"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sounds came to the shore; with the shouts of the French sailors were mingled the clash of cutlasses and the crack of pistols. The British sailors fought, for the most part, silently. On the heights above, blue lights were burning in the battery, and men could be seen standing on its crest watching the combat below, but powerless to assist ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... on some clothes and went downstairs. A crack of light showed under the kitchen door, and, pushing it open with some force, he gazed spellbound at the ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... but it was in his dreams, as if in another world, where insults and attacks do not arouse one's sensibilities. Then—nothing! A dense shadow, a night of profound sleep. He was awakened by a ray of sunshine which filtered through a crack in the window and shone upon his eyes. The morning light again brought into relief the whiteness of the walls which during the night seemed to sweat the shadows and barbaric ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... evergreen palaces Are split and shattered; The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; 130 And ruinously overthrown, The trunks are crushed and shattered By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress. Over each other crack and crash they all In terrible and intertangled fall; 135 And through the ruins of the shaken mountain The airs hiss and howl— It is not the voice of the fountain, Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl. Dost thou not hear? 140 Strange accents are ringing Aloft, afar, anear? ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to me," he retorted, "that your proceedings are rather like those of the amiable individual who offered the bear a flint pebble, that he might crack it and extract the kernel. Your confounded will seems to offer no soft spot on which one could commence an attack. But we won't give up. We seem to have sucked the will dry. Let us now have a few facts respecting the parties concerned in it; and, as Jeffrey ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... he never forgave Crawford for putting so much work upon him. He never lost an opportunity to crack a joke at his expense, and the name "Blue-nose Crawford" "Abe" applied to him stuck to him ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... have to wait long for the Indians, who came dashing up, lashing their ponies, which were panting and blowing. We let two of them pass by, but we opened a lively fire on the next three or four, killing two of them at the first crack. The others following discovered that they had run into an ambush, and whirling off into the brush, they turned and ran back in the direction whence they had come. The two who had passed by heard the firing and made their escape. We scalped the two ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his rapt ship run on her side so low That she drinks water and her keel plows ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... immortal gods that live therein, When as the morning shows his cheerful face, And Lucifer, mounted upon his steed, Brings in the chariot of the golden sun, I'll meet young Albanact in the open field, And crack my lance upon his burganet, To try the valour of his boyish strength. There will I show such ruthful spectacles And cause so great effusion of blood, That all his boys shall wonder at my strength: As when ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... rustle they overbear it; the buzz of a passing bee is so much louder it overcomes all of it that is in the whole field. I cannot, define it, except by calling the hours of winter to mind—they are silent; you hear a branch crack or creak as it rubs another in the wood, you hear the hoar-frost crunch on the grass beneath your feet, but the air is without sound in itself. The sound of summer is everywhere—in the passing breeze, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... have come to make you an offer for it. It isn't usual for real-estate men to crack up the properties they wish to purchase, but I am not afraid of doing so in this case." He spoke buoyantly, as though he felt confident that he was in a position to carry ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Then an invisible preacher began exhorting his hearers to whip themselves severely, and as he went on his vehemence and passion increased. Presently a loud smacking was heard all round the church, which continued a few minutes; then the preacher urged us to fresh exertions, and crack went the whips again louder and faster than before as he exhorted. The faithful flogged till a bell rang; the whips stopped, in a few minutes the candles were lit again, and the priest came round and collected his cords. I had squeezed mine in my hands, so that he did not see it, and I brought ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... ready," Cora told her friends, as the man on the bench who held the pistol allowed it to glimmer in the sunlight. The next moment a crack rent the air and the boats ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... Grant's a good son, and a good brother, and a good friend and neighbor, but"—the Doctor pounds his chair arm vehemently, "there are bats, my dear, bats in his belfry just the same. Don't get excited when you see Grant mount his haystack to jump into the crack o' doom for ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... studio-rumors placing here a collection of original old masters. But we were grievously disappointed, finding nothing but black ruin and decay. The roof over the chancel is entirely open to the sky, and a wide-yawning crack extends down the rear wall to the ground, as if a lightning-stroke had riven it asunder. The canvas of the altar-piece has fallen like a covering over the altar, screening and preserving it, so that its beautiful marble and alabaster ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... an anchor through the incident, and received some small damage to the keel, but no other injury was done—even this, I believe, upon second thought, was unintentional—done in playfulness only! "A shark can take a joke," it is said, and crack one too, but for broad, rippling humour ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... a glance aloft, where she saw another craft, a small flapping affair like the surgeon's. It was just rising on a long slant so as to cross above her course. And at that very instant there came a sharp crack, followed by a splintering crash. The surgeon's flier ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... no place to his mind. One day, however, he was in the furthest recess of his cave, when he felt that among the rocks a little thin wind blew constantly from one corner; and feeling about with his hands, he found that it came out of a small crack in the rocks. The stone above it seemed to be loose; and he perceived after a while that the end of the cave must be very near to the seaward face of the crag, and that the cave ran right through the rock, and was only kept from opening on the outer side by a thin barrier of stone; so after several ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of which she thought, and her delirium transported her abruptly to the crime she contemplated, she said to herself that she would go up the stairs with the bottle well hidden under her shawl; she would knock at the door very loud and continuously. He would come at last and would open the door a crack. She would say nothing to him, not her name even. She would go in without heeding him. She was strong enough to kill him! and she would go to the bed, to her! She would take her by the arm and say: "Yes it's me—this is ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... believe. I came down on you, and you formed a soft cushion," answered the stout gentleman, good-naturedly. "But as to helping me up, do not, I pray you, attempt it on any account; we shall both of us go in if you do. Let us both roll away in opposite directions from the crack before we attempt to get on our feet. ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... of her quick, furtive step told him that she was on the alert and determined to defend her castle against all comers. What if she should slip an old rifle through a crack and blow his ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... base his watery throne; The billows in angry fury shall rise, And every sea-mark and dam despise; The lightning shall gleam through the firmament black While the poles of earth and of heaven shall crack, The ocean the heights of Olympus explore, From thousandfold jaws with wild deafening roar The thunder shall howl, while with mad jubilee The hurricane fierce sings in triumph ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... old bag that had held corn for the chickens. He nailed this bag to a stick, and fastened the stick up straight in a crack in the barn door, which lay down flat on the ground. Then he and Sue managed to get the door in the duck pond, on the edge of which it had been placed over ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... nearly every case they're on. They give in first crack. But take the Whitely murder trial I was on. That was as near as I ever come to losing a case. But I managed to hang the jury and the verdict was one of disagreement. Whitely was innocent. Anybody could have told that with half ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... it is one of the articles of faith of a few crack-brained fanatics in this country, and of many ill-informed and prejudiced editors upon the Continent, that the British Government was responsible ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had he not seen Craig getting dizzily to his feet. It was time to end it. He feinted swiftly. Mallow, expecting a body-blow, dropped his guard. Warrington, as he struck, felt the bones in his hand crack. Mallow went over upon his back, fairly lifted off his feet. He was tough; an ordinary man would ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... into the building. The vultures of San Mateo, as he secretly called them, had flocked together for conference. Presently Martinez strolled by the office, outwardly displaying no interest in the structure but furtively seeking to catch a glimpse of the interior through a crack of the drawn shade. But in this he ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... Crack your first nut and light your first fire, Roast your first chestnut crisp on the bar; Make the logs sparkle, stir the blaze higher; Logs are cheery as sun or as star, Logs we can ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... grasped in a strong hand by the barrel, was swung over their heads, and down it came with an awful crack upon poor Pike's head. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... trifling cause was multiplied almost beyond the power of figures to express its momentous effect upon the destinies of these companion raindrops. Who can calculate the future of the smallest trifle when a mud crack swells to an Amazon, and the stealing of a penny may end on the scaffold? Who does not know that the act of a moment may cause a life's regret? A trigger may be pulled in an instant, but the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... been heavy, still; weatherwise pickers watched the white sky anxiously. In the middle of the night, Rose-Ellen woke to the shriek of wind and the crack of canvas. Then, with a splintering crash, the tent-poles collapsed and she was buried under a mass ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... up the track like the prongs of a great jagged toasting-fork. Ha, sonny, what a throw-in for me! Here was a game worth playing. I rode at the man I hated, loosening my stock-whip, and as I came near him, I turned aside and sent out the lash—so as not to touch him. The crack of it sounded in his ears and in his horse's as well, and the beast began to plunge. Here was my chance, and I took it. As the horse reared and plunged, I waited till it was facing away from me, and then sent the lash fair on to its flanks. It ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... and what worked out well on the last climb may turn out to be dangerous on the next. Thus, on one ascent of the cliffs of Black Canyon, my companion suggested that we follow a "chimney," a water-worn crack that offered convenient toe-holds. We ascended by the selected route without difficulty. But an hour later, when a similar ascent confronted us, we selected the same sort of route and came to grief, finding our way blocked by an overhanging ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... at his face when he didn't know that I was looking—he always was cheerful with me. He wanted to cheer me up, you see, so he told me all the encouraging news about the movement—though there wasn't very much that was encouraging—and then he would crack jokes and tell stories that made me laugh so loud that all the other patients in the room ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... Tr., p. 398 f.): "I came through a crack between two boards out of the 'wheel room.' The walls dripped with water. Right before me is a brook in which stands a rickety, black piano. I use it to cross over the brook, as I am running away. Behind me is a crowd of men. In front of them all is my uncle. He encourages them to ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... that you pursue. It is not "Wisdom while you wait"; there is no waiting at all. It is a "lightning lunch," a "kill" without the risk and fatigue of hunting. The find and the death are simultaneous. And as to space, a poacher's pocket will hold your library; where now the sewers of Bloomsbury crack beneath the accumulating masses of superfluous print, one single shelf will contain all that man needs to know; and Mr. Carnegie's ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... the war-makers we shall never end war, any more than a country can end crime and robbery without a police. Specialist must watch specialist in either case. Mere expressions of a virtuous abhorrence of war will never end war until the crack of doom. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... cocaine and heroin from South America; illicit production of cannabis on small, scattered plots; domestic cocaine consumption is rising, particularly crack cocaine ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... glare of the foot-lights. But instead of the shepherds in white satin who ought to be the performers in this ingenious theatre, it is the unaccustomed stranger who is forced into the position of actor. As he toils up the steep and slovenly streets, faced with shabby buildings that crack and blacken behind their ill-adjusted fronts of stucco and distemper, he cheapens rapidly in his own view: he feels painfully like the hapless supernumerary whom he has seen mounting an obvious step-ladder behind a screen of rock-work on his way to a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... "Hardly a crack!" Jack retorted. "But I'm more interested in wondering what would become of us. Guess we'd better keep a good thousand feet up, and not bother trying to pry ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... example of the ancient Hebrews; whereunto he condescended, and his mother was very well pleased therewith. In the meanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a tirelaregot, that is, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he carried to the font, and there baptized, according to the manner of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of San Francisco there are some crack sailors. I know, because I heard them pass judgment on the Snark during the process of her building. They found only one vital thing the matter with her, and on this they were all agreed, namely, that she could not ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... life-size. That girl, she's as busy as an ant or a bee! She'll be workin' if her sides crack. She's got no time to be sleepin' ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... after that they lay wind-bound under a rocky island. So the sailors went ashore and strolled about to spend the time, and there they found a huge egg, almost as big as a little house. So they began to knock it about with large stones, but, after all, they couldn't crack the shell. Then the lad came up with his sword to see what all the noise was about, and when he saw the egg, he thought it a trifle to crack it; so he gave it one blow and the egg split, and out came a chicken as ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... "living-room," for the only separation between the "living room" and the hall was a demarcation suggested to willing imaginations by a pair of wooden columns painted white. These columns, pine under the paint, were bruised and chipped at the base; one of them showed a crack that threatened to become a split; the "hard-wood" floor had become uneven; and in a corner the walls apparently failed of solidity, where the wall-paper had declined to accompany some staggerings of ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... feet of Demetrio, who stood over him, knife in hand. The victim raised his wrinkled Indian face; there was not a single gray hair in his head today. Demetrio recognized the spy who had lied to him the day before. Terrified, Luis Cervantes quickly averted his face. The steel blade went crack, crack, on the old man's ribs. He toppled backward, his ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... said wearily, after a while. 'You want to be kind, but you can't make black white. That's what I've always said. It's the Will of God, and there's nothing to gain by fighting it. Black will be black, and white will be white till crack ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... the Premier to utter them. Only by an effort of will could he lift them to a plane of high interest. He could sketch great issues with the solemn hand of a great preacher pronouncing a benediction; but he never could utter an aside, or crack a joke, or tell a story, or forget that once upon a time Fate had picked him to be a leader and so help him he would go through the motions of shepherding while the other men were the real collie dogs of the flock. If ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... a desire to attract the attention of the lady, and induce her to look towards me, I noisily inserted the key in the door, and suddenly opened it with a rusty crack. Turning round to see the effect of my policy—the lady was gone!—vanished! Not yet daunted, I hurried to the place, which was not ten paces away, and closely searched the stone and the space all round it, but utterly in vain; there were absolutely no traces of the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... whip, and gave the king lessons in whip cracking. "Now you see how it is done," he said, as he handed it back. "If the geese try to run away, crack it loud." ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... be in every sense of the word an arduous training, for the first regiment of Guards being considered all the world over as the crack corps of the German army, and as the embodiment of military perfection in every sense of the word, its officers, realizing that it is, so to speak, the star phalanx of Germany, are engaged, morning, noon and night, in maintaining it at its proper standard, and there are no officers anywhere ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... jig or aria. But, as for all your warbling Delias, Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias, He owned he thought them much surpast By that redoubted Hyaloclast[7] Who still contrived by dint of throttle, Where'er he went to crack ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... rocks, green crystals hung from the ceiling or formed rows of pillars, even the copper which made the walls of the cave had a coating of green. Wayland broke off a huge projecting lump and left the cave, which instantly closed up so that not a crack remained to tell ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... too, but it wasn't possible. We had to desert one of you, so we stuck by the old man. We hid your revolver and money- belt under the seventh palm, on the beach to the right of this shack. If I'd known you had twenty double eagles on you all this time, I'd have cracked your skull myself. The crack you've got is healing, and if you pull through the fever you'll be all right. If you do, give this woman twenty pesos I borrowed from her. Get her to hire a boat, and men, and row it to Amapala. This island is only fifteen ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... was sinking into the tideless sea in all its gold-and-orange glory as he stood leaning over the stone balustrade watching the splendid marksmanship of one of the crack shots of Europe. He waited until the contest had ended, then he descended and took the rapide back to Nice ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... up to the point where I began to suspect," Ren continued. "I described the feeling I had that was something like watching a large chunk of the bank of a stream break away, starting first as a jagged crack in the turf, with it widening slowly at first, then faster, until the broken chunk becomes a separate THING, dissociated from the bank. It breaks away, drops into the stream—and vanishes; while the bank itself remains, enclosing and containing the ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham
... that slept along the east wall on the floor below us were in a line with the edge of the outer door, and a chalk line drawn from the crack between the door and the frame to the opposite wall would touch, say 150 pairs of feet. They were a noisy crowd down there, and one night their noise so provoked the guard in front of the door that he called out to them to keep quiet or he would fire in upon them. They greeted this ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... was an expert in the physics of | biochemistry and applied quantum theory | to molecular biology. His theory of the | molecular bond won a Nobel Laureate. | | Read Watson's explanation of why Pauling | failed to crack the genetic code. | | Guenther Stent, the molecular biologist of | U.C. Berkeley is an avowed Kantian | who narrowly missed cracking the genetic | code, His philosophy of science is | highly relevant to the application of | neo-hermeneutics ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... brows in deep thought, and stared into the fire. Mr. Buxton was about to speak, but Buck held up his hand for silence, and the quiet remained unbroken till the American slapped his knee with a crack like a pistol-shot, looked round on them, and ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... shied abruptly. The end of the piano was twitched sharply from the backboard. There was a cry, the mulatto staggered and fell with the falling piano, and its weight dropped squarely upon his thigh, which broke with a resounding crack. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... could crack glass, the spectacles of the old lady would have been splintered into many pieces as she stood by the roadside, the end of her umbrella jabbed an inch or two into the ground. After standing thus for some five minutes, she suddenly turned ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... of the high old pews. Through a crack she could look into the next pew; and there they stood. She heard the old man: "Whist, Molly, let's be getting out of this! HE is here with all his grand friends. Don't let ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... knoll or rock, or stake in the fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the build and walk and flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before you in much the same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow breast, surmounted by a black crescent, it need not be ashamed to turn to the morning sun, while its coat of mottled gray is in perfect keeping with the stubble amid which it walks. The two lateral white quills in its tail seem strictly in character. These quills spring from a dash ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... licking.' After that they left me, and went back to the house; and as soon as they'd gone, I began to try to find some way of escape, but it was so dark inside the shed I couldn't see anything. Presently I heard a knocking on the boards. There was a wide crack between them in one place, and looking through it I could just make out that there was some boy standing there with what looked like a dirty apron over his trousers. I said, 'Hullo!' and he said, 'Hullo! what's ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... 'n Hell!' and stared. And there she was—Fancy Long, standing plain as day under one of those crack-brained trees, and smiling and waving just the way I ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... his slaves unhappy in every way he could think of. Then he would come up to them and say, 'Come, come, I don't allow any sulky looks. Be cheerful, now, or—' and he would crack his whip in a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... your turning spheres, And cause the sun to borrow light of you. My sword struck fire from his coat of steel, Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk; As when a fiery exhalation, Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud, Fighting for passage, make[s] the welkin crack, And casts a flash of lightning to [200] the earth: But, ere I march to wealthy Persia, Or leave Damascus and th' Egyptian fields, As was the fame of Clymene's brain-sick son That almost brent [201] the axle-tree of heaven, So shall our swords, our lances, and our ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... get mad at me, but if you will let me put in your suitcase just one little box of that salve for your finger tips, so they don't crack—" ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... island no longer, had lost quite half its security as a military position. The next month, however, brought other changes. Half the pools had vanished by drainings and evaporation; the mud had begun to crack, and, in some places to pulverize; while the upper margin of the old pond had become sufficiently firm to permit the oxen to walk over it, without miring. Fences of trees, brush, and even rails, enclosed, on this portion of the flats, quite fifty acres of land; ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... to be entertained, and, moreover, as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely could not keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing else prevented, an earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before I need rise to speak. Yet here was the Mayor getting on inexorably,—and, indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of his wordy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Merrifield married his brother, banking in Ceylon, and may come home any day on a visit; and Ivinghoe's pretty wife is Lancelot's niece. He edits what is really the crack newspaper of the county, in spite of its being true blue ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... allusion to his office reminded him of his professional duties, he added: "I plumb forgot, Auntie Sue, this gentleman is Mr. Ross. He is one of William J. Burns's crack detectives. Don't be scared, though, he ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... covering on them for months at a time, changing the covering morning and night. The stinging, burning and itching sensation would be so intense that at times it seemed as if I would go crazy. When I bent the fingers the flesh would crack open and bleed. It is impossible for me to describe the intense pain and suffering which I endured night and day. After taking six bottles of the "Discovery" I ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Connecticut, Ohio, etc.—and you know, gentlemen, that if the negro had never had the right to vote until the majority of the rank and file of white men, particularly foreign-born men, had voted "Yes," he would have gone without it till the crack of doom. It was because of the prejudice of the unthinking majority that Congress submitted the question of the negro's enfranchisement to the Legislatures of the several States, to be adjudicated by the educated, broadened representatives of the people. We now appeal to you to lift the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... crack in the wall? Master Jim say yes, and I say, it's just like the open door when the eyes are close to the wall. He peek and see ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... over stones. He knew it was his duty to find out where it was, and very soon he saw a hole in the wood-work through which the water was coming pretty freely. Examining it more carefully he saw that the pressure was threatening to open up a wide crack in the gate; and, child as he was, he knew that if it were not stopped that little stream would soon become a cascade, a great sheet of water, a torrent, and then a terrible inundation which would end in desolation and death. So the little fellow did ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... laughed. "Why, sir," said he, "what other way is there? We cannot stop an irregular crack; we can frame nothing to fit it. The way is to get ready a plug measured a trifle larger than the aperture you are going to make; then drill a round hole and force in the plug. I know no other way than that; and I was a ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... nerves never failed him in an emergency. The dark head appearing on the crest of a roller, and then swooping down on the other side, was already half-way to the sloop. Sharkey dwelt long upon his aim before he fired. With the crack of the gun the swimmer reared himself up in the water, waved his hands in a gesture of warning, and roared out in a voice which rang over the bay. Then, as the sloop swung round her head-sails, and the pirate fired an impotent broadside, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch, as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever before, from walking through that prickly furze, and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... full of undefined terrors, with an unlimited space of the like solitude before her. She would even have been glad to be sure of an evening of Mrs. Martha's good advice, and of darning stockings! She sat down by the round table to Mr. James's wristbands; but every creak or crack of the furniture made her start, and think of death-watches. She might have learnt to contemn superstition, but that did not prevent ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stairway for five minutes. Little light was there in the great hall through which Leothric ascended, for it only entered through arrow slits here and there, and in the world outside evening was waning fast. The stairway led up to two folding doors, and they stood a little ajar, and through the crack Leothric entered and tried to continue straight on, but could get no farther, for the whole room seemed to be full of festoons of ropes which swung from wall to wall and were looped and draped from the ceiling. The whole chamber was thick ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... Crack! went the rifle, and the bullet sang so close to his face that at first he thought he was hit. He stared for a moment at the puff of smoke rising from the bushes, his faculties in a daze. Then he came to himself ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the ice was perfect; the utter stillness of the air at the time when the final congelation of the waters had taken place had resulted in the formation of a surface that for smoothness would rival a skating-rink; without a crack or flaw it extended far beyond the range ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... found Benjamin Bat a much more agreeable companion when he had eaten his fill. Early in the evening, soon after he had waked up, Benjamin was positively ferocious. But the more he ate, the pleasanter he grew. And by the time faint streaks of light began to show in the east he could smile and crack a joke as easily as ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... just arrived at the part of the story where his grandfather was giving orders for the destruction of his emus, when Betty opened the bedroom door a crack, and whispered his name. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... can you crack a hard nut with a nutcracker when you cannot crack it by squeezing it between ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... fascinations of war, whether on the largest or smallest scale. When we settled down into camp-life again, it seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the chrysalis. None of us could listen to the crack of a gun without recalling instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs of the St. Mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night without recalling the sounds which startled us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... so much kinder five centuries before, he wondered, and felt sad as the many-colored robes swept on through the grass, and the crack of the rifles sounded sharply through the music of the chanting voices. He went on footsore and sorrowful, thinking of the castle doors that had opened, and the city gates that had unclosed, at the summons of the little long-haired boy whose ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... grain, roots, and nuts as our food, and the incisors as clearly suggested fruit, but at that time he was in some doubt about the canine teeth. At his request some of us gravely cracked nuts with him, and after the experiment we agreed that human beings more naturally crack nuts with the back teeth, where leverage is most powerful. A suspicion remained that our pointed fangs might have been used to ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... commented as she took the brush and started to do Anna's painfully accomplished task all over, from the big crack by the door where she had started. "'Ow's 'e hever goin' to know w'ere we 'ave moved to?" she asked her ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... its land structures,—as we passed the ocean steamships lying at the "Hook," the sea-captains about me began to talk of the American triumphs of speed. "They say to the Englishmen now," said one, "that we're going to take the berths out of the 'Pacific.'" (She had just made the then crack passage.) "When the English fellows ask, 'What for?'—they say, 'Because Collins intends to run her for a day-boat.'" This extravaganza raised a laugh; but one of the older brethren shook his head solemnly and sadly. "It's all very well," said he; "but what with a steamer twice a week, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... life—Ah, what has it been? [Pall pounds on floor.] What was that?—Ghosts in the sunshine? That would be a funny sight! [Broom raps on floor.] Again! 'Tis said that one can see ghosts in broad daylight, if one peeps through a door-crack, it is even maintained that one can see oneself. Oneself—! If one could really do that, how easy it would be to evade one's worst faults! I'll try it. [Opens door left and ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... the tree.—The cacao trees should, as already stated, have sufficient shade to prevent their being burned by the sun. If they are much exposed to its rays, their branches are scattered, crack, and the tree dies. They are also infested with worms, which gnaw the bark all around, then attack the interior and destroy them. The only remedy which has hitherto been found, is to employ people to kill these worms, which are deposited by ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... heard a desperate battle going on outside. I began shouting and calling for help; everyone in the house was terribly upset. Nimfodora Semyonovna ran out with her hair down, the voices in the yard grew louder—and all at once I heard: 'Hold the gate, hold it, fasten it!' I opened the door—just a crack, and looked out: the monster was no longer on the steps, the servants were rushing about the yard in confusion waving their hands and picking up bits of wood from the ground; they were quite crazy. 'To the village, it has run off to the village,' shrieked a peasant woman in a cap ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... wide, and as it was the 23d of February, the ice had become rotten from the sun glare of the coming spring. As the cannon were drawn to mid-river, though it was seven in the morning, the ice began to heave and crack with dire warning. To hesitate was death; to go back as dangerous as to go forward. With a whoop the men broke from quick march to a run, unsheathing musket and fixing bayonet blades as they dashed ahead to be met with a withering cross fire as they came within range of the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... aesthetic rather than moral, and probable that it is strongest in the lower social strata. Several years ago I went to the first night of a rather foolish play about ancient Rome, in which an early Christian is brought in to be very mildly tortured on the stage. At the first crack of the whip my neighbours sprang from their seats, crying, 'Shame! Stop that!'; and the scene had to be removed in subsequent performances. The operatives in a certain factory stopped the engines for an hour because they heard a cat mewing among the machinery. Having with difficulty ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... see that, marshal," Lindsay said with a smile; "but though I can get on with French fairly enough, my tongue doesn't seem to be able to form these crack-jaw German words; and you see, marshal, it is not the only one that does not. I think, sir, that bad as my German is, it is not much worse than your own, and you have been here much ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... in adapting creatures to the mode of life He has appointed for them. The eagles and hawks, you know, are provided with strong, short bills to enable them to seize and tear flesh. Those of canaries and all the finches are just the very instruments to crack seeds with. Parrots, with their tremendous weapons, can crush the hardest nuts of the tropic forest. The crossbill is fitted with a wonderful tool for tearing fir-cones to pieces. Robins and the other warblers ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... hatchet, or adze, made of a tough greenish kind of stone, very dexterously fitted into a handle; it is then cut into such lengths as are required for the plank, one end of which is heated till it begins to crack, and then with wedges of hard wood they split it down: Some of these planks are two feet broad, and from fifteen to twenty feet long. The sides are smoothed with adzes of the same materials and construction, but of a smaller size. Six or eight men are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... be no doubt whatever as to the effect these noises had upon him. He winced as a dog winces when you crack a whip over him; the only question was whether by a powerful effort he could regain his composure or whether his suffering would overcome his self-restraint to the extent of making him gloomy or querulous during the rest of ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... smiled. It was a dreary, unaccustomed sort of crack in his weather-beaten face. "I had coffee, too," he replied ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... at the Court, tae, aft I saw Whaur Advocates by twa an' twa Gang gesterin' end to end the ha' In weeg an' goon, To crack o' what ye wull but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the winter and go into camp with John, and John met him more than half-way with a promise to accept Oliver's invitation for a week's visit in Kennedy Square the next time he went home, if that happy event ever took place, when they would both go down to Carroll's Island for a crack at a canvas- back. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... gun on his saddle and took careful aim. The crack of his rifle was followed by a hoarse squawk and the tall bird ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... intellectual and social kind this was, for they were neither of them men to shirk from close gripes, or trifle and flourish with their weapons; they laid on and spared not. And then my uncle had generally some special nut of his own to crack, some thesis to fling down and offer battle on, some "particle" to energize upon; for though quiet and calm, he was thoroughly combative, and enjoyed seeing his friend's blood up, and hearing his emphatic and bright speech, and watching his ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... or Tertullian! and how complete a confutation of all his grounds does not the passage afford to those humble souls, who, gifted with common sense alone, can boast of no additional light received through a crack in their upper apartments:— ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... steel, spread wide across the open, was within two hundred yards now! Then a hundred and fifty! Then a hundred! Then less, and fierce and sharp like the crack of a rifle came Captain Sherburne's ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to make a heart-string crack. Oh, were it lawful that your pretty souls Might look from heaven into your fathers eyes, Then should you see the penitent glasses melt, And both your murthers shoot upon my cheeks; But you are playing in the Angels laps, And will not look on me, Who void of grace, kild you in beggery. Oh that ...
— A Yorkshire Tragedy • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... confidence in the killing power of the gun in my hand, and at the crack of the rifle the huge brute settled forward with hardly a quiver not ten feet from the kids upon which he was about to spring. A second shot was not necessary but was fired as a matter of precaution as the tiger had fallen behind rank grass, and the bullet passed through the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... delightful surprise about the way in which a familiar object looms up suddenly, a dim remote shape, and then as swiftly reveals the well-known outline. My path takes me past the line, and I hear a train that I cannot see roar past. I hear the sharp crack of the fog signals and the whistle blown. I pass close to the huge, dripping signals; there, in a hut beside a brazier, sits a plate-layer with his pole, watching the line, ready to push the little disc off the metals if the creaking signal overhead moves. In another lonely place stands ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... our only interruptions when Mrs. Symonds and the handsome girls went to bed. I have many memories of seeing our peasant friends off from Symonds' front door, and standing by his side in the dark, listening to the crack of their whips and their yodels yelled far down the snow roads into the ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... up into the back seat, and Florence after her, and wrapped them with robes. Then he mounted his horse and started off. "Gid-eb!" growled Stillwell, and with a crack of his whip the team jumped into a trot. Florence whispered ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... holding up her forehead for his kiss, "that young poodle of yours is making me take notice. He gives me intellectual nuts to crack. It's strange ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... was black; The green grass was not seen; The birds did rest On the bare thorn's breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway-track, Had bound their folds o'er many a crack Which the frost had ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... jes' little kids ole marster he ketch us a stealin' watermelons and he say, 'Git! Git! Git! And when we runs and stoops over to crawl through de crack of de fence he sho' give us a big spank. Den we runs off cryin' and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... done dead,' sez Big Pig, sezee, 'en 'fo' she die she tell me fer ter keep my eye on Brer Wolf. I sees you thoo de crack er de do', en you look mighty ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... goodness then that if there BE a crack we know it! But if we may perish by cracks in things that we don't know—!" And she smiled with the sadness of it. "We can never then ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... a crack of whips we started, and it was with satisfaction that I heard the trampling of hoofs bite into the sod and the bright steel edges rip through the matted roots. Soft earth and tangled grasses filled the iron scoop behind, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... cramped to stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... smooth funnel of water swirling about with nauseating rapidity. And then (it must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it parted from shore to shore with a loud crack like the report ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven hours' ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... he protested. "I feel fifty per cent better. I'd much rather stay down here with you and Miss Standish for a while, if you don't mind. My nerves are a bit jumpy from that crack over the skull, and I'd like them to quiet down before I ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... ground so fast that the other could not keep up with him. From above there came the crack of a rifle, then another and another, as the men on the ridge sighted their prey. A spatter of bullets threw up the dirt around them. Dick felt a red-hot flame sting his leg, but, though he had been hit, to his surprise he ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... recourse was had to taxation of the clergy, which the prelates successfully resisted; the old quarrel with the Jansenists was revived, and soon Church and Crown were convulsed by an agitation that shook society to its very base. During the popular ferment the king was attacked in 1757 by a crack-brained fanatic named Damiens, who scratched him with a penknife as he was entering his coach at Versailles. The poor crazy wretch, who at most deserved detention in an asylum, was first subjected to a cruel judicial torture, then taken to the Place ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... looks won't make his fortune. He's a hard-working fellow enough in his way; but he's something like the horse in the matter of temper. But I think I've taken the devil out of him," said Mr. Spavin, with an ominous crack ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... visible. The two ladies were squeezed into this, and they crouched together, Sadie's arms thrown round her aunt. When they had walled them up, the men turned with lighter hearts to see what was going on. As they did so there rang out the sharp, peremptory crack of a rifleshot from the escort, followed by another and another, but these isolated shots were drowned in the long, spattering roll of an irregular volley from the plain, and the air was full of the phit-phit-phit of ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle |
