles more at our disposal; you may hear of our carriage and span yet, but I shall hate to leave here. This moon is lovely, and to-night the flats are covered with water by the full moon tide, and the sea looks as if it came ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... forward and to their satisfaction were helped into Mr. Atkinson's boat with Mr. and Mrs. Dallas and Bubbles as fellow-passengers, Bubbles grinning from ear to ear and looking very spick and span in a clean pink calico frock and a white apron. A string of blue beads adorned her neck; she had added it as a finishing touch ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... in a small way; by a gesture, an expression, a look, cloaked too very often with all the character of profound deference. The old nobility of Spain delighted to address each other only by their names, when in the presence of a spick-and-span grandee; calling each other, "Infantado," "Sidonia," "Ossuna," and then turning round with the most distinguished consideration, and appealing to the Most Noble ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... are capable of Cutting and Spreading, with one span of horses and driver, from ten to fifteen acres per day, of any kind of grass, heavy or light, wet or dry, lodged or standing, and do it as well as is done with a ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... me the canakin clink, clink; And let me the canakin clink: A soldier's a man; A life's but a span; Why, then, let ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... granitoid; a succession of dwellings, each in its yard of bluegrass, maple trees, and whitewashed palings, with several residences fine enough to excite wonder—for modest cottages set the architectural pace in the village; a stretch of open country beyond the corporate limits, with a footbridge to span the deep ravine—and then, at last, a sudden glow in the darkness not caused by the moon, with a circle of stamping and neighing horses encompassing ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... post-horses for London: it is surprising how swiftly they run; their bridles are very light, and their saddles little more than a span over. ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... overflowing cup, And work a trifle in their little way; Just tip the solar-system downside up, What is there that they can't do, who shall say? While for one glance a thousand pine away, Which certainly is most disastrous when Our span is not too long as you will say, And what of their short three score years and ten? But this may not apply to ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... man returned a little later with a span of restless, half- wild broncos hitched to a light buggy, the girl stepped into the vehicle and took the reins as a matter of course. With a low chuckle of amusement the engineer took his place at her left. He was beginning really ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... arrow under these words. After a while he had tried again, scrawling heavily, as if with a hand of lead, another line. "I must now at once . . ." The pen had spluttered, and that time he gave it up. There's nothing more; he had seen a broad gulf that neither eye nor voice could span. I can understand this. He was overwhelmed by the inexplicable; he was overwhelmed by his own personality—the gift of that destiny which he had ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire! Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, o're which the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... summed up in three sentences. It covered the greatest time span of any civilization known to history. Its monuments are the most massive. Its records, chiefly in stone, picture massed humans directed for at least thirty centuries toward providing a satisfying and rewarding after-life for a tiny favored minority of its population. To achieve this result, ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... wore to an end. Then came the moment when the girl and she must meet under the eyes of the mother, and that sharp, quaint-looking old governess. It would be a hard moment, that! And it came—a hard moment and a long one, for Gordy sat full span over his wine. But Anna had not served her time beneath the gaze of upper Oxford for nothing; she managed to be charming, full of interest and questions in her still rather foreign accent. Miss Doone—soon she became Sylvia—must show her all the treasures and antiquities. Was it too ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lay down all they had. The traders had no weapons with them, and so, though they were many more in number, they had to submit themselves to the robbers, who took away everything from them, even the very clothes they wore, and gave to each only a small loin-cloth a span in breadth and a ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... a matter of fact, neither of these things did happen in this quiet community of ours. There exists, assuredly, a logic of events, oh, a terrible, irresistible logic of events, but it is careless of the span of any one man's life. We would like to have each man enjoy the sweets of his own virtues and suffer the lash of his own misdeeds—but it rarely so happens in life. No, it is the community which lives or dies, is regenerated or marred by ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... turn again. Ah! there was the train at last. Far away along the tracks a black square rose and quite slowly became wider and higher. Good God! if the next ten minutes were only over—if one could only wipe such a span as this out of one's life! Only ten minutes older! If one could only look back on those ten minutes from the other side! But no; one must go through the horror, second by second, taste every moment of it. What would happen to the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... No, fondling, no! It is to cool the fire Which hot desire within thy breast hath made. Check him but once and he will soon retire. O but he sorrows brought which cannot fade! The sorrows that he brought, he took from thee, Which fair Fidessa span and thou must wear! Yet hath she nothing done of cruelty, But for her sake to try what thou wilt bear. Come, sorrows, come! You are to me assigned; I'll bear you all, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... of the way when his master goes to dinner. Learn of him, you diminutive urchins, how to behave yourselves in your vocation: take not up your standings in a nut-tree, when you should be waiting on my lord's trencher. Shoot but a bit at butts; play but a span at points. Whatever you do, memento mori—remember to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... particulars. Notwithstanding this neglect, however, the average life of the working dog is longer by a year or two than that of his more beautiful cousin. Pampering and artificial living are not to be encouraged; but, on the other hand, neglect has the same effect of shortening the span of life, and bad feeding and inattention to cleanliness provoke the skin diseases which are ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... and ran upstairs to dress. He wondered if the Wolf patrol would get another perfect score. He paused in the act of brushing his hair. A thought that he could not push aside popped into his brain. Would Tim come spick and span? ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... span of your life, and yet the insurance man is willing to bet upon it. What is life insurance but the bet of an unknown number of yearly premiums against the payment of the policy? * * * * The length of your individual life is a guess, but ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... seventy. An easy sum, but what an impressive answer! Twenty years, and they the years of the sere, the yellow leaf. Only twenty more times to hear the cuckoo calling over the valley and see the dark beech woods bursting into tender green. I look back twenty years, and it seems only a span. And yet how remote fifty seemed in those days! It was so remote as to be hardly worth thinking about. To be fifty was to be among the old fellows, to be on the shelf, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... aide-de-camp, simply, as he explained, to return the calls of the officers of the garrison, six or eight of whom had known enough to present themselves and pay their respects in person when he arrived in town. Braxton swelled with gratified pride at the general's praise of the spick-span condition of the parade, the walks, roads, and visible quarters. But it was the very first old-time garrison the new chief had ever seen, a splendid fighting record with the volunteers during the war, and the advantage of taking sides for ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... perfect unit, for in the story, as in the life which it pictures, some slight change of scene and some little passage of time are inevitable. Thus in any short story there is usually a slight hiatus of thought, due to these causes, which must be bridged over. The tyro will span the chasm by means of stars or some such arbitrary signs, but the master will calmly ignore such gaps and preserve the unity of his narrative so deftly that even the lines of the dovetailing will be scarcely visible. Thus in "The Ambitious Guest" ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... stag from the hunter's hounds and houses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these groves, with all the pangs and trepidations of man's life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, for more than the span of human years? Here, also, crash his arrows; here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he does not hunt this cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sense of several; as, a couple of horses, mules, birds, trees, houses, etc. The use of the word couple is not only limited to two, but to two that may be coupled or yoked together. A man and wife are spoken of as a couple. We speak of a span of horses, a yoke of oxen, a brace of ducks, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... Vaniman gave all his mind to the game—for when the Squire played euchre he wanted to attend strictly to the business in hand. And in the span of time between dusk and supper the two ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the happy spick-and-span soldiers who sang as they stepped ashore from the troopships at Boulogne and Havre, eager to reach the fighting line. These men have fought valiantly, desperately, since then, but their spirits are as high as ever, and ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... filaments had blown across his face and his artist senses had been caught and tangled in its ebon sorcery. But down each side this broad brow was a rippling wave of gold, over each shoulder a heavy braid of gold that fell, straightened by its own weight, a span below the waist. The winds of the desert had roughened it and the bright threads made a nimbus about the head. Its glory overreached his senses and besieged his soul. Here was ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... thirty years during the Roman Empire, it had now diminished to seventeen. The readers of Voltaire will remember that in The Man with the Forty Ecus his "geometer" gives it as twenty-two or twenty-three years for Paris, and contrives to reduce this brief span to practically two or three years of active, enjoyable life,—ten years off the twenty-three for the period of youthful immaturity, ten more for the decline of old age, sleep, sickness, work, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so rounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a huge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see that a great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on conditions of denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be of the few favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... these sins, I am a saintly man, And live like other saints on prayer and praise, My long face longer, if life be a span, Than any two ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... this assumed relationship in genetic types, we have not so much as laid the first abutment of the bridge by which these revivers of Lucretian materialism would span the chasm between mind and matter, between the spiritual and physical side of man, between dark brute sense and "a soul as white as heaven." For going back to undifferentiated primeval mist, and following down the whole line of ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... jumped up and ran through the rushes to the very edge of the Smiling Pool. There on a great green lily pad sat Great-Grandfather Frog, his hands folded across his white and yellow waistcoat and his green coat shining spick and span. ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... thousand pounds. It seemed incredible that she should owe so much, that a girl's frivolous fancies and extravagances could amount to such a sum within so short a span. But thoughtless purchases, ignorant orders, had run on from week to week, and the main result was an indebtedness of close upon three ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... pain till you explain yourself; for I am sure there is something more in what you say than fancy; therefore, pray, if you love me, keep me on the rack no longer."—"Ah, Peter!" says she, "there was but a span between me and death not many days ago; and when I saw the line of the last chest we took up just now, it gave so much horror I could scarce keep upon my feet."—"My dear Youwee, proceed," says I; "for ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... were busy with their thoughts and walked along in silence for some distance. Presently the steel span of the great bridge across the Molton River loomed ahead ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... say 2 is always 2, changeless and constant, because the arithmetical number is not more abstract than the physiological matter. The moon appears standing still when you look at her only a few moments. In like manner she seems to be free from change when you look at her in your short span of life. Astronomers, nevertheless, can tell you how she saw her better days, and is now in her wrinkles and ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... captain of that bass drum. The infuriated musician, supposing it to be the cornet who has mutinied, at once gets his Smith & Wesson in range. When the smoke has cleared away three shots are found to have taken effect—two of them in a span of high-stepping horses attached to the elegant turnout of old Mrs. P——. That estimable lady is spilled into the third-story window of an establishment where sits our old friend Hannah binding shoes. The shock so far upsets poor Hannah's reason that she turns a blood-curdling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... is a life. The life is what you are in yourself. It is not the mere span of years you live through. Your thoughts and loves, your heart's ambitions and gripping purposes, the things you will to do, and to be—that is your life. That exerts an enormous influence upon the circle in which you live, ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... answered her. "There is no bridge can span the pit I have dug myself. I must go down into it as cheerfully as God will ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat and span. Then said he, "How sad it is that we have no children! With us all is so quiet, and in other houses it is ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... the upper rim the sustaining structure was more distinctly visible than elsewhere. Here was a maze of taut brown threads stretching in places across a span of six inches, with here and there a tiny knot. These were actually tie-strings of living ants, their legs stretched almost to the breaking-point, their bodies the inconspicuous knots or nodes. Even at rest and at home, the army ants are always ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart fluttered with joy at the sight of a white lutestring, flowered with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for spick and span new, a Brussels lace cap, braited shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house, before whom my charms were ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... page 154, in order not to interfere with the clearness of the curves, but I shall always express the same points by the same letters, whenever I have to give measures of arches of this simple kind, so that the reader need never have the diagrams lettered at all. The base or span of the centre arch will always be a b; its vertex will always be V; the points of the cusps will be c c; p p will be the bases of perpendiculars let fall from V and c on a b; and d the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up he sets down, an' when he walks he hops. He'd 'a' been mighty well thunk un, ef it hadn't but 'a' been ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... shining in sunlight, chief After water and water's caress, Was the young bronze-orange leaf, That clung to the tree as a tress, Shooting lucid tendrils to wed With the vine-hook tree or pole, Like Arachne launched out on her thread. Then the maiden her dusky stole In the span of the black-starred zone, Gathered up for her footing fleet. As one that had toil of her own She followed the lines of wheat Tripping straight through the fields, green blades, To the groves of olive grey, Downy-grey, golden-tinged: and to glades Where the pear-blossom thickens ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that she could thrive Without him through a morning's span, Upon the honey in her hive, Was but to prove himself a man, And show that ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... could give," answered the girl. "Then promise me, if you should become Queen, your first child." "Who knows whether that will ever happen?" thought the miller's daughter; and, not knowing how else to help herself in this strait, she promised the manikin what he wanted, and for that he once more span the straw into gold. ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... in common with God, mortality in common with men. Hence "for this purpose did He intervene, that having fulfilled the span of His mortality, He might from dead men make immortal—which He showed in Himself by rising again; and that He might confer beatitude on those who were deprived of it—for which reason He never forsook us." Wherefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... considerable squash in Noyon, and here St Andre was delighted to meet some spick-and-span young friends of his whom he affected to treat with great contempt, as not yet having seen a shot fired. Having to cross the railway line also delayed us still more, as a long supply-train was shunting and reshunting and ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... 's backet like a peacock; She 's breasted like a swan; She 's jimp about the middle, Her waist you weel may span— Her waist you weel may span; And she has a rolling e'e, And for bonnie Annie Laurie I 'd lay down ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... houses stand in solemn rows, And not a child is seen; The blinds are drawn, the doors are shut, The walks are span and clean. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... lack of imagination that such an event looms so immense in our thoughts. Most of us do not make the ordinance of death in itself an accusation against the Most High; we are not specially shocked or outraged by the thought that the whole population of the globe dies out within quite a moderate span of time, nor even by the reflection that several hundred thousand persons die every year in the United Kingdom alone. We know quite well that every one of those who perished in Messina must have paid ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... troubles of her own. Her first attempts to make fast to the Mole ahead of Vindictive failed, as her grapnels were not large enough to span the parapet. Two officers. Lieutenant Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the parapet trying to make the grapnels fast till each was killed and fell down between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... need principles of action which will guide us in attaining a state of society more congruent with our knowledge of the possibilities of the world and human nature, more thoroughly inspired by human love, love of man for man as a being living his span of life here and now, under conditions which call for a concentration of skill and effort to realize the best. The breaking of the old Catholic synthesis, narrow but admirable within its limits, took place at ...
— Progress and History • Various
... Easter Jim put on his blue Frock cwoat, the vu'st time—vier new; Wi' yollow buttons all o' brass, That glitter'd in the zun lik' glass; An' pok'd 'ithin the button-hole A tutty he'd a-begg'd or stole. A span-new wes'co't, too, he wore, Wi' yollow stripes all down avore; An' tied his breeches' lags below The knee, wi' ribbon in a bow; An' drow'd his kitty-boots azide, An' put his laggens on, an' tied His shoes wi' strings two vingers wide, Because ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... pitied the perishing. Fear indeed had cast out humanity. So first the divisions deserted from the king little by little; and then the army melted away by companies. He was also deserted by the prophet Ygg, a man of unknown age, which was prolonged beyond the human span; this man went as a deserter to Frode, and told him of all ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... needful Rest away does fling, Exhausts his Autumn to adorn our Spring: Whilst his last hours in Toyls and Storms are hurl'd, And onely to enrich th'inheriting World. Thus prodigally throws his Lifes short span, To play his Countries generous Pelican. But oh, that all-be-devill'd Paper, fram'd No doubt, in Hell; that Mass of Treason damn'd; By Esau's Hands, and Jacobs Voice disclos'd; And timely to th' Abhorring World expos'd. Nay, ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... pantomime with no directing head. Nautch girls tripped along laughing and chatting, bracelets jingling, and tiny bells at their ankles tinkling musically. It depressed him; it was such a terrible juxtaposition of frivolity and the gloomed shadow of idol worship that lay just the bridge's span of the sullen Narbudda: the gloomy, broken scraps of the long since deserted forts that cut with jagged lines the moonlit sky; and beyond them again the many temples with their scowling Brahmin priests, and the shrine wherein the god of destruction, Omkar, sat athirst for sacrifice. He shivered as ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... thou art young; the world is large and thou art small; Cease, atom of a moments span, To hold ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... gripped hands in a clasp of steel; for each of the four knew that these two unions were not passing fancies, lightly entered into and as lightly cast aside, but were true partnerships which would endure throughout the entire span ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... are indeed," she said, laughing. "But how do you know? They may be gold and leather, and spic and span from the bookseller's, for ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... near day-dawn. A splendid carriage, drawn by a span of thorough-paced horses, whose black coats shone in the moonlight like jet, while they champed their silver bits, and blew the white froth with the breath of their proud nostrils out like spray over the rich trappings of their harness, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... place to yourself, even if it's a small one. A shop or a barn has saved many a man's life and reason Cephas, for it's ag'in' a woman's nature to have you underfoot in the house without hectorin' you. Choose a girl same's you would a horse that you want to hitch up into a span; 't ain't every two that'll stan' together without kickin'. When you get the right girl, keep out of her way consid'able an' there'll be less wear ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Eve span," agriculture has been the principal occupation of civilized man. With the advance of chemistry, particularly that branch known as agricultural chemistry, farming has become more of a science, and its successful pursuit demands not only unceasing industry, but a high degree ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... of history were to live a few years longer than the number commonly granted as the span of human life, I, for my part, have no manner of doubt that they would have something to add to the accounts of the past previously written by them, for the reason that, even as it is not possible for a single man, be he ever so diligent, to learn the exact truth in a flash, or to discover ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... rolls (for crushing). Intermediate rolls. Three-high rolls. Giant cranes (215 feet long span). Vertical dryer. Belt conveyors. Air separation. Mechanical separation of ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... him that there are animated creatures to which one of the hairs of his head is a larger cylinder than is the trunk of the giant California sequoia to him. He borrows his inch from the breadth of his thumb, his palm and span from the width of his hand and the spread of his fingers, his foot from the length of the organ so named; his cubit is the distance from the tip of his middle finger to his elbow, and his fathom is the space he can measure with ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... many impulses, and thus it has many types of satisfaction. When a creature develops to the point that it establishes all kinds of rules governing conduct, when it establishes sanctions that are eternal and has purposes that have a terminus in a hereafter which is out of the span of life of the planner, it becomes quite difficult to say just what it is man seeks. In fact, every man seeks many things, many satisfactions, and whatever it may be that Man in the abstract seeks, individual men differ very decidedly not only as to what ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... tray and the plate of broken victuals. What had passed between them neither he nor Zora would afterwards relate; but Wiggleswick spent the whole of that night and the following days in unremitting industry, so that the house became spick and span as his own well-remembered prison cells. There also was a light of triumph in Zora's eyes when she entered a few moments afterwards with the tea-tray, which caused Sypher to smile and a wicked feeling of content to ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... there an acorn yet green in its cup, We left also a firchatt upon the great stone hurled by Thor; To a fir branch we tied with a fine whang drawn from a bear we slew The wing feather of an eagle which span towards us, Yet it fell not to the earth, we twain caught it, The one by the quill, the other by ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... age. God was indeed loving and merciful to her; not only did He spare her this calamity, but also the weary trial of long-continued illness. In health of body and vigour of mind, having lived far beyond the usual span of human life, He called her to Himself. For her Death lost all its terrors. Her pure spirit passed away so gently that those around her scarcely perceived when she left them. It was the beautiful and painless close of a noble ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... where is the oldest animal in the world, and the one that has travelled most, the Eagle of Gwern Abwy.' The Eagle was so old, that a rock, from the top of which he pecked at the stars every evening, was now not so much as a span high. He knew nothing of Mabon; but there was a monster Salmon, into whom he once struck his claws in Llyn Llyw, who might, perhaps, tell them something of him. And at last the Salmon of Llyn Llyw told them of Mabon. 'With every tide I go along the river upwards, ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... retained for above a twelvemonth by the red brick of to-day—glowing, athwart its surrounding greenery, like the warm welcome of a friend; the exquisite neatness of the garden, where every flower that could be coaxed into growing in the open air bloomed in perfection; the spick-and-span brightness of the windows; the elegant order that prevailed within, from cellar to garret; the old, carefully-chosen furniture, which had for the most part been collected from other old-world homesteads; the artistic ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... back, and with it Miss Lucas, towing a brilliant bride, Mrs. Vivian, young, rich, pretty, and gay, with a waist you could span, and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... and waited ... dusty and derelict, in the spick-and-span office, where hung the old-fashioned steel engravings on the wall, of Civil War battles, of generals and officers seated about tables on camp stools,—bushy-bearded ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... near the same latitude in either hemisphere. There are, besides these, some small plain cockles, limpets; and some strangers, who come into the Sound, wore necklaces of a small blueish volute or panamae. Many of the muscles are a span in length, and some having pretty large pearls, which, however, are both badly shaped and coloured. We may conclude, that there is red coral in the Sound, or somewhere upon the coast, some thick pieces, or branches, having been seen in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... at a rent of a thousand crowns, crammed with all the vulgar magnificence that money can buy, occupied the first floor of a fine old house between a courtyard and a garden. Everything was as spick-and-span as the beetles in an entomological case, for Crevel lived ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac |
