"Semicircle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more and more natural as the years progressed. Even in the days of Sheridan, however, the conventions of the theatre were still essentially unreal. An actor entered a room by walking through the walls; stage furniture was formally arranged; and each act terminated with the players grouped in a semicircle and bowing obeisance to applause. The lines in Sheridan's comedies were indiscriminately witty. Every character, regardless of his birth or education, had his clever things to say; and the servant bandied epigrams with ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... him what he wanted without a word. Warren then began gravely to draw a large semicircle, open at the top, and above the semicircular line a pendulum, which fell perpendicularly and touched the circumference at the exact point where on the dial of a clock would be inscribed the figure VI. This done, he ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... my life. But the noise and astonishment of the people, at seeing me rise and walk, are not to be expressed. The chains that held my left leg were about two yards long, and gave me not only the liberty of walking backwards and forwards in a semicircle, but, being fixed within four inches of the gate, allowed me to creep in, and lie at my full length ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... by a triangle in the facade of the Greek temple, the octagonal shape of a Renaissance chapel. A higher degree of harmony is obtained when the same shape is repeated throughout the various parts of the building,—the cylinder in the columns, the triangle or semicircle in the arches and gables. A step further is taken in the same direction when the different similar parts are all of the same size, as in the Greek temple, where the columns are all of one size, and similar parts of columns ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... Saturday which was to display his works to an applauding public of private friends, Mr. Blyth's studio, thanks to Madonna's industry and attention, looked really in perfect order—as neat and clean as a room could be. A semicircle of all the available chairs in the house—drawing-room and bed-room chairs intermingled—ranged itself symmetrically in front of the pictures. That imaginative classical landscape, "The Golden Age," reposed grandly ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the shady side yards stood Kent, turning the crank of a hand-organ! He was facing the highway where the other two boys were, but not a trace of recognition was in his face. Ranged in a semicircle before him was a line of little children shuffling their toes to the ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... a big hall, in which I had often sat to hear a concert of music. On the dais at the upper end were seated a number of dignified persons, in a semicircle, with a very handsome and stately old man in the centre on a chair of state, whose face was new to me. Before this Court I was formally arraigned; I had to stand alone in the middle of the floor, in an open space. Two of my captors stood ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of them young, uprose and with a great clanking and jangling of spurs and spur-chains strode over to him. They grouped before him in a semicircle, trying bashfully to wedge their shoulders, one behind another's, their faces a-grin and apologetic, and at the same time expressing a casual and unconscious democraticness. In truth, to them Hardman Pool was more than mere chief. He was elder brother, or father, or patriarch; ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... and the eight men set to work; and ten minutes later the grave was dug, greatly to the astonishment of the whole army, which had gathered in a semicircle on the rising slopes of the two hills which bordered the road, standing as if on the steps ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... four other rabbits, too, impressed with the beauty of the afternoon and the advantages of the situation, now followed their comrade's example, coming out from their burrows and squatting on the turf of the sloping glade in a semicircle opposite the children; while, the more poor Puck tried to express his indignation at their free-and- easiness, the more nonchalantly they regarded him, sitting up comfortably and combing away, enjoying themselves as ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... to be feared was done by the Cardinal who came to govern England with a title containing St. Pudentiana,[130] who shares a day with St. Dunstan. The Archpriest of St. Vitus will have it that the square inscribed in a semicircle is half of the semicircle, or the circumference 3-1/5 diameters. He is active and able, with {62} nothing wrong about him except his paradoxes. In the second tract named he has given the testimonials of crowned heads and ministers, etc. as follows. Louis-Napoleon ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... George, who had supposed that red-nosed comedians belonged to the past. However, the man was atoned for by three extremely beautiful and graceful young girls who followed him. Round about the small group was ranged a semicircle of handsome creatures in long skirts, behind whom was another semicircle of young men in white flannels; the scene was a street in Mandalay. The red-nosed comedian began by making a joke concerning his ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... of the country people hanging about, staring at a well, in this kodak, though it's not a very good one." He put into Richard's hand a small, blurred photograph showing a spouting well with an indistinct crowd standing in an irregular semicircle before it. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... open, sitting alone, side by side, their little pink bodies bare of all but their coarse woolen undershirts, their little faces shining with wholesome soap, their eyes bright with expectancy for the story that was to come, the two pretty children of a lonely father. Then, in a semicircle about them, the members of the Trust, with their hard, unclean faces, their rough clothes and rougher manners, and their uncultured minds driven by hearts ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... a semicircle, in order that they might see one another; and two notaries stood before them, the one on the right and the other on the left, to record the pros and cons in the various processes. Rabbi Yehudah says there were three such notaries, one for the pros, one for the cons, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Indians found Gladwyn and his officers seated in a semicircle at the upper end, waiting to receive them. They also noted that each of these, besides being in full uniform, wore his sword and a brace of pistols. At this additional evidence of the discovery of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Street he heard a buzz. He looked up, and saw a considerable crowd collected in a semicircle. "Why that is near our house," he said, and quickened ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... him off, till after trial following trial the fugitive found that his efforts to escape in that way could only result in tiring out his mustang, and so cleverly had the enemy manoeuvred that they had cast, as it were, a line round him, a semicircle whose chord was the edge of the depression, towards which when it pleased them and they felt certain, they could press him back, gradually contracting their line till he ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... early twilight of Thanksgiving Eve came Laurence, and Clara, and Charley, and little Alice, hand in hand, and stood in a semicircle round Grandfather's chair. They had been joyous throughout that day of festivity, mingling together in all kinds of play, so that the house had echoed with ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he cried, and was off, persuading the enormous beast under him to describe a semicircle in the narrow street backing, forcing forward, and backing again, to the accompaniment of the continuous fusillade. At length he got away, drew up within two feet of an electric tram that slid bumping down the main street, and vanished round the corner. A little ragged boy ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... disapproval, "you have loaded yourself with unnecessary trouble. There was never a mass performed with stricter observance of propriety than we will now have. Fix the chairs thus"—and with a finger-sweep he described a semicircle—"here the table for the Prince. Having notified me of his intention to read from some ancient books, he must have a table—and let there be no reserved seat, except one for the Patriarch. Set a sedilium, high and well clothed, for him here on my right—and forget not a stool ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Dhu or Black Rock. So the Calton Crags were called, which now look green amid surrounding buildings, but which then were a dark and frowning patch in a semicircle of green hill that stretched from ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... if you fire, you must die for it!" exclaimed he, in a deep voice. Preston stared at him, hardly seeming to see him, and quivering with agitation. "Stand aside —I know what I'm about," he replied huskily. As the soldiers reached the sentinel's post and faced about in a semicircle, the crowd fell back, and there were voices calling "Home—home!" The soldiers began to load, pouring the powder and ball into the muzzles of their guns, and ramming the charge home sharply with their ramrods. At this, a dozen men, with cudgels, advanced upon the soldiers, cheering, and passed ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... as I had expected to find it, a singular and gloomy spot; the tall elm trees which formed the avenue, and the black wall of clipped yew, which followed their course, diverging to the right and left, formed a semicircle, the chord of which was the low wall and hawthorn hedge, the summer-house standing, as I entered, in the angle ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... glow of the dying fire sat a semicircle of men—Jim Lewarne, sunk in a drunken slumber, Calvin Oke bawling in his ear, Old Zeb on hands and knees, scraping the embers together, Toby Lewarne (Jim's elder brother) thumping a pannikin on his knee ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... aware to whom each carriage belongs, and consequently when it behoves them to make their horses curvet, and otherwise show off their horsemanship to advantage. Black eyes are upon them, and they know it. When the carriages have made two or three turns, they draw up at different stations in a semicircle a little off the road, and there the inmates sit and view the passers by. Occasional streams of smoke may be seen issuing from the carriages, but chiefly, it must be confessed, from the most old-fashioned equipages, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... be pronounced only so long as the Sanhedrin holds its sessions in the appointed place.'—Maimonides, 14. See further Levit. 21:10; compare 10:6. 'Let the judges each in his turn absolve or condemn.'—Mishna, San. 15:5. 'The members of the Sanhedrin were seated in the form of a semicircle, at the extremity of which a secretary was placed, whose business it was to record the votes. One of these secretaries recorded the votes in favor of the accused, the other those against him.'—Mishna, San. 4:3. 'In ordinary ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... hesitation to "invade" the "sacred soil" of the South faded out under the stern necessity to forestall an invasion of the equally sacred soil of the North; and on May 24 the Union regiments in Washington crossed the Potomac and planted themselves in a great semicircle of formidable earthworks eighteen miles long on the Virginia shore, from Chain Bridge to Hunting ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... and municipal borough in the Devizes parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 86 m. W. by S. of London by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 6532. Its castle was built on a tongue of land flanked by two deep ravines, and behind this the town grew up in a semicircle on a stretch of bare and exposed tableland. Its main streets, in which a few ancient timbered houses are left, radiate from the market place, where stands a Gothic cross, the gift of Lord Sidmouth in 1814. The Kennet and Avon Canal skirts the town on the N., passing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... I surmised at once that it was his intention to make acquaintance with the neighbor thus saluted. I was not deceived. "Anything to tempt you, sir?" asked this social personage after a short pause, and describing a semicircle with the point of ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Leon so that he described a large semicircle that landed him into the meaty and waiting embrace of his mother. "Take him! You should be proud of such a little momser for a son! Take him, and here you got back his birthday dollar. A feedle! Honest—when I think ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... their Majesties was erected on a stage in the shape of a semicircle, and covered with a bluff carpet studded with bees, and was reached by twenty-two steps. The throne, draped in red velvet, was also covered by a pavilion of the same color, the left wing of which extended over the Empress, the princesses, and their maids of honor, and the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... without wincing, allows a poignard to be thrust into his arm, which Mr. Harmington has previously "cataleptized" (Fig. 3). This trick is performed by means of a blade divided into two parts that are connected by a semicircle. This process is well known to prestidigitators, but it might be executed in a genuine manner. In fact, on replacing the poignard by one of the gold needles used by physicians for acupuncture, it would be possible to dispense ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... besmeared with whitewash, there appeared in mockery, as it were, a large beaming sun, roughly drawn with thumb-strokes, and ornamented in the centre with a face, the mouth of which, describing a semicircle, seemed likely ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... indescribably happy. There was a smile lingering in the wrinkles of her dear old face. We all gathered in the large, old-fashioned family room in the old-fashioned semicircle, with mother in her natural place in the corner. The preacher brother laid the large family Bible in my lap and said, 'Now, Brother Stuart, you are in the home of a Methodist preacher; ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... on into the library and found that the boys had arranged the chairs in a semicircle around the fire and were already opening ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... supposed to insure equal success on the next excursion. This ceremony was better performed at the old Tumangong's than at the other houses. After entering the principal room we seated ourselves in a semicircle on the mat floor, when the old chief's three wives advanced to welcome us, with their female relatives, all richly and prettily dressed in sarongs suspended from the waist, and silken scarfs worn gracefully over one ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... from Galeria is the Grand Cassis de Giargione, 1163 ft., and about 2 m. farther the summit of Col Capronale, 4495 ft. A little way beyond, at the Capo Guagnerola, is a beautiful semicircle of reddish rocks covered with trees at the base. Farther E. by the Golo this forest road joins the forest road No. 9 to ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... Following the semicircle of the bay, the eye commands that other eminence where the King's Palace shuts itself in austerely at the very center of the arc. Through the clustered, tea-sipping loungers on the galleries and terraces Benton ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... Indians sat in a semicircle, with the sole intent, you might think, of staring all night at the strangers. Yet they had brought in Arctic hares and grouse, and even a haunch of venison. But they laid these things on the floor beside them, and ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... will be better appreciated the longer I am acquainted with it. Certainly, as I beheld it then, it was one of the loveliest features in a scene of great rural beauty. It was visible through a course of two or three miles, sweeping in a semicircle round the hill on which I stood, and being the central line of a broad vale on either side. At a distance, it looked like a strip of sky set into the earth, which it so etherealized and idealized that it seemed akin to the upper regions. Nearer the base of the hill, I could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... Marigny's eye. He was minded to laugh outright, but forebore. Then he sprang into his seat, and the car curled in quick semicircle and climbed the hill to the left, while the Frenchman, surprised by this rapid movement, signaled frantically to Mrs. Devar, nodding farewell, that they ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... the Zirk cavalrymen tried briefly to fight as individuals, shrieking "Znidd suddabit!" until the Kragans were upon them, stabbing and shooting. They drove the rioters from the steps or killed them there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle of the storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, but beyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Leary and Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... and near the ceiling, of a big room. In the center, a number of seats—the drum-shaped cushions the natives had adopted in place of the seats carved from sections of tree trunk that they had been using when the Terrans had come to Kwannon—were arranged in a semicircle, one in the middle slightly in advance of the others. Facing them were three armchairs, a remote-control box beside one and another Kwann cushion behind and between the other two. There was a large globe of Kwannon, and on the wall behind the ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... before resuming my journey, and then I bore off to the east for several miles, and by taking a semicircle to avoid the Indians I got back on my original course, and then pushed on rapidly to Colonel Rice's camp, which I ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... here and there a grove of fruit-trees, with cocoa-nuts, areca palms, and clusters of bamboos rising among them, showed the situation of the villages. Nearly surrounding this beautiful country swept a semicircle of magnificent mountains of the most picturesque description, one out-topping the other, while in the far distance the stately Semiru raised his lofty cone into the ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... described in "La Fille aux Yeux d'Or." The room was very luxurious, and the details had been thought out with much care.[*] One end of it had square corners, the other end was rounded, and the corners cut off to form the semicircle were connected by a narrow dark passage, and contained—one a camp bedstead, and the other a writing-table. A secret door led to this hiding-place, and here Balzac took refuge when pursued by emissaries from the Garde Nationale, creditors, or enraged editors. The scheme ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the North Shore—I am not going to tell you where—you board one of the two or three fishing-steamers that collect from the different stations the big ice-boxes of Lake Superior whitefish. After a certain number of hours—I am not going to tell you how many—your craft will turn in toward a semicircle of bold, beautiful hills, that seem at first to be many less miles distant than the reality, and at the last to be many more miles remote than is the fact. From the prow you will make out first a uniform velvet green; then the differentiation of many shades; then the dull neutrals of rocks and crags; ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Sri Yukteswar called me to the same bedroom where-once only, after a festival of my early years-I had been permitted to sleep on his wooden bed. Tonight my guru was sitting there quietly, a semicircle of disciples at his feet. He smiled as I quickly entered ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... had lighted the fire, and put the water on to boil, I cast myself on the ground, and complacently puffing away at my pipe, gazed at the wild but picturesque scene before me. The position of the river was marked out by a semicircle of some fifty or sixty fires, before which dark and ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting like phantoms; while, in the midst, the funnel of the steam-boat loomed tall and black above the veil of smoke that hung around—like some dark ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... feathery serpulas; and the weeds were heaped on the locker of the window behind him, and on the back of the chair which supported his lame foot. The third and only remaining chair accommodated James, with a book placed on the table; and a semicircle swept round it, within ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deck he found only its wide semicircle of chairs quite empty and no one moving among the high piles of trunks and light freight under the hanging bunches of pineapples and bananas. He looked into the saloon. It was bright though with half its lamps cold, but the barber's shop and the clerk's office were shut, and double curtains ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... continued to burn, forming, one in the west, the other in the east, two great flames which were joined by the cordon of bivouac fires of the English, like a necklace of rubies with two carbuncles at the extremities, as they extended in an immense semicircle over the hills along ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and exposed in a wide valley. A chain of green hills sweeps half around it like the seats in a theater, and the sea forms the stage. At the ends of the semicircle are two mountains, Monte Accio and Ardizio. The Foglia River flows through the valley. On its right bank lies the hospitable little city with its towers and walls, and its fortress on the white seashore. Northward, in the direction of ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... the bursting of another gun. He was the mainstay of our gunnery since Captain Rhodes's misfortune'—a misfortune due to the same cause. But, in spite of all such drawbacks on the British side, Louisbourg got much the worst of it. The French had to fire from the centre outwards, at a semicircle of batteries that fired back convergingly at them. Besides, it was almost as hard to hit the thin, irregular line of British batteries as it was to miss the deep, wide target of overcrowded Louisbourg. The walls were continually being smashed from without and patched ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... in cheap seats (like Charles and Mary Lamb before they had money to buy rare prints and blue china), with the delight of spending hoarded pennies; all under circumstances of the deepest bodily discomfort. I leave out of the question the thought of Greek theatres, of that semicircle of steps on the top of Fiesole, with, cypresses for side scenes, and, even now, lyric tragedies more than AEschylean enacted by clouds and winds in the amphitheatre of mountains beyond. I am thinking of the play as we moderns know it, with a sense of stuffiness ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... face of the evening's beauty. The great trees on the old estate were black against a silver sky. White statues shone like pale ghosts among them. Back of Richard and his host, in a semicircle of dark cedars, a marble ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... to go down to swim in the little bay-like semicircle of the harbour. The water was always warm and very salt. Here were tiny shoals of tiny fish. The water was clear and glassy. There were pinky sea-urchins with spikey spines which jabbed your feet. The sandy bed of the bay was ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... Thumb Butte a lengthening semicircle of fire flared through the night. John Wesley Pringle swung far out on the plain ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... could he be connected with Mr. Dean's rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome; his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes and below with the blue semicircle of ill health, this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which colored his face like a ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in a semicircle in order that the members might be able to see one another. There were two notaries, one on the right and the other on the left, to count the "Ayes" and "Noes" in all ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... and muse On those dear hills, that nevermore will meet The sight that throbs and aches beneath my touch, As tho' there beat a heart in either eye; For when the outer lights are darken'd thus, The memory's vision hath a keener edge. It grows upon me now—the semicircle Of dark blue waters and the narrow fringe Of curving beach—its wreaths of dripping green— Its pale pink shells—the summer-house aloft That open'd on the pines with doors of glass, A mountain nest the pleasure ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... in a semicircle by the newly stirred earth, and roused the dull air with the well-known Number Sixteen of their collection, which Lot gave out as being the one he thought best suited to the ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... hand upon my arm. The path was steep, and I should have offered her assistance, but I had not thought of it. Not a word was spoken until we had reached the end of the path. Here the brow of the hill curved around in the form of a semicircle, and was studded with cedars, like emeralds in a crown. Before us, not a dozen steps away, rose the ancient edifice we had come to view. It was made of solid masonry, and seemed good for hundreds of years ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... ten men, all dressed in the same green uniforms and plastic headgear he had seen at the Sinclair plantation. They stood in a semicircle around him, their guns leveled at his naked chest. The leader of the party nudged the nearest man and commented, "Never thought I'd see any animal like this in the jungle!" The other ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... ship was just opening a small cove in the ice, which might have been a cable's length in depth, and a quarter of a mile across its outer, or the widest part. Its form was regular, being that of a semicircle; but, at its bottom, the ice, instead of forming a continued barrier, like all the rest we had yet passed, was separated by a narrow opening, that was bounded on each side by a frowning precipice. The two bergs were evidently drawing nearer to each other, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... towards the south. The next work therefore would be to throw out an embankment to the south, with a ditch outside. The great gap whence Hursley House is seen, did not then exist, but there was an unbroken semicircle of rampart and ditch, which would protect a large number of men. In case of an enemy forcing this place, the defenders could retreat into ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rivalry between the singers commenced with fresh vigor, and this time the Junker's beaming gaze met the young wife's eyes. She hastily lowered the notes, stepped out of the semicircle, and said: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rarely form a semicircle, preferring rather a broken line with the center retired, (Fig. 12, bis.) If several writers may be believed, such an arrangement gave the victory to the English on the famous days of Crecy and Agincourt. This order is certainly better than a semicircle, ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... at that moment was extended straight from him. Slowly now, as Hal exerted his utmost pressure, the arm described a semicircle. Now it pointed almost straight forward. Then, as Hal brought more strength into play, the arm curved inward; and directly the revolver pointed squarely ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... the black fishermen having landed their passengers, plunging into the water, carried out their net in a semicircle, and soon began dragging the ends towards the strand. The mids of course lent a hand, hauling at one end, while some of the negroes took the other, and the rest tumbled about outside, laughing and shouting, and beating the water to frighten their prisoners. In spite of them some fifty or ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... adjoining chamber: on it moved along the floor of the gallery; and in trooped the company of wives and female slaves. They laughed softly and musically as they entered, but seemed frightened also; and at once raising their shawls and drawing down their vails, they glided simultaneously into a semicircle, and stood there with hands folded on their breasts. I sat opposite to them, drinking coffee and smoking, or pretending to smoke a pipe eight feet long: at one side stood the Mollah and some male members of the household: at the other ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the four gentlemen in a gesture of friendly farewell, she put her arm round Damaris' waist, gently compelling her in the direction of a group of buff-painted iron chairs, placed in a semicircle in the shade of ilex and pine trees at the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... river makes a huge semicircular sweep northward, and a railway following its northern bank to Vladivostok must make the same detour. If, on the contrary, the road could be carried south of the river along the diameter of the semicircle, it would be a straight, and therefore a shorter, line, technically easier and economically better. To follow this diameter, however, would involve passing through Chinese territory, namely, Manchuria, and an excuse for soliciting China's permission was ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... fortress. Above the wash-stand was a strange picture, painted upon a fragment of coarse blanket, which had been stretched upon the wall. It depicted the setting sun, with red and gold rays, and a blue mountain in the distance. Around the entire scene, in a semicircle, was the word "Illusion," singularly wrought into the shafts of light, and undecipherable without the closest scrutiny. The figure of an old man in the foreground was contemplating the scene. It was a crude piece of work, but impressive. There was a large mahogany ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... desolate, and bedraggled. All the dogs in the place attacked the homeless beggar. There was a howling fracas on the beach; and when Pichou arrived, the trembling cur was standing up to the neck in the water, facing a semicircle of snarling, snapping bullies who dared not venture out any farther. Pichou had no fear of the water. He swam out to the stranger, paid the smelling salute as well as possible under the circumstances, encouraged the poor creature to come ashore, warned off the other dogs, and trotted ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... squatting down in front of whatever engaged his attention for the moment, the savage thrust this upright in the ground. Kingozi, behind his pipe, considered them well: and received a favourable impression. An immovable, unblinking semicircle crouched at a respectful distance taking in every detail of the white man's appearance and belongings, watching his every move. Nobody ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... they found a big dry stub that some gale had snapped off a few feet above the snow. While Mooka scurried about, collecting birch bark and armfuls of dry branches, Noel took off his snow-shoes and began with one of them to shovel away the snow in a semicircle around the base of the stub. In a short half-hour he had a deep hole there, with the snow banked up around it to the height of his head. Next with his knife he cut a lot of light poles and scrub spruces and, sticking ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... chapel he painted an altar-piece in oils, wherein he made a portrait of Messer Jacopo Fontani, who gave the commission for the work, in a figure of S. James, in addition to the Madonna and other very beautiful figures. And in a large semicircle above that altar-piece, occupying the whole width of the chapel, he painted the Transfiguration of Our Lord, and the Apostles beneath, which were held to be among the best figures that he ever executed. For the Chapel of the Bombardieri, in S. Eufemia, ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... the Union Jack was hoisted, and the Indians at once began to assemble, beating drums, discharging fire-arms, singing and dancing. In about half an hour they were ready to advance and meet me. This they did in a semicircle, having men on horseback galloping in circles, shouting, singing ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... Somaja, round and plump, because of which she got her name, which, translated meant "watermelon." Then there was Vesna and many other names not so easy. Chunky decided that he would like to play "Have-a-chicken," too. The little savages were willing, so he took a seat in the semicircle ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... 'radius' had been broken, and was set, and the bones were decidedly united, when the dog, in a moment of frantic rage, seized his own leg and crushed some of the bones. They were once more united, but his wrist bent under him in the form of a concave semicircle, as if some of the ligaments of the joint had been ruptured in the moment of rage. It was evident on the following day that it was impossible to control ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Suppose of foure, fiue, sixe, or eight or more sillables, and set a figure of euerie number at th'end of the line, whereby ye may knowe his measure. Then where you will haue your rime or concord to fall, marke it with a compast stroke or semicircle passing ouer those lines, be they farre or neare in distance, as ye haue seene before described. And bycause ye shall not thinke the maker hath premeditated beforehand any such fashioned ditty, do ye your selfe make one verse whether it be of perfect or imperfect sense, and giue ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... Brushes; beyond these, Swords with fine Knots, whose Points are hidden, and Fans almost closed, with the Handles downward, are to stand out interchangeably from the Sides till they meet at the Top, and form a Semicircle over the rest of the Figures: Beneath all, the Writing is to run in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... said that his honorable friend from Maine reminded him of the Pharisee in the parable, apparently thanking his Deity for having created him unlike—"You," broke in Mr. Blaine, who had seated himself in the semicircle immediately in front of Mr. Tucker's desk. This telling interruption was greeted with roars of laughter, which completely drowned further remarks from the Virginian, most noted as a constitutional ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... clouds and the foaming waves silvered by the moonlight; but the rarest sight was, just as half the moon's great disk was above the horizon, a ship of war stood against it, exactly framed in the semicircle of light as if drawn in black on the silver surface. The plan was an interesting one and would probably have succeeded in favorable weather, but the winter storm forbade. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... biceps. Mr. Winceslaus Hollar, when he was at Mechlin, saw an amphisbna, which he did very curiously delineate, and coloured it in water colours, of the very colour: it was exactly the colour of the inner peele of an onyon: it was about six inches long, but in its repture it made the figure of a semicircle; both the heads advancing equally. It was found under a piece of old timber, about 1661; under the jawes it had barbes like a barbel, which did strengthen his motion in running. This draught, amongst a world of others, Mr. Thorn. Chiffinch, of Whitehall, hath; for which Mr. Hollar protested to ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... tributaries gushed beneath the road, they came to a regiment of noble elms guarding a gateway, into which Brother Copas turned aside. A second and quite unpretentious gateway admitted them to a green meadow, in shape a rough semicircle, enclosed by ruinated walls. ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as she bade him, and commenced to pace round and round her in a semicircle, glaring at her with ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... to Fort Delaware, and proceeded thither at once. You have probably not visited this place, general, or you, colonel. It is a fort, and outside is a pen, or stockade as it is called, covering two or three acres. Inside are cabins for the prisoners, in the shape of a semicircle, and grounds to walk in, except in the space marked off by the 'dead line.' If any prisoner crosses that he is shot by the sentries, whose beat is on a platform running round upon the top ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... reading Shakespeare with Miss Rowe. This lesson was always held in the lecture-room instead of in the classroom, where Miss Harper was teaching the lower division, and the girls sat on chairs arranged in a semicircle round their mistress. Cissie could not resist taking a peep at her portrait, and handed it to her neighbour to admire, who passed it on to the next girl, so that in course of time it found its way down the class to Vera Clifford. Now Miss Rowe was rather handsome, but ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... crew sat in a semicircle beside the guide and fronting the fire, each paying particular attention to his pipe, and talking between the puffs to anyone ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... dramas were performed, at first a mere platform, then a wooden edifice, became finally a splendid theatre, wrought in the sloping side of the Acropolis, and presenting a vast semicircle of seats, cut into the solid rock, rising tier above tier, and capable of accommodating thirty thousand spectators. At first no charge was made for admission, and when, later, the crowd became so great that a charge had to be made, every citizen of Athens who ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... much more frequent than Anna's and always told of Anna fondly, often with sweet praises—not so sweet to him—of her impartial graciousness to her semicircle of brass-buttoned worshippers. Lately Flora had mentioned Greenleaf in a modified way ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... and was cheerfully but somewhat feebly about again I met him at a club. He was sitting in an arm-chair in one of the huge bay-windows of the club, and gazing with bright interest upon the varied spectacle of the street. The occasion was almost ideal. I took the other arm-chair in the semicircle of the window. I saw at once by his careless demeanour that his illness had taught him nothing, and I determined with all my notorious tact and persuasiveness to point ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... parcel of limes which form the semicircle on the south front of the house by the iron gates, looking into the park, were by the dexterous hand of the head gardener removed, after some of them had been almost thirty years planted in other places, though not far off. I know ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... singular thing that the great cities of Holland, altho built upon a shifting soil, and amid difficulties of every kind, have all great regularity of form. Amsterdam is a semicircle, the Hague square, Rotterdam an equilateral triangle. The base of the triangle is an immense dike, which defends the city from the Meuse, and is called the Boompjes, signifying, in Dutch, small trees, from ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... presbytery is a choir and presbytery of the form used in the most ancient Constantinian basilicas. A sloping platform led up to the step upon which the bishop's seat stood at the centre of the semicircle, flanked by seats on each side for presbyters, the places being marked by red lines painted upon the fine plaster which covers the low wall, rising about 8 in. above the floor, itself 2 ft. 31/2 in. above the level of that of the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... calm; the thistle-down gave proof that only the faintest breath was stirring. On the Downs beyond Rottingdean lay two or three bird-catchers, prone as they watched the semicircle of call-birds in cages, and held their hand on the string which closed the nets. The young man spoke a few words with one of these, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... other, which will appeare crooked, doe thus. Lie a rule from the Pole (C) to every tenth or fift degree of the halfe circle (ADB) noting in the AEquator (AB) every intersection of it and the rule. The like doe from the point (B) to the semicircle (CAD) noting also the intersections in the Meridian (CD) Then the diameters (CB) and (AB) being drawne out at both ends, as farre as may suffice, finding in the line (DC) the center of the tenth division from (A) to (C) and from (B) to ...
— A Briefe Introduction to Geography • William Pemble
... of Hooker's Bend, drawn in a rough semicircle around the Big Hill, lies Niggertown. In all the half-moon there are perhaps not two upright buildings. The grimy cabins lean at crazy angles, some propped with poles, while others hold out against gravitation at ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... really more of a pageant than a musical function. The front of the house frequently claims more attention than the stage. On Caruso and Melba nights it blazes. Tiers and tiers of boxes race round in a semicircle. If you are early, you see them as black gaping mouths. But very soon they are filled. The stalls begin to leap with light, for everybody who is not anybody, but would like to be somebody, drags out everything she possesses ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... seated themselves in a semicircle, while each girl gave her little performance, and, at the conclusion, was applauded enthusiastically. Nora had a real talent for mimicry; she convulsed her audience with imitations of some of the High School teachers. When it came ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... behind him, the young fellow stood at bay, hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves finally seated themselves upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... held by force of arms. As a monument of warlike skill his "Saucy Castle," Chateau Gaillard, stands first among the fortresses of the Middle Ages. Richard fixed its site where the Seine bends suddenly at Gaillon in a great semicircle to the north, and where the valley of Les Andelys breaks the line of the chalk cliffs along its banks. Blue masses of woodland crown the distant hills; within the river curve lies a dull reach of flat meadow, round which the Seine, broken with green islets and dappled with ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... level as a floor, we came out on the rounded shoulder of a mountain to find ourselves nearly nine thousand feet above the sea. Below us was a deep canon to the middle of the earth. And spread in a semicircle about the curve of our mountain a most magnificent panoramic view. First there were the plains, represented by a brown haze of heat; then, very remote, the foot-hills, the brush-hills, the pine mountains, the upper timber, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... up. Outside the wide doors of the corridor the wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed for the occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who drove ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of course, looking down on us from the great window above the high altar, where we never forget her presence! Is there a thought of disturbance there? Around the curve of the choir are seven great windows, without roses, filling the whole semicircle and the whole vault, forty-seven feet high, and meant to dominate the nave as far as the western portal, so that we may never forget how Mary fills her church without being disturbed by quarrels, and ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... the thing does not harm her. Whenever she does stealthily worm herself in, Cheri gives the pitch the moment he sets eyes on her. Cat looks up steadily at him for five minutes. Cheri, confident, strikes out in a very tempting way. Cat describes a semicircle around the window, back and forth, back and forth, keeping ever her back to the room and her front to the foe, glaring and mewing and licking her chaps. O, what a delicious tit-bit, if one could but get at it! Cheri sings relentlessly. Like Shirley with Louis Moore in her clutches, he ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... deceased ladies, stood in a semicircular line, which contained within it the chapel. They marked out the boundaries of the sacred territory within which an asylum was to be had. One of them, which we observed upon our landing, made the first point of the semicircle. There are few of them now remaining. A good way farther north, there is a row of buildings about four feet high; they run from the shore on the east along the top of a pretty high eminence, and so down to the shore on the west, in much the same direction with the crosses. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... same name, Ciguaia. The chief of all the caciques inhabiting the mountain region is called Maiobanexios, who lived at a place called Capronus. These mountains are rugged, lofty, inaccessible, and rise from the sea in a semicircle. Between the two extremities of the chain, there lies a beautiful plain, watered by numerous rivers which rise in these mountains. The natives are ferocious and warlike, and it is thought they are of the same race ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... stopped to listen. The night was very clear; a dark blue space, sparkling with dew and starlight, in which black things stood very still. I thought I could see a kind of motion ahead of me. I was strangely cocksure of everything that night. I actually left the track and ran in a wide semicircle (I verily believe chuckling to myself) so as to get in front of that stir, of that motion I had seen—if indeed I had seen anything. I was circumventing Kurtz as though it had been a ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... if you want any fun, you must station yourself, taking care to remain concealed. All the juveniles of the party then start off, and make a circuit of many miles in extent, shouting and hallooing the whole time. They form a semicircle, and drive all the kangaroos before them down the valley, to the spot where the old hunters are placed. Then comes the tug of war, the crashing of bushes, the flying of spears, and the thump, thump of the kangaroos, as they come tearing along, sometimes in hundreds, from the old grey ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor |
