"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the gleam of her hair, then the dim figures fading into the straw, and at last the wagon caught up in a cloud of dust. Down the curving road, round a green knoll, across a little stream, and into the blue valley it passed as a speck upon the landscape. Then the distance closed over it, the sand settled in the road, and the blank purple hills crowded against ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... while we were at this camp, one coming from out of space, as it seemed, a mere speck, and growing to a full-fledged deep-sea vessel, with all sails set, scudding before the wind. The other two were gracefully beating their way out against the stiff breeze to the open waters beyond. What ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... obscured the horizon and floated in tangled wreaths upon the face of the sea. Only that line of sand seemed still clear-cut and distinct, and as she glanced along it her eyes were held by something approaching, something which seemed at first nothing but a black, moving speck, then gradually resolved itself into the semblance of a man on horseback, galloping furiously. She watched him as he drew nearer and nearer, the sand flying from his horse's hoofs, his figure motionless, ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... may, there is no doubt that a certain wave of electrical excitement swept over the little crowd assembled there, the while the chief actor in the little drama, the inimitable dandy, Sir Percy Blakeney himself, appeared deeply engrossed in removing a speck of powder from the wide black satin ribbon which ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... airily, as she began to draw on her arms a pair of Lady Hamilton's long white gloves. "The wonder is that you had plenty of all sorts of things to fit me out, and also that they do fit so well. These gloves are just right, though I confess the slippers pinch me just a speck." ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... often, a picture arises before our eyes most significant and full of interest. Mary upon her horse, perhaps pausing now and then to glance afar into the wide space, where her hawk hung suspended a dark speck in the blue, or whirled and circled downward to strike its prey, while the preacher on his hackney paused reluctant, often essaying to take his leave, retained always by a new subject. Suddenly she broached ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... sun, large and important as he is, is but a speck in creation. These myriads of stars that shine nightly in the heavens are all suns. It is calculated that the union of the telescope with the photographic plate brings five hundred millions of these stars into view. Some of them are ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... the littlest, orneriest speck in the human line that's known to the microscope, but when you get a poor one, he'd spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact. The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong on whip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment. He tried ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... against the sky As little as a leaf: then it drew near And broadened.—'It's a bird,' said I, And fetched my bow and arrows. It was queer! It grew from up a speck into a blot, And squattered past a cloud; then it flew down All crumply, and waggled such a lot I thought the thing would fall.—It was a brown Old carpet where a man was sitting snug Who, when he reached the ground, began to sew A big hole in the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... do I know that honour of birth is thine, born as thou art in the proud race of the Danavas. Thou art also gifted with beauty. I do not, indeed, see even the speck of a fault in thy feature. But Usanas commanded me, while I was united with Devayani, that never should Vrishaparvan's daughter he summoned ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... scarf, and exclaimed, 'Royal lady, I perceive in the distance the ever-faithful messenger;' whereupon Astarte looked up, and, as yet invisible to the inexperienced glance of Tancred, recognised what was an infinitely small dusky speck, each moment becoming more apparent, until at length a bird was observed by all of them winging ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... will spend eternity with the Devil, unless God, in his mercy, lead you, by the Holy Spirit, to repentance. Nothing is impossible, with him. A Dean in the Church of England says, 'Be wise, and laugh not through a speck of time, and then wail through an immeasurable eternity.' Except you change your views you will most certainly hear Christ say, at the Judgment Day, 'Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... of the Harvard Observatory, noticed, September 16, a minute star situated in the plane of Saturn's rings. The same object was discerned by Mr. Lassell on the 18th. On the following evening, both observers perceived that the problematical speck of light kept up with, instead of being left behind by the planet as it moved, and hence inferred its true character.[227] Hyperion, the seventh by distance and eighth by recognition of Saturn's attendant train, is of so insignificant a size when compared with some of its fellow-moons ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... A thin speck appeared in the visor plate and grew with sinister and terrifying speed. Bursts of flame began to play around the rocketing spaceship, the explosions hurtling it from side to side as it twisted and turned in a frantic effort to escape. Rogue Rogan, his ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... with look and voice and gesture, but with every pose of her body; and when assured that her nuptials with the Earl could be avoided, the only question in her mind was as to the absolute preservation of her honor—not simply in fact, but in appearance, so that even hatred could not see a speck upon the shining shield of her perfect truth. In this scene she was perfect—everything was forgotten except the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... pointing before him into the valley. And craning forward I looked too, and saw far in the distance a white speck—a mere speck—moving rapidly on the cross road to Montgeron, and then we lost him ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... truthful and brave to have grown noble in another atmosphere, but with a ready bent to underhand and brooding vengeance. Insensible, it seemed, to gratitude. Proud with the unreasoning pride of an Oriental; cruel, and violently passionate. One soft and tender speck there was in this dark and sullen heart; it was an exceedingly great and forbearing love for the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... the toe of your boot, Harborough," he said. "You know it is! And it's been picked up—just now, as it were—where this affair happened. You must have lost it there during the last few hours, because it's quite bright—not a speck of rust on it, you see. What do ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... and we eagerly looked out for a sail; but not a speck could be seen above the horizon. Eastward was a haze, which Ben asserted indicated land; and Boxall, who had before been on the coast, agreed with him, though he said it was a long way off. No remark was made about the non-appearance of a vessel; we could not trust ourselves ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... alarm. Once the novelty of hurtling through space had passed away, the trip became monotonous. The Earth, which had at first filled the field of one of the observers, dwindled until it became merely a brilliant green star. The red speck which was Mars grew constantly more prominent as the hours went by and Damis gave the word to turn on the bow motors and retard the speed of the flyer. Several of the crew had worked in the communications net which Glavour ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... Kitty looked up in great alarm at my cheek—but seeing that it was not bleeding, and had no hole in it, she patted it softly with her little tender dimpled hand, and said: "Aunt Fanny, Aunt Fanny," in a little speck of a whisper to herself ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... anchor, without the breakers, resembling some well-imagined and accurately-executed toy, intended rather for a glass case than for struggles with the elements which she had so lately gone through, while the canoe lay on the narrow beach, just out of reach of the waves that came booming upon the land, a speck upon the shingles. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... patronising Mrs. Muffit (who superintended the cleaning) and her ancient servitors, seeing that the places for the Band (just under the choir- screen) and for the extra members of the choir were all in order, and, above all, that the Bishop's Throne up by the altar was guiltless of a speck of dust, of a shadow of a shadow of disorder. Cobbett saw, beyond any question or doubt, death in the old man's face, and suddenly, to his own amazement, was sorry. For years now he had been waiting for the day when he should succeed ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... when she goes how lonely seems her way Through groves, through fields, through busy haunts of men; And as he climbs the hill and often stops To watch her lessening train until at length Her elephant seems but a moving speck, Proud Kantaka, pawing and neighing, asks As plain as men could ever ask in, words: "What makes my master choose this ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... spied a black speck moving down the road toward him. Gigi's heart sank. Could they be after him already? He crouched closer behind the straw-stack, trembling. They must not ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... watching what appeared to be little more than a speck on the northern horizon, but even at that distance it was moving fast. Lefever walked over to Kitchen's to order the fourth horse. Rejoining Laramie he found him still at the gate. And when Kate, fresh as the morning, appeared, the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... leap great distances without using its wings. It ate any one who came near its home, so when the people saw Catalina start to climb the mountain they begged her to come back. She paid no heed to their cries, however, but went up higher and higher, till her white dress seemed merely a speck on ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... and, with a bright, kindly glance from one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and hurried away. Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly down the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a speck ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... market. The work is all done by hand, which is one reason that they are so expensive. They are first worked in saw-dust; cleaned, scraped, washed, shaved, plucked, dyed with a hand-brush from eight to twelve times, washed again and freed from the least speck of grease by a last bath in hot sawdust ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... in her wake by a river of molten gold that spread over the blue, faintly rippled expanse. Now he could distinguish people on the upper deck, a moving crowd, and sailors busy with the ropes, now a fluttering speck of white near the wheel-house. There was no one besides him on the landing-stage, the moving white speck could only be meant for him, and no one would wave to him but her. He pulled out his handkerchief and answered her greeting, and in doing so he noticed that his handkerchief ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Hollyhill. Hollyhill was well named. Perhaps some old patriarch a century or two back conceived the inspiration of the name while playing Santa Claus with the little tots of the household and pretending to have slid down the chimney without getting a speck of soot on his ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... because he has lost freely all created liberty. He participates in the uncreated freedom, which is not contracted, bounded, limited by anything; and the soul's liberty is so great, so broad, that the whole earth appears to it as a speck, to which it is not confined. It is free to do all and to do nothing. There is no state or condition to which it cannot accommodate itself; it can do all things, and yet takes no part in them. O glorious state! who can describe thee, and what hast thou to fear or to apprehend? O ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... rain and wind at Nice, than in any other part of the world that I know; and such is the serenity of the air, that you see nothing above your head for several months together, but a charming blue expanse, without cloud or speck. Whatever clouds may be formed by evaporation of the sea, they seldom or never hover over this small territory; but, in all probability, are attracted by the mountains that surround it, and there fall in rain or snow: as for those ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... as far as the crest of the hill with Marget, and watched her on the way to the post office till she was only a speck upon ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... and as the day was fine, biked over to the aerodrome. When I arrived D'Aubigne was looking through a pair of prism glasses. 'Where's Carville?' I said as I got off. He handed me the glasses and pointed up between two masses of billowy clouds. I stared and finally focussed on a minute speck against the blue. It was incredible, and, I think, sublime. I must say it thrilled me to see it. It is something new in life, if not in art, this supreme triumph over gravity. I am serious! Slowly he passed behind the cloud and ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... made certain by proper chemical tests. The presence of membrane on a tonsil and a small patch streak, or speck of membrane, on the adjacent surface of the uvula or tip of the uvula; a patch of membrane on the tonsil and an accompanying patch on the posterior wall of the pharynx; the presence of a croupy cough and harsh breathing with small ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... seamen to disengage the tackle. The boat being thus dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen after a while from the poop, battling with the billows,—now raised, in its progress to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several seconds, as if engulfed "in ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... think that I don't appreciate the terrible, the criminal thing I have done! I blame myself," said Uncle Chris cordially, flicking another speck of dust off his sleeve. "I blame myself bitterly. Your mother ought never to have made me your trustee, my dear. But she always believed in me, in spite of everything, and this is how I have repaid her." He blew his nose to cover a not unmanly emotion. "I wasn't fitted ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... noisome, as if laden with the deadly exhalations of the pestilence. Nor did the workings of his imagination stop here. He fancied even at this distance—nearly seven miles—that he could discern Solomon Eagle on the summit of Saint Paul's. At first the figure looked like a small black speck; but it gradually dilated, until it became twice the size of the cathedral, upon the central tower of which its feet rested, while its arms were spread abroad over the city. In its right hand the gigantic figure held a blazing torch, and in the left ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... above us and only a speck in the sky, was doing the craziest things imaginable. He was below Immelman and was apparently making no effort to get above him, thus gaining the advantage of position. Rather he was swinging around, this way and that, attempting, it seemed, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... or lay hove-to, like a sleeping sea-bird, under the shadow of some nameless mountain waiting for a signal. She would be glimpsed suddenly on misty, squally days dashing disdainfully aside the short aggressive waves of the Java Sea; or be seen far, far away, a tiny dazzling white speck flying across the brooding purple masses of thunderclouds piled up on the horizon. Sometimes, on the rare mail tracks, where civilisation brushes against wild mystery, when the naive passengers crowding along the rail exclaimed, pointing at her with interest: "Oh, here's a yacht!" the Dutch ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... pompous neck; And ermine, jealous of a speck, With fear eludes offence: The sable, with his glossy pride, For Adoration is descried, Where frosts ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... looking to be as quiet and peaceful as if there were no such things as hurricanes and angry waves, and dotted here and there by the glistening sails of inward bound vessels. Far away to the westward a long black wreath of smoke, following in the wake of a small speck on the water, announced the approach of the Havana steam packet; and close in, hugging the shore, glided a solitary American barque, apparently bound to Havana to finish her freight, her white sails gleaming in the sun. The land seemed strangely beautiful to our sea-going eyes; and we were ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... it now." With that he picked a very small brush, anointed, its delicate point with paint, and touched the picture in one spot with a speck of pigment. ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... Gallatin's plan would have subordinated all the executive departments to the Treasury. The theory was perfect, but it took no account of the greed of office, the jealousies of friends, the opposition of enemies, and the unknown factor of foreign relations. A speck on the horizon would cloud the peaceful prospect, a hostile threat derange the intricate machinery by which the delicate financial balance was maintained. Mr. Gallatin was fast realizing the magnitude of his undertaking, in which he was greatly embarrassed by ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... concerned in removing an infinitesimal speck from his left cuff. "Ah," he commented, "the Canned Meat Trust. What have you ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... unable to detect a diminution of his store ...."—after reading this, to see the men of science still maintaining their theory of "a hot globe cooling," one may be excused for feeling surprised at such inconsistency. Verily is that great physicist right in viewing the sun itself as "a speck in infinite extension—a mere drop in the Universal sea;" and saying that, "to Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energy is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Kate, "I never was, even in her worst moments when we were becalmed; and I'm sure I couldn't be now, when she is sailing along so beautifully; but, what is that speck out there, captain, away to the right—is it a bird, ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... kept spotless. Adjacent to it is a commodious room with lockers for each man and two shower baths make it easy to keep clean. Down on the first floor the retail bakery is so immaculately clean that you would be willing to defy anyone to find one speck of dust in the place. Every article of food is under shining glass. The floor is white tiled. But the food is what attracts one. The pies swell out as if about to burst. To look at the bread and ...
— Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State • The Consumers' League of New York
... first it seem'd a little speck And then it seem'd a mist: It mov'd and mov'd, and took at last A certain ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our ashes," laughed Evelyn. "Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our shoulders. 'Me no speck Ang-lish.'" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... you can hear the birds and the faint hum of an aeroplane, with occasionally the noise of anti-aircraft shells bursting round one, just a faint crump and tiny little fleecy white clouds clustering round a black speck in the sky. It is a perfect almost summer day. There is one point about shell fire that may interest you. A battery of guns fires on a target, say a farm house. The guns are a long way back, and, of course, cannot see their target. An officer or some observer will be well forward up a big tree, ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... in the heavens shining down upon him, and the clear sky purifying a world of desolation, Michael lay purging his mind, cleansing his heart. The white tent became very distant, a mere speck on his ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... saw the speck in the vast distance they had risen and stood on their feet. When it came nearer they bowed their heads. Yet now they looked with fearless eyes, for the woman that was old yet young was a joy to see, and filled their hearts with reverent delight. ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... Eskimo, and it was with this thought of the lifelessness and mystery of a dead and empty world that Philip turned his eyes from the sun into the gray desolation that reached from Pierre Thoreau's door to the end of the earth. Far off to the north he saw a black speck moving in the chaos of white. It might have been a fox coming over a snow-dune a rifle-shot away, for distances are elusive where the sky and the earth seem to meet in a cold gray rim about one; or it might have been a ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... long time, minutely examining every black speck against the blue, and John stood beside him, waiting patiently. Meanwhile the throng of fleeing people moved on as before, silent and somber, even the children saying little. John was again stirred by the deepest ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... this ever drips into my auricles in Holland. A country so small that they build dikes to keep the inhabitants from being spilt off the edge, is hardly the place for a scandal—certainly not in stolid Dordrecht or in that fly-speck of a Papendrecht, whose dormer windows peer over the edge of the dike as if in mortal fear of another inundation. And yet, small as it is, it is still big enough for me to approach it—the fly-speck, of course—by half a dozen different routes. I can come by boat from ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... aught of Green in her eye?—hath with her cambric handkerchief rubbed the sinister orb into a state of roseate irritation—externally—but there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor speck, nor fly,—Green or otherwise—nor particle of solid opaque matter floating in it. 'Tis, indeed, pure optic illusion on the Widow's part, illusion born, perchance, partly of fear, partly of pique. There is nothing, my dear paternal Uncle, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... it were better to laugh or storm. He was saved from all further perplexity on this point, however, by the sudden appearance of a horseman on the distant plain, who seemed to be approaching the valley in which they were encamped. At first he looked like a black speck or a crow on the horizon, and, in the uncertain light of the rapidly closing day, it would have been difficult for any unaccustomed eye to make out what ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... order for supplies and arranging for their delivery on the following day. The trader was a loquacious individual with the unmistakable "Yankee" twang and nasal whine of the man from that important speck of the United States called ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... heart," whispered Prudy, faintly; "it whisks just like the eggs Norah beats in a bowl. But it's no matter, sir; I don't think I'm afraid,—or only a little speck," added she, in a lower whisper; for, though anxious to be polite, she did not mean to tell anything ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... smoothing down her black skirts with an air of fussy importance, and heaving a sigh; "Miss Maryllia's mother was to have had it. Don't be afraid to step inside, Passon; everythink's been turned out and aired, and there's not a speck of damp or dismals anywhere, and you'll see for yourself what a time we're 'avin' though we're gettin' jes' a bit straight now, and I've 'ad Nancy Pyrle as is 'andy with her pencil to mark things down as they come to 'and. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... machine shook and quivered under the force of the explosions. The next instant the first aeroplane to invade the Big Alkali scudded off across the level floor of the desert, and after some five hundred feet of land travel soared upward. In fifteen minutes it was a fast diminishing speck against the burnished blue of the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... speck was seen in the horizon; now it is visible above the hollow wave, now curtained from our sight by the swelling billow: we approach nearer; the speck divides, and two spots appear; they ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... us, from far to the south, over mid-Jersey, came a new manifestation. We saw a speck rising, a distant mounting speck of something dark, with streamers of ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphere of a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would its avalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its infliction was a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. How likely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world should have been "corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness." How probable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine human life, the wicked family of man should speedily ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... try, and succeeded, for the kite was carried upward on the breeze as lightly as a feather; and when the string was all out, John stood in great delight, holding fast the stick and gazing on the kite, which now seemed like a little white speck in the blue sky. "Look, look, aunt, how high it flies! and it pulls like a team of horses, so that I can hardly hold it. I wish I had a mile of string: I am sure it would go to the end ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... accustomed ways through their own strange world oblivious of the human creatures imprisoned on a bit of wood below them. Surrounded by a universe filled with pulsing, sentient life clothed in such multitudinous forms, man learns humility. He shrinks to a speck ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... observed to their companion that she hoped she knew Mrs. Touchett considered she hadn't a speck on her perfection. On which "I'm obliged to you," Madame Merle replied, "but I'm afraid your aunt imagines, or at least alludes to, no aberrations ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... beheld about a dozen bandits on either side of the road, with arms uplifted, and holding deadly weapons, as if ready and determined to strike with well-aimed precision. But, strange to say, they all remained as motionless as statues, until we had gone on so far as to leave them a mere speck on the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... at the idea of leaving the place for the present. The thirsty ground had drunk up the rain, and only a little moisture remained where the sun could not penetrate, while the sky was of a vivid blue, without a speck of cloud to ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... which the future may have in store for man, he can scarcely hope to stay the sweep of those great forces which seem to be making silently but relentlessly for the destruction of all this starry universe in which our earth swims as a speck or mote. In the ages to come man may be able to predict, perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the winds and clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have strength to speed afresh our slackening planet in its ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Though he made breathless speed, he could not reach the ring before his wife and child had ascended beyond his reach. He lifted up his voice in loud appeals, but they were unavailing. The basket still went up. He watched it till it became a small speck, and finally it vanished in the sky. He then bent his head down to the ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... with directions about the needlework, to which Susan and her mother listened with great attention. Then Sarah jumped up, saying she must not let the grass grow under her feet, for she had plenty to do. The whole house was to be got ready; and she would not have a thing out of its place, nor a speck of dust to be found, ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... with a cold, steady gaze amounting to a positive prohibition—no, the thing was impossible! I saw plainly that a good, old-fashioned squirt of tobacco-juice would ruin such a country as this, where every room in every house was inimical to the habit, and every speck of ground throughout the length and breadth of the land adapted to some useful or ornamental purpose. Why, sir, I assure you that in the little duchy of Nassau—where it is said the grand-duke is unable to exercise his soldiers at target-shooting without obtaining ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... irritation, and she looked sullenly at the enormous wardrobe and dressing-table with their speckled mirrors. These had delighted her at first, but in her heart she preferred the battered, makeshift furniture of Cardigan Street. A few licks with the duster and her work was done; but here the least speck of dust showed on the polished surface. Jonah, too, had got into a nasty habit of writing insulting words on the dusty surface ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... said to his wife when they were alone, "is why that little ferret wanted to see the guv'nor's clothes. I looked 'em over carefully afterwards, an' there wasn't a speck on 'em except some spots of rain on the coat collar. It's a queer business, no matter how you look at it. Mr. Theydon's manner was strange when he kem in last night. He seemed to be list'nin' for something. I don't know wot to make of it, Eliza. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... me and him's goin' down to the North end of the Island for another load o' grub and camp gear," drawled Kayak Bill as he finished scouring out a burned place in the frying pan. "You can't tell a speck about how long this here weather's goin' to last and we want to get under cover soon as possible. Besides—" the old man's eyes twinkled—"Gregg here looks too durned lady-like in this la-de-dah outfit." He pointed ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... last century, Piazzi—who, by the way, was not a member of the society—discovered a tiny world in the vacant gap. Although eagerly welcomed, as better than nothing, it was a disappointing find. The new world was a mere rock. A speck of about 160 miles in diameter. It was obviously never intended that such a body should have all this space to itself. And, sure enough, shortly after, another small world was discovered. Then another was found, and another, and so on; and now more than 400 of these ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... to but two or three real dancing-parties in my life. Why, I've only just outgrown children's parties. I may get tired of it all, after two or three seasons, but as yet it's such a novelty to me that I enjoy every speck of it." ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... is, therefore, to act upon things as they are and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, pace in preparation for the defense of our sea port ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson
... reborn among the newly-blossomed flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless. The curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a speck of dust on its garment, without a furrow ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... malaria, we should find in each of these examples an evidence of the degree to which nature, in some few instances, concentrates powerful qualities in minute or subtile forms of matter. But if a man comes to me with a pestle and mortar in his hand, and tells me that he will take a little speck of some substance which nobody ever thought to have any smell at all, as, for instance, a grain of chalk or of charcoal, and that he will, after an hour or two of rubbing and scraping, develop in a portion of it an odor which, if the whole grain were used, would be capable of pervading ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... and moan, and all her yellow hair was white as driving snow. I could not leave her, so Angus rented his estates and came and lived with us. 'Tis different now;—Mrs. Strathsay goes about as of old, and sees there be no speck on the buttery-shelves, that the sirup of her lucent plums be clear as the light strained through carbuncles, her honeycombs unbroken, her bread like manna, and no followers about her maids. And Mrs. Strathsay has her wish at length;—there's a son in the house, a son of her own choosing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... distance, you behold the obelisks, with their unintelligible inscriptions, hinting at a past infinitely more remote than history can define. Your own life is as nothing, when compared with that immeasurable distance; but still you demand, none the less earnestly, a gleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow, on the step or two that will bring ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in a mortar rested from his appearance of labour and watched the carriage until it became a mere speck in the distance. Two women beating clothes on the rocks of a little stream stopped their gossip to peep at us shyly from under their brown hands. Weavers of abaca left their looms and hung out ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... with analyses B and C, the latter indexed; D, an older blossom, with similar analyses (E and F). Both sorts are to be found upon every spike of bloom, as the inflorescence begins at the base and proceeds upward. As we look into the more open flower we observe a dark-colored speck, which, by analysis, proves to be the lid of the anther. This portion is further shown enlarged in Fig. 20, A. If we gently lift it with a pin, we disclose the pollen masses in the cavity (B) thus opened (C, profile section), the two pairs united to a common viscid ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust the stable ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... millionaire who broke the silence with one of the hoarse laughs with which he generally prefaced his boastful remarks. 'See that speck yonder? That's Balmoral, on t' hill; you can see it for twenty miles round on a clear day like this. There's not another property in the country that comes nigh it, though I say ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... that universal chaos, no more than a speck of helpless dust amid the whirling wheels of Nature's inexplicable machinery, and clung the tighter to the simple fundamental facts of which his heart was sure—behind and above all this was God, who held all these things in His hand. And over there in Sark was Nance, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... now," said one of them, pausing for a moment before the map to point out a speck in the Mediterranean ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... yield them up that dot, that speck of land— It goes not from your portion. If you win The game what matters it to you who ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... it had looked the other way; the eye betrayed its presence. The dark glittering eye, which the sunlight touched, caught my attention instantly. There is nothing like an eye in inanimate nature; no flower, no speck on a bough, no gleaming stone wet with dew, nothing, indeed, to which it can be compared. The eye betrayed it; I could not overlook an eye. Neither nature nor inherited experience had taught the pheasant to hide its eye; ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... the ultimate forms of existence which we distinguish in our little speck of the universe are, possibly, only two out of infinite varieties of existence, not only analogous to matter and analogous to mind, but of kinds which we are not competent so much as to conceive—in the midst of which, indeed, we might be set down, with no more notion of what was about us, ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... absorbed some of the blue-green shimmer of the element he loved, all unnoting the haggard sailor at his elbow, a sudden flourish of the spy-glass which he, with an eager movement, swung up to bear on some distant speck, sent his watch and seals flying out of his fob upon ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... change! A cloud, which floated in the atmosphere, An inconsiderable and feathery speck Of no proportions, now augmented, wears A threatening aspect, ominously dark; Enveloping the heaven's canopy In lowering shadow and portentous gloom; In pall of ambient obscurity. The fork-ed lightnings ramify and play Upon a background of sepulchral black; The growling thunders rumble a reply Of ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... the blue moor of the sea where, under the shadow of the high coast of Arran, a vessel appeared as a mere speck upon ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... said, bending over the table and pointing to a black speck in the midst of the white blankness of the chart. "And here, in between, is another island. Why ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... have been unworthy of notice had they not resembled the small cloudy speck, which, though scarcely visible in the distant horizon, approaches, and swells, and bursts over the head in a storm. The beginning contest between the Earl and the Mowbray family, the interest which the worthy Mr. Glibly had thought proper to take ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... feelings of that wife, as she sat at the window, her eye fixed upon the ship which was bearing away him whom she might never see more. The white sail is smaller and smaller, until it appears but a speck, and is finally lost in the distance. And then what a sense of desolation! Oh, might we all seek for strength in time of trouble, of Him who will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of his children! Who hath said, "As thy day, so shall ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... of meanness, and of self-willed force capable of the loftiest generosity. Zulma was a spoiled child, but this defect never dwindled to silliness. None understood better than she the relative fitness of things. There was never a speck of hypocrisy in her composition, and not the slightest shade of suspicion. Her character was diaphanous. She could check her thoughts and hold her tongue as few of her sex at her age could do, and, in the tournament of conversation with men, could manage ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... in silence, perhaps for five or six minutes, among the most disagreeable, I think, that I ever passed. Then far down in the brightness below appeared a black speck that seemed to grow in size as it ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... the lower half of persons passing overhead beyond the area stairs. Here at the window Mrs. Dowey sometimes sits of a summer evening gazing, not sentimentally at a flower-pot which contains one poor bulb, nor yearningly at some tiny speck of sky, but with unholy relish at holes in stockings, and the like, which are revealed to her from her point of vantage. You, gentle reader, may flaunt by, thinking that your finery awes the street, but Mrs. Dowey can tell (and does) ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... till only one, apparently the princess' own boat, remained. But she did not want to go home even yet, and the prince thought he saw her order the boat to the shore without her. At all events, it rowed away; and now, of all the radiant company, only one white speck remained. Then the prince began ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... line of dark iron-coloured cliffs, towering sheer from the sea without a beach, and with never a speck of green below their summits; and here and there along this terrible front, monstrous beetlings, breaches, fissures, earthquake rendings, and topplings-down. Enormous fractures show lines of strata pitched ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... on it was stuck up in the middle, and a rudder made fast to the stern; such a boat would sail boldly out upon the vastness of the lake, till the eye could no longer follow the diminishing white speck. These days beside the lake were full of good things. The water was clear, with a white sand bottom; we were given swimming-lessons in the hot summer weather; having waded in up to our middles, we faced towards the shore, where sat our father with a long fishing-pole, the end of which ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... a speck of white cloudiness in the late afternoon sky. It grew swiftly in size, and a winking blue-white light appeared in its center. That light grew brighter—and the noise managed somehow to increase—and presently the ruddy sunlight was ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... fellow-pupil whom I have maligned.' Now, young gentlemen, it gives me pain to address you all for one boy's sin, and I have only this to say, that you whose consciences are clear can let it pass away like a cloud; to him who has this black speck upon his conscience I only say I am waiting; come to me when the examination is done.—Mr Morris, it is ten minutes past ten. At one o'clock your examination is over, and the studies are at an end for the day.—Now, my ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... skill. She glanced back at him, and smiled at his precaution; then faced resolutely toward the distant shore, swimming easily. He followed closely, timing his strokes to her own, confident, yet watchful still, while behind them, now but a dim speck in the grey ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... about my face that I may weep And the king wake not; and my brows and lips Tremble and sob in sleeping, like swift flames That tremble, or water when it sobs with heat Kindled from under; and my tears fill my breast And speck the fair dyed pillows round the king With barren showers and salter than the sea, Such dreams divide me dreaming; for long since I dreamed that out of this my womb had sprung Fire and a firebrand; this was ere my son, Meleager, a goodly flower in fields ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Diana! I, I have praised thee, yet I do not know What moves my mind so strangely, save that once I lay all night upon a thymy hill, And watched the slow clouds pass like heaped-up foam Across blue marble, till at last no speck Blotted the clear expanse, and the full moon Rose in much light, and all night long I saw Her ordered progress, till, in midmost heaven, There came a terrible silence, and the mice Crept to their holes, the crickets did not chirp, All the ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... were breaking up into groups of twos and threes, and moving away, but Lucy Haines and Jerry stood motionless, their gaze following the vanishing speck which was the south-bound train. Then slowly Lucy's head turned. She had never been friendly with Jerry Morton. She had shared the disapproval of the community, intensified by her inherent inability to understand ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills, And where the woods fence off the northern blast, The season smiles, resigning all its rage, And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue, Without a cloud, and white without a speck The dazzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o'er the vale; And through the trees I view th' embattled tow'r, Whence all the music. I again perceive The soothing influence of the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... see it!" ejaculated I, as I caught sight for a moment of a small, scarcely distinguishable speck that appeared for an instant and then vanished again, apparently in the hollow between two waves. A few seconds later I caught it again, and presently I had it dancing unsteadily athwart the field of the instrument. But even then I was unable to definitely ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... pounce down on my head. I started to my feet, defending my face with my arm, and shouting at the top of my voice to frighten it off. My cries had the desired effect; and as I watched its flight seaward, I saw a small speck on the water. Eagerly I gazed at it; it was a boat, not a canoe, as I had at first feared. It came nearer and nearer, evidently steering along the coast. I feared that I should not be seen among the broken rocks where I had concealed myself, and I could scarcely hope to make my voice ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... from her face with a pink ribbon in a bow on top of her head. She loosened this ribbon, and shook her hair quite loose. She peeped out of the golden radiance of it at herself, then she shook it back. She was charming either way. She was undeveloped, but as yet not a speck of the mildew of earth had touched her. She was flawless, irreproachable, except for the knowledge of her beauty, through heredity, in her heart, which was older than ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God' (2 Cor 4:2). All these sentences are chiefly to be applied to doctrine, and so are, as it were, an offer to any, if they can, to find a speck, or a spot, or a wrinkle, or any such thing in this river of water ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... thoughtfulness, I'd have died of lonesomeness long before this. You know how I hate this life, this homestead business. You know I'm only waiting until you've finished and we can be married and go away where there is something worth while. Now be reasonable. You work too hard, so that every little speck looks like a mountain. And it's making you narrow, too, or will if you don't watch out. I have to kill time somehow till we can be married and so you ought not to find fault with my doing it. Run along over and talk to Imo in her cabin now, Lee; that's ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... glass one more comprehensive sweep preparatory to closing it and going downstairs. As she did this a moving speck came ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the prized relic, a piece of the true cross, whether possessed by a church, a crowned head or a private individual, is a minute speck of wood, scarcely visible to the naked eye, set sometimes on an ivory tablet, and always inclosed in a costly reliquary. M. Rohault de Fleury, who calculates that the total volume of the wood of the original ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... fellow, I understand what you gave your life to make me understand." And his heart beat with a great love and a greater gratitude as he parted the curtain and went out into the desert. He did not once turn to look back, else might he have seen a speck on the horizon, moving at the incredible speed with which a camel can race as it slithers across ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... top of a hill that gave a distant view of the road by which the traveller would approach, my heart leaped to my mouth. For there, not a mile and a half away, appeared, in a break of the mist, a black speck, which I knew well enough to be his honour's gig. In half- an-hour or less it would reach the fatal spot, and I could barely hope to reach it before him. The ground in front of me was littered with boulders, and in places was soft with bog. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... performed. An hour and a half of steady practice, consisting of passing, falling, and catching punts, left the inexperienced candidates in a state of breathless collapse when Blair dismissed the field. West did not turn up at the gridiron, but a tiny scarlet speck far off on the golf links proclaimed ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour |
