"Span" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... also been proposed to span Behring Strait and connect North America with Asia and Europe by an international railway. This line, if constructed, would be simply an extension of the proposed Pan-American railroad and would follow the western coast ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... Twenty years, and they the years of the sere, the yellow leaf. Only twenty more times to hear the cuckoo calling over the valley and see the dark beech woods bursting into tender green. I look back twenty years, and it seems only a span. And yet how remote fifty seemed in those days! It was so remote as to be hardly worth thinking about. To be fifty was to be among the old fellows, to be on the shelf, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, Let us, said he, pour on him all we can: Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span. So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honor, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay. For, if I should, said ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... all of the same kind, fell at the Sunderbunds, about twenty miles south of Calcutta. On this occasion it was remarked that the fish did not fall here and there irregularly over the ground, but in a continuous straight line, not more than a span in breadth. The vast multitudes of fish, with which the low grounds round Bombay are covered, about a week or ten days after the first burst of the monsoon, appear to be derived from the adjoining ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... astern, past which we urge The ship and fly under the bellying sails. The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed To the ethereal caverns, though they all Forever are in motion, rising out And thence revisiting their far descents When they have measured with their bodies bright The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon Seem biding in a roadstead,—objects which, As plain fact proves, are really borne along. Between two mountains far away aloft From midst the whirl of waters open lies A gaping exit for ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... Indian's keen hearing was strained for an expected sound. After each such halt Pedro would resume his path, climbing over rocks which looked insurmountable and skirting others by ledges less than a span's width. Over this part of the canyon wall none of the Sobrante ranchmen had ever come; though below it, along a smoother portion, ran the flume that watered the ranch in ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... but span-long lives" must ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition. And remembering how narrowly this time is limited, not only by the shortness of life, but also still more by the business of life, we ought to be especially solicitous to employ what time we have ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... fashion, behind. And after this fashion I saw them at sunset next day pass over the bridge and into the mouth of the Gap whence they came. Through this Gap come strange people and strange tales from the Kentucky hills. Over it, sometimes, is the span of a rainbow. ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... Eight Scholars spans the canal narrowly. On the gray stone of its arch are carvings in low relief, and the curve of its span is pleasing to the eye. No one knows how old is the Bridge ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... bridge should be in the form of an arch made of steel girders, the central span being five hundred feet. The work was begun in October, 1904. First a pair of 'shear legs' was erected on the southern side opposite the place where the railway from Buluwayo ended. This is a mechanical contrivance ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... for that knife. I even went to the butler's pantry and looked, but I didn't see it. The pantry had been hastily evacuated by the caterer's men, and though tidied, it was not in spick and span condition. You see, having lived so long with two such homey bodies as Aunt Lucy and Win, I was not utterly unversed in domestic matters. The pantry was well equipped with modern utensils and implements, and all its appointments spoke of the taste ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... immediately joined the party, and through his intervention, before night, four excellent waggons with their tilts and canvas coverings, and four span of oxen of fourteen each, were bought and promised to be brought down and delivered up in good order, as soon as they had carried up the freights with which they ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... so fortunate, had to face it all; and he felt as if the deluge had come again, with some new and harrowing accompaniments, in which woman's rights and demands were prominent. Then, on the fifth, they rested from their labors in the clean, soap- charged atmosphere—walking gingerly over spick and span carpets, laying each book and paper demurely in place, and gazing, at a proper distance, through diamond-bright windows; and on the sixth the ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... miss that comes so near the mark? Well aimed, young archer! With what ease he bends The bow. To see those sinews, who'd believe Such strength did lodge in them? That little arm, His mother's palm can span, may help, anon, To pull a sinewy tyrant from his seat, And from their chains a prostrate people lift To liberty. I'd be content to die, Living to see ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... so much, (embracing indeed the whole, rejecting none,) hold in their breast that flame also, capable of consuming themselves, consuming us all. Short as the span of our national life has been, already have death and downfall crowded close upon us—and will again crowd close, no doubt, even if warded off. Ages to come may never know, but I know, how narrowly during the late secession war—and more than once, and more than ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the village tree— The young wheat withers ere it reach a span, And belts of blinding sand show cruelly ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... building-stone has been quarried. Elsewhere, these hill-sides are covered with tasteful country residences of the retired or wealthy Lyonnais, surrounded by gardens, arbors, shrubbery, &c. The general effect is good. At last, houses and quays begin to line and bridges to span the river, and we halt beside one of the quays ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... point on the route. One of the largest Customs stations in the province of Yuen-nan is here situated at the east end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... life span a mighty span, * Whose lavish of largesse all Empyrean! lieges scan: None other but he shall be Kaysar highs, * Lord of lordly hall and of haught Divan: Kings lay their gems on his threshold-dust * As they bow and salam to the mighty man; And his glances ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... science and religion, the foolish virgins, though present, are practically shut out; for what know they of the grand themes which inspire each tongue and kindle every thought? Even the brothers and the sons whom they have educated, now rise to heights which they cannot reach, span distances which they ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... adoption of the pointed arch had very important results. It enabled the builder to make arches of the same height but various widths, and of varying height and the same width. A round arch of a given span can be only half as high as it is wide, but the pointed arch may have a great diversity of proportions. The development of the Gothic style was greatly forwarded by the invention of the "flying buttress." ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... read in their text, 'You know at present that Vaisvnara Self, tell us that,' &c., and further on, 'But he who meditates on the Vaisvnara Self as a span long,' &c. (Ch. Up. V, 11, 6; 18, 1). The doubt here arises whether that Vaisvnara Self can be made out to be the highest Self or not. The Prvapakshin maintains the latter alternative. For, he says, the word Vaisvnara is used ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the supreme crisis was passed when, earlier in the day, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy the revolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in the human span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels with fate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, but lacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... dreadful gloom, with pious heat, Amid the silence of her dark retreat, Address'd her God,—"Almighty power divine! 'Tis thine to raise, and to depress, is thine; With honour to light up the name unknown, Or to put out the lustre of a throne. In my short span both fortunes I have prov'd, And though with ill frail nature will be mov'd, I'll bear it well: (O strengthen me to bear!) And if my piety may claim thy care; If I remember'd, in youth's giddy heat, And tumult of a court, a future state; O favour, when thy mercy I implore ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... walowit hay, For of green grass soon cometh withered hay, Labour is trewth, quhill licht is of the day. Labour in truth, while light is of the day. Trust maist in God, for he best gyd thee can, Trust most in God, for he best guide thee can, And for ilk inch he wil thee quyt a span." And for each inch he will thee requite ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... once a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat and span. Then said he, "How sad it is that we have no children! With us all is so quiet, and in other houses it is ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... Dear lady. True, deeds densely crowd in him; Turn months to years calendaring his span; Yet by Time's ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... sun came out again; Timmy Willie sat by his burrow warming his little fur coat and sniffing the smell of violets and spring grass. He had nearly forgotten his visit to town. When up the sandy path all spick and span with a brown leather bag ...
— The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse • Beatrix Potter
... appearance of such a vehicle upon the sandy road of the pine woods coming directly toward the advancing column struck the "bummers" with surprise. They made a thousand inquiries of the frightened driver, and were about to remove and appropriate the sleek span of carriage-horses when the occupant of the carriage, opening the window, thrust out his head, and with a face flaming with indignation ordered them to desist, bestowing upon them a volley of epithets, beginning with "rascals" and running as far into the language of abuse as his somewhat ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... and trust: All life springs from out the dust: Ah, we measure God by man, Looking forward but a span On His wondrous, boundless plan; All His ways are wise and just; Hope ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves in a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time of change—rapid and fantastic change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for mastery and destruction, shaking old values, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... brigade, five or six thousand men, with their first-line transport, and two Generals with implacable eyes watching them for faults. It was a fine, very picturesque display of Imperial militancy, but too marvellously spick-and-span to produce any illusion of war. So far as I was concerned, its chief use was to furnish a real conception of numbers. I calculated that if the whole British Army passed before my eyes at the same brisk rate as that solitary and splendid ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... were but a finger lang, And thick and nimble was his knee; Between his brows there was a span, Between his ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... iron-clad that ever sailed in American waters, but also recalls to mind the contrast between the steel-armored battleships of the navies of the world of to-day and the wooden hulks which prevailed up to that time. It is a long span of time from the battle of brave Captain Reid in the harbor of Fayal in 1814 to the year 1861, but during that half century little progress had been made in supplying the ships of our navy with protecting devices, as there had likewise been little occasion for naval warfare. In fact, ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... John there dwelt his sister Peg, Once a wild lass as ever shook a leg When the blithe bagpipe blew—but, soberer now, She DOUCELY span her flax and milk'd her cow. And whereas erst she was a needy slattern, Nor now of wealth or cleanliness a pattern, Yet once a month her house was partly swept, And once a week a plenteous board she kept. And, whereas, eke, the vixen ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... links of human love and pity, Ye have bridged the sea of ruin, and spanned it with a span! She shall rise again from her ashes and build a fairer city, With a larger faith in God, and the ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... writers as an essentially simian characteristic, especially in the case of the pygmy blacks of Central Africa. With the Aeta this characteristic is not so marked, yet 7 out of 8 males had a reach or span greater than the height. The proportion was not so large among the females, being only 2 in 3. The maximum span for males was 1,635 millimeters, for females 1,538 millimeters, but in neither case did the individuals having the greatest span also have the greatest height. The average span of ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... the sun glows and is gone, From span to span; The tides sweep scornfully the shore, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he who has been depicted as the incarnation of all that is spiteful, fussy, and mean. There is no need for the world to be told here that the author of "Lavengro" is a delightful writer, and one who is more sure than most authors of his time to win that little span of life which writing men call "immortality." But if there is need for the world to be told further that George Borrow was a good man, that he was a most winsome and a most charming companion, that he was an ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then! A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago, and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern aesthetic cottages, and ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... you slave your life In a struggle to hold one man; You think you're paid if he call you wife And be true to you for a span. You keep his house and you bear his child And you walk with your head held high But most of his love, and his kisses go To the woman that you ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... lessen their weight is by sweating themselves between blankets in a warm room; but this likewise is a practice by no means to be recommended, as it weakens the system by the excess of so general a stimulus, brings on a premature old age, and shortens the span of life; as may be further deduced from the quick maturity, and shortness of the lives, of the inhabitants of Hindostan, and ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... good, there is no bad, these be the whims of mortal will; What works me weal that call I good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill. They change with space, they shift with race, and in the veriest span of time, Each vice has worn a virtue's crown, all good been banned as ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... struck Manuel as quite pleasant. Everything was in its proper place, relatively spick and span; the hand of a methodical, neat person was ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... feminine tempt you to be unfaithful to your choice. Tempt you to be of two minds, to turn aside, to turn back. For, so surely as you do, you will find the hell of disappointment, the hell of failure and regret, waiting wide-mouthed to swallow you, and whatever span of life may remain to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... right when he said, "Men are miserable by necessity, but resolute in believing themselves to be miserable by accident." That is a proposition which the individual can accept or reject so far as his own little span is concerned, but on which the race, as such, can pass no valid judgment. Life has never had a fair chance. It has always been so beset with accidental and corrigible evils that no man can say what life, in its ultimate essence, really is. All we know is that many of its ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... such is Man, who vaunts himself to-day, Decking himself in all his best array; But in the midst of all his bravery Death rounds him in the ear, "Friend, thou must die." Or like a shadow in a sunny day, Which in a moment vanishes away; Or like a smile or spark,—such is the span Of life allowed this microcosm, Man. Cease then vain man to boast; for this is true, Thy brightest glory's as the morning dew, Which disappears when first the rising sun Displays his beams above ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... long ago the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in Tusayan), but their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for rain the cloud god sent only a thin mist. My people then lived in the distant Pa-lat Kwa-bi in the South. There was a very bad old man there, who, when he met any one, would spit in his face, blow his nose upon him, and rub ordure upon him. ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... of that often-travelled path was different, Narragansett. My foot had worn the rock with many passings, and the distance was a span. But we have journeyed through leagues of forest, and our route hath lain across brook and hill, through brake and morass, where human vision hath not been able to detect the smallest sign of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... and with due deference to the amenities. There was gossip, of course—there always is gossip—and public opinion was many sided. Rumors circled around which played the whole gamut from infidelity to bankruptcy; these lived their brief span, and then gave place to other rumors, equally unfounded, and therefore equally enjoyable. The only fact authenticated, was the fact of separation, and the most lasting conclusion arrived at in regard to the matter was that it had ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... clink of drill and chisel as the blasting and the shaping of the stone goes on. The snows of winters have drifted deep above its rough beginnings; the suns of many a spring have melted the snows away. Well nigh a generation of human lives has already measured its brief span about the cornerstones. Far-brought, many-tongued toilers, toiling on the rising walls, have dropped their work and stretched themselves in their last sleep; others have climbed to their places; the work goes on. Upon ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... Edith, spick, span and debonair as always (although during the war he had discarded his buttonhole). He was occupied, as he usually was in his leisure time, not in playing the piano or composing, but—in making photograph frames! This was his ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... rock, honeycombed everywhere with caves and passages leading into impenetrable darkness, there were pits into which we might so easily have fallen; ravines to span, sometimes with a leap, sometimes by ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... together in the middle, and kept squarely athwartships by means of a span, afforded, after all, only the merest apology for a sea-anchor, and barely gave just sufficient drag to keep the boats stem- on to the sea without appreciably retarding their drift to leeward; but it was none the worse for this, since, with their drift scarcely retarded, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... bridge (E, Fig. 38) of a strip of brass 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 inch thick and long enough to span the coil, and bend the ends down, as at F, so as to form legs. A screw hole (G) is formed in each foot, so it may be screwed ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if, to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, Whilst you live by the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... reflections played upon the face of the arch until the massive granite seemed hardly more real than the fairy-like temple of light itself; and then suddenly, the flickering colours vanished from the face of the bridge, and were shining upon the broad under-span of the arch. An instant later it was past and over, and May and Geoffry were comparing impressions with great earnestness on her part ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... and when she saw the King's son gazing in at her, she blushed red all over, cast down her eyes and span on. Whether the thread was quite as even as usual I really cannot say, but she went on spinning till the King's son had ridden off. Then she stepped to the window and opened the lattice, saying, 'The room is so hot,' but she looked after him as long as she could ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... the Master from seeking any further to better his fortunes. At the end of a month, in which the Master and Finn plumbed unsuspected deeps of misery, the Mistress, white and wan, and desperately shaky, left her bedroom for the tiny sitting-room which Finn could almost span when he stretched his mighty frame. (He measured seven feet six and a quarter inches now, from nose-tip to tail-tip; and when he stood absolutely erect he could just reach the top of a door six feet six inches high with his fore-paws.) And there the Mistress ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... sky-scrapers fall into position one behind the other, like an artistically grouped cohort of giants. "Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise," while in the background the glorious curve of the Brooklyn Bridge seems to span half the horizon. I could not but think of Valhalla and the Bridge of the Gods in the Rheingold. Elevator architecture necessarily sends one to Scandinavian mythology in quest of similitudes.) It is with acute ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... told them! But twice in her life she had left the Cheniere Caminada, and then for the briefest span. All her years she had squatted and waddled there upon the island, gathering legends of the Baratarians and the sea. The night came on, with the moon to lighten it. Edna could hear the whispering voices of dead men and the click ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... chimaera; O. Fr. chamarre, Mod. Fr. simarre; Ital. zimarra; cf. Span. zamarra, a sheepskin coat; possibly derived ultimately from Gr. [Greek: cheimerios], "wintry," i.e. a winter overcoat), in modern English use the name of a garment worn as part of the ceremonial dress of Anglican bishops. It is a long sleeveless gown of silk or satin, open down ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... house, leaving no room for doubt as to its existence. There it stood, spick and span, with white window-curtains tied up with red ribbons, and rows of flower-pots on the sills, and a shining brass handle and knocker on the door, and a dark blind in the shop window through which, howsoever noses might be flattened against the glass, nothing could be seen. Hanging out over ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude detection by smooth-tongued villainy. Ani- 252:21 mal in propensity, deceitful in sentiment, fraudulent in purpose, I mean to make my short span of life one gala day. What a nice thing is sin! How 252:24 sin succeeds, where the good purpose waits! The world is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness of matter. But a touch, an accident, the law of God, 252:27 may at ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... thoughts. Most of us do not make the ordinance of death in itself an accusation against the Most High; we are not specially shocked or outraged by the thought that the whole population of the globe dies out within quite a moderate span of time, nor even by the reflection that several hundred thousand persons die every year in the United Kingdom alone. We know quite well that every one of those who perished in Messina must have paid his debt to nature in, at most, a few decades. So, then, the whole point in our arraignment is this—It ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the weightiest supports of the belief in a future life is that yielded by the benevolence of God. Annihilation is totally irreconcilable with this. That He whose love for his creatures is infinite will absolutely destroy them after their little span of life, when they have just tasted the sweets of existence and begun to know the noble delights of spiritual progress, and while illimitable heights of glory and blessedness are beckoning them, is incredible. We are unable to believe that while his children ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... were brought round, the shooting wagon was spic and span, almost new, the groom smart and dapper, everything ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... of our soul! during the bright ardours of boyhood, when the present was all-sufficient in its own bliss, the past soon forgotten, and the future unfeared, what might have been thy lot, beloved Harry Wilton, had thy span of life been prolonged to this very day? Better—oh! far better was it for thee and thine that thou didst so early die; for it seemeth that a curse is on that lofty lineage; and that, with all their genius, accomplishments, and virtues, dishonour ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... overflowing cup, And work a trifle in their little way; Just tip the solar-system downside up, What is there that they can't do, who shall say? While for one glance a thousand pine away, Which certainly is most disastrous when Our span is not too long as you will say, And what of their short three score years and ten? But this may not ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... for this span of life alone, Which like a blast doth fly, And, as the transient flower of grass, Just blossom—droop, ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... shuck tick with it—which helps astonishingly. What would the world say if it could know that judge Slocum Price makes his bed with a hoe! There's Spartan hardihood!" but the boy, not knowing what was meant by Spartan hardihood, remained silent. "Nearing threescore years and ten, the allotted span as set down by the Psalmist—once man of fashion, soldier, statesman and lawgiver—and makes his bed with a hoe! What a history!" muttered the judge with weary melancholy, as one groping hand found the jug while the other found the glass. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... such a vast amount of lumber, that often a jam, as it is technically called, places the two bridges that span the river in a state ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... a tall stag from the hunter's hounds and horses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these groves, with all the pangs and trepidations of man's life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, for more than the span of human years? Here, also, crash his arrows; here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he does not hunt this cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the deepest thickets, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stern form of Renunciation drawing between me and the living world the impassable circle of death in life, the ultima linea rerum. It was the last decree, the irrevocable sentence, the absolute end: and I had not yet reached half the Psalmist's span; I had not yet forgotten the lost summer mornings when the breeze scented with lilac came blowing through the casement, bearing with it the sound of glad voices welcoming ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... uniforms and the hard fight they had just gone through, the French say that these soldiers looked spic and span as they passed their general. Their rifles went up in salute as straight and accurately as if they had just come from quarters and were marching over a level parade ground, instead of over fields filled ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... as I began, as life begins and ends—with a woman. In a woman's arms we enter life; in a woman's arms we get the courage and strength to bear it; in a woman's arms we leave it. And as for the span between—the business, profession, career—how colorless, how meaningless it would ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... within the scope of words to describe the impression produced by those vast arches, row above row, cutting the deep blue sky. The domed summer clouds sailing across them are comprehended in the gigantic span of their perfect semicircles, which seem rather to have been described by Miltonic compasses of Deity than by merely human mathematics. Yet, standing beneath one of the vaults and looking upward, you may read Roman numerals in order from I. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Endymion's fastidiousness that the sight of blood— that is, of human blood—turned his stomach. In her distress Dorothea could not help admiring how he conquered this aversion; how he knelt in his spick-and-span evening dress, and, after turning back his ruffles, unlaced the prisoner's soaked shoe and rolled down ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mekin continued in overdrive, heading for Kandar. Each second it traversed a distance equal to the span of a solar system, out to its remotest planet. A heartbeat that would begin where a pulsing Cepheid, had it been possible to see, would have seemed at its greatest brilliance, and would end where the light from that same giant star seemed dimmed almost to extinction. ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... infection: 'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth Of any value, but in point of mirth; Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind Consume, I could no apter subject find; One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span; Because to laugh is proper ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... three nights old?" The Eagle said, "I have been here for a great space of time, and when I first came hither, there was a rock here from the top of which I pecked at the stars every evening; and it has crumbled away, and now it is not so much as a span high. All that time I have been here, and I have never heard of the man for whom you inquire, except once when I went in search of food as far as Llyn Llyw. And when I came there, I struck my talons into a salmon, thinking he would serve me as ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... thirty inches beyond the bridge at each side, and they supported braces which extended diagonally upward to the crossing ends of the spars. When this was done the temporary crosspiece above referred to was removed. As the span between the center cross beam and the banks was a little too long to provide a steady floor, a couple of intermediate cross beams were suspended from the inclined spars. The floor beams were then laid in place and covered with a flooring ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... Heaven, beckoning him onward to his native land in the north, there to avenge his father's death, to reconquer his realm, and to reign as the first truly Christian King of Norway. And yet as his vessel sailed on, plunging through the dashing foam, with her prow rising and falling within the wide span of that great rosy arch, strange doubts came over him, the old beliefs still lingered in his mind, and he began to think that perhaps his new learning was false, that Thor might after all be supreme in the world, and that this red light in the sky was an evidence ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... respect, the authority attaching to the Vulgate. The respect passed almost unnoticed; the criticism gave a handle to a group of vigilant foes. Since 1569 a good deal of water has flowed under the bridges which span the Tormes, and it is intrinsically likely that, were the objectionable lectures before us, Luis de Leon might appear to be an ultra-conservative in matters of Biblical criticism. But this is not the historical ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... "These three syllables, as used across the channel, summarize the history of English society." Democracy may make self-confident retorts to such a statement and fling back the question—"When Adam delved and Eve span, where then was the gentleman?" All the more pity that a gentleman was not present in Eden! The first parents missed him sorely and paid a high price for his absence. Had he been there, not only would the garden have been more tastefully dressed, but they would have learned ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... suit," said Sam. "A checked suit wif black an' white checks as big as a postage stamp. Den Ah would get mahself some ob dem dare patent leather shoes. Den," and Sam drew in his breath luxuriously, "Ah would purchase a bran' span red necktie an' square in de middle ob dat Ah would place de bigges' an' de grandes' diamon' ho'shoe yo' ebber ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... built over a rocky ravine on the railway from Port Alfred to Grahamstown, at a height of about 200 ft. from the bottom. Its length is 480 ft. 6 in., and the width of the platform is 15 ft., the gauge of the railway being 3 ft. 6 in. The central span of the viaduct is an arch of 220 ft. span between abutments, and about 90 ft. height; the remainder of the space on each side is divided into two spans by an iron pier at a distance of 68 ft. from the retaining ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... spick and span! And I am only fit to go into the pond. Oh, Mary, what a shame of me to take ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... pillar—a pillar of the Infinitely Still, the pillar of Nirvana—rose forever into the empty blue, human life an atom of microscopic dust crushed under its basis, and at the summit God Himself. And I find time to ask myself why, at this of all moments of my tiny life-span, I am able to write as I do, registering impressions, keeping a finger upon the pulse of the spirit. But oh! if I had time now—time to write down the great thoughts that do throng the brain. They are there, I feel them, know them. No doubt the supreme exaltation of approaching death is the stimulus ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in Tusayan) but their corn grew only a span high and when they sang for rain, the Cloud god sent only a thin mist. My people lived then in the distant Pa-lat Kwa-bi in the South. There was a very bad old man there. When he met any one he would spit in their faces.... He did all manner of evil. Baholihonga got angry at this ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... wun Joe Hobb, a handloom weaver, browt his slay boards, and as he wur goin' daan th' hill he did mak sum manoevures yo mind, for talk abaat fugal men i' th' army wen thay throw thair guns up into th' air an' catches em agean, thay wur nowt ta Joe, for he span his slay boards up an' daan just like a shuttlecock. But wal this wur goin' on th' storm began to abate, and th' water seemed to get less, but still thay kept at it. Wal at last a chap at thay called Dave Twirler shaated aat at he saw summat, and thay look't way ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... unseen through the moss; and yet for the sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain GENIUS LOCI, I am condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if the nymph (who cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire my pen, I would gladly carry the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... goodlier than these fair qualities of thine! By Allah, he is of little wit and judgment!" presently adding, "But, O King of the Age, punish him not for that he hath done; more by token that an thou love me a span, verily I love thee a cubit. Indeed, I have fallen into the net of thy love and am become of the number of thy slain. The love that was with thee hath transferred itself to me and there is left thereof with thee but a tithe of that which is with me." So saying, she came down from the tree and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... "People should think of what they do." "Patience is a good root." "You do not see that your father and mother do so; look at me, and do as I do." These standing and going speeches, which have travelled through the world from the time when "Adam delved and Eve span," down to the present day, and which to the very end of time will be ever in use—together with assurances to the children, whenever they were punished, or when they must learn their lessons yet more—that ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... that tremendous blast— Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er On that too long afflicted shore:[403] Up to the sky like rockets go 1030 All that mingled there below: Many a tall and goodly man, Scorched and shrivelled to a span, When he fell to earth again Like a cinder strewed the plain: Down the ashes shower like rain; Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles With a thousand circling wrinkles; Some fell on the shore, but, far away, Scattered o'er the isthmus lay; 1040 Christian or Moslem, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... either side, were prodigious waterspouts, monster spirals of the hue of storm, with flaring sweeps at top and bottom that welded roof and floor into one terrific whole. Sheer from side to side stretched that portentous level cloud; it was a span of an epoch; and on either side it was rooted in those awful columns, seemingly alive, as though ready at any instant to suck up the earth ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... landing she paused more for tears than for breath. At a rear door leading off the second landing she knocked softly, but with insistence. It opened to a slight crack, then immediately swung back full span. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... chap talk so tender of their only one; but they liked it well enough and fell in with his wish. He'd promised to eat his Christmas dinner along with them and Joey; but the pup was to come as a rare surprise next morning, and though Minnie Ford didn't much hold with a young dog about her spick and span home, she couldn't withstand the little silky creature, nor yet Teddy's wish ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... splitting, is being dried up, the tree will die; let us seek another tree.' The tree will not die. If you had ears you would hear the movement of the new bark which is forming, which will have its span of life, which will crack, will be dried up in its turn only to be replaced by another coat of bark. The tree does not perish, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes of both these men were shattered. The one forgot even his greed in the panic of terror—the other was plunged into total forgetfulness of the past by a jagged fragment of rock which gashed a deep cut ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... prove the most serviceable, as it will neither allow snow to lodge on the glass, nor suffer any serious decline of temperature during the prevalence of sharp frost and keen winds. For late autumn supply any kind of house will suffice, but best of all an airy span. A brick pit will answer every purpose from October to March with good management, and fermenting materials will afford the needful heat. In such cases trenches should be provided for occasional renewal of the bottom heat. But a roomy house and a service of ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons |
