"Skull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half asserted. "I'm Edgar Crandall, Alexander's brother." He took off his hat, and passed his hand in a quick gesture across his brow. He had close-cut, vivid red hair bristling like a helmet over a long, narrow skull, and a thrusting grey gaze. "I came to see you," he continued, "because of what you did for Alec. I can't make out just what it was; but he says you saved his farm, pulled it right out of Cannon's fingers, and that you've given him all the time ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... young fellows in those times knew little enough about phrenology. I doubt, indeed, if I had ever heard the word, and yet among the village lads that man went by the name of "flat-headed George." The forehead was both low and narrow, sloping a great way back, while the larger part of the skull lay low down behind the ears. All this was made the more visible by the short curling hair ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... a mob composed of drunkards, screaming boys, ragged women, soldiers exciting them on, and especially those frightful hounds, armed with stout, knotty cudgels, two feet long, which are excellent skull-crackers."[2119] The thing was made up beforehand. At first there were only three or four hundred of them, and, ten minutes after, five or six hundred; in a quarter of an hour, there are perhaps four thousand flocking ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... you send fast boat instantly to take off badly injured passenger for medical treatment? Passenger A. B. Clodis, believed to be wealthy man from New York, discovered unconscious, perhaps dying, from fall. Fractured skull. Believe passenger or family to be able to pay handsomely ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! —I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... advertisement of the gold buyer—namely, a heap of gold in the centre, on one side a pile of sovereigns, on the other bank-notes. The most significant advertisement was one I saw in a window in Collins Street. In the middle was a skull perforated by a bullet, which lay at a little distance as if coolly examining or speculating on the mischief it had done. On one side of the skull was a revolver, and on the other a quantity of nuggets. Above all, was the emphatic inscription, "Beware in time." ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... defended himself. On its blade and haft were huge coagulated spots of blood. The body of Sam bore marks of his having been clutched violently by the throat, and in his head was a single, deep wound that penetrated the skull in a most peculiar manner. It did not seem possible that a blow from a knife could have done it. It was a most unusual wound and not at all the sort that could have been made ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... one way to settle this matter, and that is when she plays Hamlet. Let the stage manager put a large spider in the skull of Yorick, and when Hamlet takes up the skull and says, "Alas, poor Yorick, I was pretty solid with him," let the spider crawl out of one of the eye holes onto Hamlet's hand, and proceed to walk up Miss Dickinson's sleeve. If Hamlet simply shakes the spider off, and ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... preparing, the older men cleaned and washed the bear's skull very carefully. Then they cut a tall pole, on the end of which they fastened the skull, and finished by planting the whole affair securely near the running water. When the skull should have remained there for the space of twelve moons, the sacred spirit of the departed beast would be appeased. For ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... eldritch apparition you can conceive. A tall man dressed in skins, with bare legs and sandal-shod feet. A wisp of scarlet cloth clung to his shoulders, and, drawn over his head down close to his eyes, was a skull-cap of some kind of pelt with the tail waving behind it. He capered like a wild animal, keeping up a strange high monotone that ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... particular chum was wounded by a spent ball, and crawled off the field. I can see him yet, writhing at my feet, grasping the leaves and sticks in the horrible pain which the blow from a spent ball inflicts. A bullet struck the top of the forehead of the wit of the company, plowing along the skull without breaking it. His dazed expression, as he turned instinctively to crawl to the rear, was so comical as to ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney
... Fauntleroy was discovered to be exactly like Bonaparte)—'it is the celebrated robber, John Jefferies, who broke into Mrs. Wilson's house, and cut the throats of herself and her husband, wounded the maid-servant, and split the child's skull with the poker.' * * * 'John Jefferies!' exclaimed the baronet, 'let us come away.' 'Linden,' continued Sir Christopher, 'that fellow was my servant once. He robbed me to some considerable extent. I caught him. He appealed to my heart, and you know, my dear ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... "Get this into your skull if you're ever going to be a newspaper man: Every story you write has got to have happened, actually happened, to somebody, somewhere, at some place, at a certain time, for some reason. If it hasn't, it isn't a newspaper story. What's more, it must be either unusual ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the Napo Indians are Quichuan, especially the low forehead, squarely-built face, and dull expression; but in stature they exceed the mountaineers. From a skull in our possession we take the following measurements, adding for comparison the dimensions of an ancient Peruvian cranium ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... weak-minded Indians, while the bones of old Onondaga were duly prepared and hung up to show students how Indians and all men are made of bone and muscle. The doctor thought he had done a good thing; but when I went into the office and saw the horrid skull grinning at me, I was thankful that the spirit of old Onondaga could not say of me, ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... issued the ears on the smooth cheeks; that which did not run backwards but was retained, of its superfluity made a nose for the face, and thickened the lips so far as was needful. He who was lying down drives his muzzle forward, and draws in his ears through his skull, as the snail doth his horns. And his tongue, which erst was united and fit for speech, cleaves itself, and the forked one of the other closes up; and the smoke stops. The soul that had become a brute fled hissing along the valley, and behind him ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... child was fathered by Mazda, peering into her womb with his All-light," laughed So-qi, for in Oas it was not the fashion to worship the God Mazda anymore. The great skull temples had their priests and their sacrifices, but no more did people bow down in the temples of Mazda, or have anything but ridicule for those few who did still worship ...
— The Sun King • Gaston Derreaux
... not recover until I found myself on land, in the arms of two Turks, who held me with my mouth downwards, discharging a great quantity of water which I had swallowed. I opened my eyes, and looking wildly round me, the first thing I saw was Yusuf lying beside me with his skull shattered, having, as I afterwards learned, been dashed ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... days we were rescued. The others had suffered such minor injuries that they were repaired before our craft landed on Nirva. I, though, unconscious and feverish, was in serious condition from skin abrasions and a comminuted cranium. Dr. Erics made the only possible prognosis. My skull had to be removed and a completely new protoskin had ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner
... flowers in good taste. In the centre of the tomb is the small marble slab covering the grave, with the two feet of Krishna carved in the centre, and around them the emblems of the god, the discus, the skull, the sword, the rosary. These emblems of the god are put on that people may have something godly to fix their thoughts upon. It is by degrees, and with fear and trembling, that the Hindoos imitate the Muhammadans in the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... these things, and also the implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick up to the plow which makes it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. I saw at the same time a row of skulls, from the lowest skull that has ever been found; skulls from the central portion of Africa, skulls from the bushmen of Australia, up to the best skulls ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... extent intermediate between the rhinoceros and tapir families, having like the latter four toes to the front feet, and three to those behind. These are followed in the Upper Eocene by the genus Amynodon, in which the skull assumes more distinctly the rhinocerotic type. Following this in the Lower Miocene we have the Aceratherium, like the last in its feet, but still more decidedly a rhinoceros in its general structure. From this there are two diverging ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... He was an unimportant-looking man, of medium height and build, and bearing a mild, good-humored expression. Nobody would ever look at him twice, would ever guess that his skull concealed an unusually complete knowledge of electricity, mechanisms, and ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... would say if we were talking about a picture without perspective. Our habits are our stories, and tell whence we have come and how we came to be what we are. This is quite a pretty reflection, but there is no time to think the matter out—here is the doctor! He lifts his skull-cap, and how beautiful is the gesture; his dignity is the dignity that only goodness gives; and his goodness is a pure gift, existing independent of formula, a thing in itself, like Manet's painting. It was Degas who said, "A man whose profile no one ever saw," and the aphorism reminds us of ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Some imprudent souls seem to select the most friendly of after-dinner occasions for the explosion of a bomb-shell of dispute. Around the dinner table it is the custom of even political enemies to bury their hatchets anywhere rather than in some convenient skull. It is the height of bad taste to raise questions that in hours consecrated to good-will can ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... prevails in Wales of carrying about at Christmas time a horse's skull dressed up with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who is concealed under a large white cloth. There is a contrivance for opening and shutting the jaws, and the figure pursues and bites every body it can lay hold of, and does not release them except on payment ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... bones of his skull are at work under his bandages, and the red flesh is growing. But we are not to trouble about that: it will manage all alone. The man, however, cannot be idle. He works, and trusts to his blood, ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... man, who looked even older than he was. He was a picturesque-looking old man, with long white hair dropping down over his coat-collar, and a black-velvet skull-cap upon his head. He was a cheerful old man, and life seemed very pleasant to him; for Frenchmen have a habit of honouring their fathers and mothers, and Mr. Frederick Kerstall was a naturalized citizen of the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... due to irregular impact is needful beyond what has already been said under the heading of wobbling, except to point out that, given a fair degree of velocity, these injuries may assume an actual explosive character, especially in the case of skull fractures. The description of extensive wounds accompanying comminuted fractures finds its most appropriate place under the heading of injuries to the bones, and will be there considered ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... masters, life to all apprentices, and love to all fair damsels!" He was their leader. He had made them all keys to fit their masters' doors, and at night, when they were supposed to be asleep in bed, they would steal out to meet in a dirty cellar owned by an old blind man, where they kept a skull and cross-bones and signed high-sounding oaths with a pen dipped in blood, and did other silly things. The object of the society was to hurt, annoy, wrong and pick quarrels with such of their masters as happened not to please them. With such cheap fooleries Tappertit had ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... fever near Vigan (then called Villa Fernandina), capital of the Province of Ilocos Sur. A year afterwards, what could be found of his bones were placed in the ossuary of his illustrious grandfather, Legaspi, in the Augustine Chapel of Saint Fausto, Manila. His skull, however, which had been carried off by the natives of Ilocos, could not be recovered in spite of all threats and promises. In Vigan there is a small monument raised to commemorate the deeds of this famous warrior, and there is also a street bearing ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... many who favor the Grecian and Roman school of sculpture. The Greeks and Romans excelled the early Egyptians in one thing only, that is representing the human hair. Their male statues have flowing and bushy locks and a beard. On the Egyptian statue, the hair looks more like a skull cap on the back of the head, than hair, with no indication of beard. They had been so afflicted with plagues through the Israelites, that they would have nothing that was like them, or that reminded them of them. The Cardiff giant has no beard and nothing on the forehead to ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... the old Mill House, the servants lit the lamps and drew the blinds and curtains. Behind the closing eyelids, however, like dream-chambers within a busy skull, there were rooms of various shapes and kinds, and in one of these on the ground-floor, called Daddy's Study, the three children stood, expectant and a little shy, waiting for something desirable to happen. In common with all other living things, they ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... serenely in the heavens above. Poor Ritson! he had paid with his life the penalty of his disastrous lapse of duty. And the drowsy helmsman—who had obviously awakened in time to spring to the assistance of his superior—was lying near the skylight, white and ghastly in the moonlight, with his skull cloven, and a great black pool of blood slowly spreading on the planking beneath his head. The brig ahead, now hove-to and evidently awaiting the approach of the Aurora, told George from whence his enemies had sprung; and—now ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... teetotallers, your country is not worth the living in! No more doth the invigorating, all-inspiring, thrice concentrated juice of the 'barley grain' push you forward to glorious deeds of heroic daring—of skull-breaking, dancing, or of story-telling; so that for all intents and purposes you have nothing left worth chronicling—you are getting like the rest of the world!" "Aisy a bit," say I, "the fiddle and the bagpipes have just the same charms to 'put the capers in our heels' as in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... Great-heart with a full blow, fetched the giant down to the ground. Nay, hold, and let me recover, quoth he; so Mr. Great-heart fairly let him get up. So to it they went again, and the giant missed but little of all-to-breaking Mr. Great-heart's skull with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... away the carcass to the right at a sort of a canter, without any apparent effort on his part. We waited till he was well off, and then rode back to the spot where Romer had fallen: we soon found him, but he was quite dead; the blow with the lion's paw had fractured his skull. ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... have been great to have inquired whether it were not "like a weasel"; but this might have been stretching the jest too far; so the lieutenant merely called to the signal midshipman, and desired him to skull up to the mast-head with his glass, to see what he ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... altar, and {thus} (how unworthily!) an altar[3] protected a miscreant. However, the spear, not thrown in vain, stuck in the forehead of Rhoetus; who, after he fell, and the steel was wrenched from the skull, he {still} struggled, and besprinkled the laid tables with his blood. But then does the multitude burst forth into ungovernable rage, and hurl their weapons. Some there are, who say that Cepheus ought to die with ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... skull-cap and dark flowing gown, was the subtle, monastic-looking Walsingham, with long, grave, melancholy face and Spanish eyes. There too, white staff in hand, was Lord High Treasurer Burghley, then sixty-five years of age, with serene blue eye, large, smooth, pale, scarce-wrinkled ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and a glass of milk to James and found him sitting on a chair, a heavy headset covering most of his skull, reading aloud from a ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... mother, sitting close to the cage, were the very first victims. The child himself, I think, and hope, never knew what hurt him. His skull was fractured by one stroke of the brute's paw. Signor Martigny escaped with his right arm slit into ribbons. Big Joe Pentland, the clown, with one well-directed stroke of a crowbar, smashed Old King of the Forest's ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... slight resemblance to humanity, and habited, so far as it could be determined, in the skins of deer, strangely disposed about its gaunt and tawny-coloured limbs. On its head was seen a sort of helmet, formed of the skull of a stag, from which branched a large pair of antlers; from its left arm hung a heavy and rusty-looking chain, in the links of which burnt the phosphoric fire before mentioned; while on its right ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of the subject is this: I have read that out of fifty criminals who had been executed it was found, I believe, in nearly all the cases, that the shape of the skull was abnormal. Whether this is true or not, I don't know; but that some men have a tendency toward what we call crime, I believe. Where this has been ascertained, then, it seems to me, such men should be placed where they ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... sensation of nightmare. Directly in front of them was an old chief with long white beard and wrinkled skin, who gnawed a head still covered with the singed hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M. Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... where the invalid lay. He was a gaunt old man with white hair and a pallid face, which looked almost ghastly in contrast to his black velvet skull cap. So far as Mr. Quest could see, he appeared to be almost totally paralysed, with the exception of his head, neck, and left arm, which he could still move a little. His black eyes, however, were full of life and intelligence, and roamed about ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... with the seven sons of Sceva." I rebuked the devil and when I got to the man he turned over on his back and slid, head first, off the rostrum toward the seats, knocking his head against the seats until it seemed as though his skull would ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... an enthusiast. In early life he was a notary, and had the misfortune to lose both his ears for forgery. This mutilation, degrading enough in any man, was destructive to a philosopher; Kelly, therefore, lest his wisdom should suffer in the world's opinion, wore a black skull-cap, which, fitting close to his head, and descending over both his cheeks, not only concealed his loss, but gave him a very solemn and oracular appearance. So well did he keep his secret, that even Dee, with whom ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... held her fiercely to him and kissed her. "I'll tell you a secret. You are being stolen. The Isis is waiting in a little cove, and there is steam in her engines, and a chaplain on board. If it's necessary I shall run up the skull and cross-bones at her masthead. Do you hear?" Then, with a less piratical voice: "Dearest, ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... the hill," I shouted, as I saw we were approaching an inclination. "Don't let him turn to right or left, keep his head straight for the steep ground;" and the mahout, who had been yelling for assistance, and had lost both his turban and skull-cap, did all that he could by tunnelling into the brute's head with his formidable hook to direct it straight up the hill. I never knew an elephant go at such a pace over rocky ground. Young trees were smashed down, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... after her arrival at the convent, and this was the occasion of it. The only room vacant for her was a cell that had been occupied by a sister who had died a short time previously, a sister of a devout turn of mind, who had assisted her meditations by the contemplation of a skull of unusual size and shininess. The cell was a cheerful, narrow little room, looking out on the convent garden, and the first pleasant sensation that Madelon knew in the convent was when she was taken into it, and saw the afternoon sun ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... conveying to Quebec the hide and horns of the mammoth stag of the forest. These he had concealed, accordingly, in a safe hiding-place, or cache, to be touched at on our return; and now as he emerged from the dark pine copse, with his ropy locks tasselling his flat skull, and a tattered blanket-coat fluttering in ribbons from his brown and brawny chest, his interest in the venture appeared in the careful manner in which he drew after him a long, slender tobaugan, heavily packed with the hard-won proceeds of trap and gun. Foremost among these were displayed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... his fate, and wondering where the beast will seize him first, and if it will be very painful; if he will hear his own bones crash, and so faint and forget everything. What fangs the tiger has! How broad the head, and terribly fierce the grin! But how the blood trickles from the wound in the skull! He can hear it pattering on the dead leaves ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... not a keen sight for many reasons. To begin with, its eyes are set too prominently on the skull, and the eyelids are clipped and blear, (41) and afford no protection to the pupils. (42) Naturally the sight is indistinct and purblind. (43) Along with which, although asleep, for the most part it does not enjoy visual repose. (44) Again, its very fleetness of foot contributes largely ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... not finished when Vinicius seized a bronze lamp, and with one blow shattered the skull of the slave; then, seizing his own head with both hands, he drove his fingers into his hair, repeating hoarsely,—"Me miserum! ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... warrior, fighting against the press of the foe, smote through the mail that covered my head, pierced my helmet, and plunged his blade into my crest. This sword also hath often been driven by my right hand in war, and, once unsheathed, hath cleft the skin and bitten into the skull." ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... most wealthy community if indulged, till at last society was resolved into its elements, and when nothing else was left as property, man, the savage, coveted the scalp of his fellow man, and triumphed over a lock of hair torn from his bleeding skull. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... saw Ignat, who made him wait two hours, slowly preparing something, changing his clothes, talking to some women about corrosive sublimate; he remembered the horse was put into a stand, after which there was the sound of two dull thuds, one of a blow on the skull, the other of the fall of a heavy body. When Lyska, seeing the death of her friend, flew at Ignat, barking shrilly, there was the sound of a third blow that cut short the bark abruptly. Further, Zotov remembers that in his drunken foolishness, seeing the two corpses, he went ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wall—nine in all; three of these were pictures of ships, three were pictures of battles: two portrayed saintly but emaciated personages sitting in peculiarly disheartening wildernesses (each wilderness contained one cactus plant and a camel). One of these personages stared fixedly at a skull, the other personage looked with intense firmness away from a lady of scant charms in a white and all too insufficient robe: above the robe a segment of the lady's bosom was hinted at bashfully—it was probably this the personage looked ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... they carry about at Christmas time a horse's skull gaily adorned with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who is wholly concealed by a white cloth. There is a clever contrivance for opening and shutting the jaws, and this strange creature pursues and bites all who come ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... the three-orbit insignia of a major, was lean and trim. His hair was cropped short, like a gray fur skull cap. One cheek was marked with the crisp whiteness of ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... GRACIOSA answers this call by striking her lute. She pats straight her hair and gown, and puts aside the instrument. GUIDO appears at the top of the wall. All you can see of the handsome young fellow, in this posture, is that he wears a green skull-cap and a dark blue smock, the slashed sleeves of which ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... the Santacroce, a few years ago, a number of skeletons were discovered, some still wearing armour, and all most evidently the remains of men who had died violent deaths. One of them was found with a dagger driven through the skull and helmet. The hand that drove it must have been strong beyond the hands ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... of the gentlemen alighted to open the gate. At the same time Mr. Lane stepped down from the carriage, and, passing around behind it, said, "Good-by, gentlemen," and instantly discharged a pistol with its muzzle in his mouth. The ball passed out at the top of his head, near the center of the skull, producing a fatal wound. The unhappy man lingered for a few days in a state of unconsciousness and died. Thus ended the stirring, troubled life of one who as a politician had occupied no inconsiderable space in ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Gladstone; his great majority at the polls in 1880 is HER victory and HER triumph; but his Turkophobia is no less her creation: "England is stricken with incapacity because you have stirred up the seething caldron that boils under Gladstone's skull, putting in diabolical charms and poisons of theology to overturn the structure of English polity:" she will be able, he thinks, to tell her government that Gladstone is doing his best to break up ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... approaching monster helplessly, and it had almost reached her when a black object fell from the skies with the swiftness of a lightning streak and struck the dog's back, tearing the flesh with its powerful talons and driving a stout, merciless beak straight through the skull ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... a car wreck and I had high blood pressure and a stroke all at once. And that wreck, the doctor said it cracked my skull. Till now, I ain't ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... allowed herself one indulgence. She fearlessly patted Marjolin's satiny chin. The young man had just come out of the hospital. His skull had healed, and he looked as fat and merry as ever; but even the little intelligence he had possessed had left him, he was now quite an idiot. The gash in his skull must have reached his brain, for he had become a ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... blasphemy, a voice from heaven said, "Wicked man! I have a little creature in the world which shall wage war with thee!" When Titus landed, a gnat entered his nostrils, and for seven years together made holes in his brains. When his skull was opened, the gnat was found to be as large as a pigeon: the mouth of the gnat was of copper, and the claws of iron. A collection which has recently appeared of these Talmudical stories has not been executed with any felicity of selection. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... struck the angle of the curbstone, his skull was broken; and he had just breathed his last. It was, apparently, the annihilation of the hope which I had, of enlightening myself by questioning this man. Nevertheless, I give orders to have him searched. No paper is discovered upon him to establish his identity; but, in one of the pockets ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... it would appear from the position of the teeth in one skull (Figure 4 Plate 48) that they were only falling out from putrefaction at the time the skull was finally deposited in the breccia, and from the nearly natural position of the smaller bones in the foot of a dasyurus (Figure 2 Plate 51) it can scarcely be doubted that this part ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... skull cap worn by the clergy instead of the biretta; when worn by a Priest the color is black, but that worn by a ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... was well, he got an old discarded saddle out of the shed, threw it on his shoulder, and descended to the general level to find himself a buffalo-wallow. Having picked one out he kicked a longhorn skull away from its vicinity, threw the saddle down at its edge, and lined the grassy interior with his slicker. Then he sat down in the middle, crushing the slicker deep into the spring bloom. Here he ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... awakened by a crashing under his feet, which startled him excessively. He found that his steed had, without any sensation of shame or alarm, stepped upon the perfect skeletons of two human beings, cracking their brittle bones under his feet, and by one trip of his foot, separating a skull from the trunk, which rolled on like a ball before him. This event imparted a sensation to him, which it took him a long time to remove. His horse was for many days afterwards not looked upon with ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... sooner come in sight of this fall of water, than they heard a rolling sound behind them, and looking back, they beheld the skull of a woman rolling along the beach. It seemed to be pursuing them, and it came on with great speed; when, behold, from out of the woods hard by, appeared a headless body, which made for the beach with ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... La Motte, and others, were his guests at dinner. Hardly had the repast commenced, when a ball came flying over the table, taking off the head of a, young Walloon officer who was sitting near Parma, and, who was earnestly requesting a foremost place in the morrow's assault. A portion of his skull struck out the eye of another gentleman present. A second ball from the town fortifications, equally well directed, destroyed two more of the guests as they sat at the banquet—one a German captain, the other the Judge-Advocate-General. The ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... taking in his breath in convulsive, rattling snorts, and blowing it out in sputters of froth which crawled creamily down his cheeks, piling itself alongside his neck and ears. A bullet had clipped a groove in his skull, above the temple; from this the brain protruded in bosses, dropping off in flakes and strings. I had not previously known one could get on, even in this unsatisfactory fashion, with so little brain. One of my men, whom I knew for a womanish fellow, asked if he ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... a Haunted Tower, With skull, cross-bones, and sheet; Blue lights to burn (say) two an hour, Condensing lens of extra power, And set of ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... cry was on Jimmie Dale's lips. The bed was moved out now, and he was stooping over a man whose head was gruesomely battered above the right temple and back across the skull. The flashlight wavered in his hand, as he held it focussed on the other's face. It ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... attempted to murder his countrymen; but they, having discovered his intention, agreed, that as Quintal was no longer a safe member of their community, the sooner he was put out of the way the better. Accordingly, they split his skull with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... denizen of geological 'faults,' crying, shouting, yelling, soon bruised by contact with the jagged rock, falling and rising again bleeding, trying to drink the blood which covered my face, and even waiting for some rock to shatter my skull against. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... fire and been actually slain by a projectile. But nothing of that sort happened. I have seen him. The unfortunate man evidently slipped and fell from some considerable height upon his head. His neck is dislocated and the base of the skull badly fractured." ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... from the paws of Amarock, and rescue her from the ravine of Hafgufa." He concluded with a wish, that "whoever shall attempt to hinder his union with Ajut, might be buried without his bow, and that, in the land of souls, his skull might serve for no other use than to catch the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... all Nature together in one colossal form—the form of the giant Ymir, whom the sons of Boer slew, in order to make the mountains from his bones, the earth from his flesh, the skies from his skull.' ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... his passage through the thorns. Dr. Brock and I were easily able to follow his track, and soon found the remains about four hundred yards away in the bush. There was the usual horrible sight. Very little was left of the unfortunate bhisti—only the skull, the jaws, a few of the larger bones and a portion of the palm with one or two fingers attached. On one of these was a silver ring, and this, with the teeth (a relic much prized by certain castes), was sent to ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... unrecognizable. The infuriated Karl did not see that one of the members of the party was creeping up on him from behind. Neither was he aware that the upward motion of the aero had ceased and that they now hung motionless in space. A terrific blow at the base of his skull sent him sprawling. Must have been struck by a rocket, one of those funny ships that crossed the ocean so quickly. A million lights danced ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... off with my dinner," he muttered between his clinched teeth. "That completes the ruin Mary began. If I should happen to catch up with him, I trust I shall have the moral strength not to knock his head off—his skull ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... still room, the clergyman in the one corner with his prayers, and the physician in another with his pills, making assurance doubly sure, and preventing all possibility of the dying Christian's escape. Let oak branches smite the too slowly stooping skull, or rider's back not timely levelled with his steed's; let faithless bank give way, and bury in the brook; let hidden drain yield to fore feet and work a sudden wreck; let old coal-pit, with briery mouth, betray; and roaring river bear down man and horse, to banks unscaleable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... skull was by a thick fur cap, the blow felled the negro like an ox. With a groan he sank down ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... possible, only I am afraid I should make a losing voyage of it. Mr. Atkinson has missed a little my idea of the oratory, fitting it up entirely as a bookcase, whereas I should like to have had recesses for curiosities—for the Bruce's skull—for a crucifix, &c., &c.-in short, a little cabinet instead of a book-closet. Four sides of books would be perfectly sufficient; the other four, so far as not occupied by door or window, should be arranged ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... but he brought the pistol down upon a heavy skull. The hairy figure seemed never to feel the blow. It dropped the body of Diane and turned, and its slavering, shining fangs were set in a horrible face that ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Medway with a sufficient guard of ships, though the king had then 18,000 men in his pay, was another great miscarriage. The paying of the fleet with tickets, without money, was a third great miscarriage. All this time Oliver Cromwell's skull was grinning on ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... is strictly a physical science. He has to deal with purely physical phenomena; his business lies with the different varieties of the human body, and specially, to take that branch of his inquiries which most impresses the unlearned, with the various conformations of the human skull. His researches differ in nothing from those of the zooelogist or the palaeontologist, except that he has to deal with the physical phenomena of man, while they deal with the physical phenomena of other animals. He groups the different races of men, exactly as the others group the genera ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... touch any passion. Our human feelings, which he masters at will in his former pieces, are here not affected.(1020) Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they could conceive, the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's hall? Oh! yes, just now perhaps these odes would be toasted at many a contested election. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... The essential part of this ordination is the burning of the candidate's head in from three to eighteen places. The operation involves considerable pain and is performed by lighting pieces of charcoal set in a paste which is spread over the shaven skull. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Mrs. Barry was acting the character of "Calista." In the last act, where "Calista" lays her hand upon a skull, she [Mrs. Barry] was suddenly seized with a shuddering, and fainted. Next day she asked whence the skull had been obtained, and was told it was "the skull of Mr. Norris, an actor." This Norris was her former ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... going to be here, we had best be killed and buried at once. I have been all the morning in the Queen's Battery, where my company has been slaving like haythens, with the sun coming down as if it would fry your brain in your skull pan; and if that is to go on, day after day, for three years, I should be ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... in the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks, were found his spear and sword, and also his horse's head, with a shoe, and gold buckles and housings. A human skull was likewise discovered, which, perhaps, was that of ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... cause he bucked violently. I think Bob held on for four or five bucks, then the saddle went forward, and he was shot off, striking the hard road on his head. He seemed to roll up or double up, or something, and lay still, several people rushed to him, but he was past all help, his skull ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs to his great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with his heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and with one blow of his battle-axe split his skull. ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... Days of Pompeii," "The Disowned," and "Pilgrims of the Rhine" made a deep and lasting impression on me. I little thought then that I should in after years be the guest of the author in his home, and see the skull of Arbaces. Oh, that by some magic power every author could be made to feel all the influence, all the charm, which his art exerts on his readers, and especially the young. Sometimes, now and then, by golden chance, a writer of books does realise this, and then feels that he has ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... rays at unexpected intervals to cheer her, and her hungry heart also began to seek satisfaction. For Beth was by nature well-balanced; there was to be no atrophy of one side of her being in order that the other might be abnormally developed. Her chest was not to be flattened because her skull bulged with the big brain beneath. Rather the contrary. For mind and body acted and reacted on each other favourably, in so far as the conditions of her life were favourable. Such congenial intellectual pursuits as she was able to follow, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... race is not entirely to be neglected. He argued that "The Australoid race are dark complexion, ranging through various shades of light and dark chocolate colour; dark or black eyes; the hair of the scalp black and soft, silky and wavy; the skull dolichocephalic. The great continent of Australia is the headquarters of the Australoid race.... The Dekkan, which is so remarkably isolated on the north by the valleys of the Ganges and Indus, beyond these by the Himalaya ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... so it was with Mr. Fletcher. He began first to interfere with Kalee's religion. 'Oh, terrible, Janette!' cried Ady, on another day; 'master cut off head of Kartekeya's peacock, and smashed de tail of Garoora.' On another day, 'Right eye of elephant head of Ganeso knocked into de skull.' Another day, this time in tears, weeping awfully, 'Oh, Janette! tail of holy cow clean ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... to his sermons; he found the Pontiff in bed, unwell, but chatting blithely with the Bishop of Salamanca and the Procurator of the Exchequer, apparently of a droll mishap that had befallen the French Legate. It was a pale scholarly face that lay back on the white pillow under the purple skull-cap, but it was not devoid of the stronger lines of action. Giuseppe stood timidly at the door, till the Wardrobe-Keeper, a gentleman of noble family, told him to advance. He moved forward reverently, and kneeling down kissed the Pope's feet. Then he rose and proffered his request. But the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... an oblong cistern or "case" full of liquid spermaceti, clear as water. This was baled out with buckets into a tank, concreting as it cooled into a wax-like substance, bland and tasteless. There being now nothing more remaining about the skull of any value, the lashings were loosed, and the first leeward roll sent the great mass plunging overboard with a mighty splash. It sank like a stone, eagerly followed by a few small sharks that were ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... spend the alms just received on a supper or a bed. We decided for the supper, proposing to spend the night under the open sky. While we were refreshing ourselves, a strange-looking wayfarer entered. He wore a black velvet skull-cap, to which a metal lyre was attached like a cockade, and on his back he bore a harp. Very cheerfully he set down his instrument, made himself comfortable, and called for a good meal. He intended to stay the night, and to continue his way ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... yet darker and drearier dungeon, stood a heavy oblong wooden box, with two apertures near the top, peering through which we found that we were looking into the eyeless sockets of a skull. Within this box Ecelino had immured the victim we beheld there, and left him to perish in view of the platters of food and goblets of drink placed just beyond the reach of his hands. The food we saw was of course not the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... and discovered an Hanoverian wardrobe against the left wall, a glare of light (which he presently discerned to be a window), a dingy wall-paper, and finally a door. As he reached this point the door opened and an old man with a velvet skull-cap, spectacles, and a kind, furrowed face, came in ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... was tactful. She smiled comprehension at the official and bent over Sir John, now carefully polishing the back of his skull ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... thankfulness Fred rose and examined the skeleton, which had been placed in a sort of sack of skin, but was destitute of clothing. It was quite dry, and must have been there a long time. Nothing else was found, but from the appearance of the skull and the presence of the plate and spoon, there could be no doubt that it was that of one ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... of flesh. But the full curves of his mouth had been compressed into a straight line, and the consequent elevation of the lower lip had almost obliterated an originally weak chin. He was bald and wore a skull-cap, but his black eyes were fiery and restless, his skin fair with the fairness of Castile. He went to his room, and Magdalena did not see him again until dinner was announced. She saw little of her parents. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... which, of course, the General Staff took as an unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had risen en masse and effected a revolution. Of course they refused to believe the worst—that every ounce and inch of war material had been destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... gripped another article of apparel and beat it with her mallet as though it had been the skull of her bitterest enemy, while soap-suds and water spurted from it as if they had been that ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... easily forgotten. A giant of a man, standing well over six feet three, he stood bareheaded in the morning sun. Contrary to the custom of the time, he wore no pigtail at his neck, nor even hair caught back, tied with a bow. Claggett Chew's head was shaved so close that the pale skin of his skull showed through the peppery stubble, making him seem bald. Below the bare skull, as if in counterbalance, his black eyebrows started out, tangled and thickly black, and under them, as out of a rocky ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... rain-water in the midst of it. We encamped here at sunset. Plenty of buffalo skulls were lying around, bleaching in the sun; and sprinkled thickly among the grass was a great variety of strange flowers. I had nothing else to do, and so gathering a handful, I sat down on a buffalo skull to study them. Although the offspring of a wilderness, their texture was frail and delicate, and their colors extremely rich; pure white, dark blue, and a transparent crimson. One traveling in this country seldom has ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... not know anything about dentistry, but a friend fitted me out with forceps and similar weapons, and in Honolulu I picked up a book upon teeth. Also, in that sub-tropical city I managed to get hold of a skull, from which I extracted the teeth swiftly and painlessly. Thus equipped, I was ready, though not exactly eager, to tackle any tooth that get in my way. It was in Nuku-hiva, in the Marquesas, that my first case presented itself ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... up, on the battle-field of Chickamauga, the skull of a man who had been shot in the head. It was smooth, white, and glossy. A little over three months ago this skull was full of life, hope, and ambition. He who carried it into battle had, doubtless, mother, sisters, friends, whose happiness was, to some extent, dependent upon him. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... table, bearing the implements of writing, sate the old Colonna: a robe of rich furs and velvet hung loose upon his tall and stately frame; from a round skull-cap, of comforting warmth and crimson hue, a few grey locks descended, and mixed with a long and reverent beard. The countenance of the aged noble, who had long passed his eightieth year, still retained the traces of a comeliness for which ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... good friends among the rough crew in the persons of Noddy Nipper and Pompey, an eccentric old colored cook, full of superstitions about ghosts. The Polly Ann, as the schooner was called, was wrecked and Jack and his two friends cast away on a lonesome spot of land called Skull Island. They were rescued from this place by Jack's eccentric, wooden-legged Uncle, Captain Toby Ready, who, when at home, lived on a stranded wooden schooner where he made patent medicines out of herbs for sailors. Captain Toby had got ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of the priest was remarkably unprepossessing—his shaven skull was so low and narrow in the front as nearly to approach to the conformation of that of an African savage, save only towards the temples, where, in that organ styled acquisitiveness by the pupils of a science modern in name, but best practically known (as their ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... running up to attack the man on the horseman's left, whom I suddenly recognized as De Quelus. At the same instant I had a vague impression of a fourth swordsman rushing out from the colonnade, and, before I could attain my object, I felt a heavy blow at the base of my skull, which seemed almost to separate my head from my neck, and I fell forward, into ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was a wretched thing, very crooked and wouldn't carry farther than fifteen paces at the most. However, it would send your skull flying well enough if you pressed the muzzle ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... without issue, his title and estate, agreeable to their law from Tyoship, devolved on Churchhill, who having some dispute with one Thomson of the Bounty, was shot by him. The natives immediately rose, and revenged the death of Churchhill their chief, by killing Thomson, whose skull was afterwards shown to us, which bore evident ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... agitated in large waves under their skins. However, a sailor one day being carelessly employed in skinning a young sea-lion, the female from which he had taken it came upon him unperceived, and getting his head in her mouth, she with her teeth scored his skull in notches in many places, and thereby wounded him so desperately that though all possible care was taken of him, he died in ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... of the enemy with uplifted weapons rushing on him. He parried the middle fellow's pike and wounded him in the face, but was instantly struck down with a blow from the butt-end of a musket, which laid bare his skull. He also received a slash from the cutlass of the third man, which clove a portion of skull completely away and left the brain bare. He fell, and was grappled on the deck by the man he had first wounded, a powerful ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... don't say forgive me, because I know you do one who is proud to call you his best and bravest friend. That last is what I told Bob Dickenson you were, and he looked quite proud. You will be glad to hear that my wound is quite healed up; and as to the lump on my skull, the absolute truth, honesty, and sincerity of every word in this letter must show you that there is no trouble as to my knowing what I say.—Yours always, my dear Lennox, Mark Roby. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... sins of Duryodhana and through the might of Bhima and Arjuna. In thy dream, O king of kings thou wilt behold towards the end of this might the blue throated Bhava, the slayer of Tripura, ever absorbed in meditation, having the bull for his mark, drinking off the human skull, and fierce and terrible, that lord of all creatures, that god of gods, the husband of Uma, otherwise called Hara and Sarva, and Vrisha, armed with the trident and the bow called Pinaka, and attired in tiger skin. And thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thundered;-with a clang his sword leaped from the scabbard, and in an instant came crashing through a Moslem turban, and a Moslem skull-splitting them both in twain. Then the Moors turned. Sword strokes fell thick and fast, and nothing was heard but the clinking of iron, and nothing seen but the flashing of scimitars. Straight into the middle of the troop penetrated ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... ever-unsatisfied avidity—assumedly courteous, but morose by nature,—with a mighty level head in the matter of business; such is the Jew of Isfahan. He is extremely picturesque, quite biblical in his long loose robe and skull cap, with turban wound tight round ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... skull-cap on his bald head, and the faded claret and silver habit upon his shrunken limbs, he tottered over the threshold of his disorderly, uncared for room which he had occupied without one moment's ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Nieuport I stood only a few hundred yards away from the warships lying off the coast. Each shell which they sent across the dunes was like one of Jove's thunderbolts, and made one's body and soul quake with the agony of its noise. The vibration was so great that it made my skull ache as though it had been hammered. Long afterwards I found myself trembling with those waves of vibrating sounds. Worse still, because sharper and more piercingly staccato, was my experience close to a battery of French cent-vingt. Each ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... under his care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the book of fate, at the almighty fiat ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... distinction. These houses were built, say, a hundred and fifty years ago. The rooms are shapely, the ceilings high; over the doorways a rose or a ram's skull is carved in the wood. Even the panels, painted in raspberry-coloured paint, have ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... spring to the front of the carriage, and grabbing Mose in his sinuous arms, he drew him to the earth, then struck him a terrific blow on his head, and threw him to the ground. What the blow might not have done (for a negro's skull is very thick) the fall accomplished; for when he fell Mose's head struck the protruding root of a great oak tree, and the blow was of sufficient violence to stun the black man. Zibe Turner let the ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... out of the chicken coop of Henry Leigh, a new farmer in these parts. Leigh trailed Tag to the woods and found him cooking the chickens. Leigh tried to grab Tag, but Tag caught up a big stone and just slammed it against Leigh's head. Leigh is now in bed at home, with a fractured skull, and likely to die. He described Tag to us, and we're after him. The county has put a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars on Tag's head. After we've come up with him I guess it will be many a year before Tag Mosher will have a chance to do any more stealing or fighting. But if you haven't ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): "As the external habitus of the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their physical characters as the Papuans—which, ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... in a similar manner. Unfortunately, Captain Swaffield perished, in all probability having been stunned either by the first blow he received against the carlings, or by coming in contact with some part of the hulk. His body was found a month afterwards, with the skull fractured, apparently crushed between the sides of ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... muddled brain. He'd swear that she was there, for his eyes had seen her, two of her; and also he had a hazy idea that when he essayed the stairs she had entrusted to him some message. He groped fitfully among the wheels that buzzed in his skull for the elusive something connected with her advent. The heredity of habit ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... friend, it is lucky for you your skull is so thick. The good Conrad struck hard." He indicated the evil-faced doorkeeper by ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... a chair made of the bones of a relation, drinking out of the skull, and reading by the light of a candle ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... prairie. Near where they camp was a high hill, and every evenin' when the sun go under the man go up on top of the hill, and look all over the country to see where the buffalo was feeding, and see if any enemies come. There was a buffalo-skull on that hill ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... not that oft Your pitiless rites have floated with man's blood The skull-pil'd Temple, not for this shall wrath Thunder against you from the Holy One! But (whether ye th' unclimbing Bigot mock With secondary Gods, or if more pleas'd Ye petrify th' imbrothell'd Atheist's heart, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... enemies. Unfortunately for accuracy, the custom of displaying on the ends of pikes the heads of one's enemies was European and not Peruvian. To be sure, the savage Indians of some of the Amazonian jungles do sometimes decapitate their enemies, remove the bones of the skull, dry the shrunken scalp and face, and wear the trophy as a mark of prowess just as the North American Indians did the scalps of their enemies. Such customs had no place among the peace-loving Inca agriculturists of central Peru. There were no Spaniards living with Manco ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... were travelling. We fortunately escaped molestation, but saw in several places human bones, probably the relics of a former combat between the United States troops, or travellers like ourselves, and Indians or negroes. One skull I picked up had been split with a tomahawk, besides having a bullet-hole in it about the region of the left ear. Our situation was one of great peril, but I had made up my mind to proceed at all hazards, despite the opposition shown by two or ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... apart, connected by numerous rows of cross-poles passed through holes in the masts, on each of which five skulls were filed, the sticks being passed through the temples. In the centre stood two towers, or columns, made of skulls and lime, the face of each skull being turned outwards, and giving a horrible appearance to the whole. This effect was heightened by leaving the heads of distinguished captives in their natural state, with hair and skin on. As the skulls decayed they fell from the towers or poles, and they ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Castellum grew so dull, That legions of Blue Devils seize'd the Knight; Megrim invested his belaurell'd skull; Spleen ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... originated a veritable science, which has won a place in human investigation. If at first some doubts, some jokes greeted the appearance of this book, since then the celebrated Doctor Gall is come with his noble theory of the skull and has completed the system of the Swiss savant, and given stability to his fine and luminous observations. People of talent, diplomats, women, all those who are numbered among the choice and fervent disciples of these ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... small proportion of the skull-bone, say from the forepart of the eyes to the bill, is to be left in; though even this is not absolutely necessary. Part of the wing-bones, the jaw-bones and half of the thigh- bones remain. Everything else—flesh, fat, eyes, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account;—'tis certain the French conceive better than they combine;—I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this; ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne |
