"Conch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hungry girl, washed up for herself rather than let Madge touch anything she could help, and looked from the window into a dull court of dreary, blighted-looking turf divided by flagged walks, radiating from a statue in the middle, representing a Triton blowing a conch—no doubt intended to spout water, for there was a stone trough round him, but he had long forgotten his functions, and held a sparrow's nest with streaming straws in his hand. This must be the prison-yard, where alone she might walk, since it lay at the back of the house; and ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the nest on its wings, and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum in Great Britain. The owner, struck with the oddity of the sight, furnished the bringer with a large shell, or conch, desiring him to fix it just where the owl hung: the person did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, probably the same pair, built their nest in the conch, and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... in the National Gallery in London, or to those other boys, "The Divine Shepherd" and "St John." Better than all, however, are those beautiful children known as "The Children of the Shell," where the little Christ offers to his playfellow, John, the cooling draught from a conch shell they have picked up in their play. They are children drawn from the sky quite as much as the Jesus in ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... now ready, the gate in the palisade was thrown open, a conch- shell was blown, and the waiting inhabitants began to pour into the enclosure with all the eagerness and excitement of an audience crowding into the unreserved portions of a theatre, and in a very short time the great square was full, the front ranks pressing close up to a ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... hideous bellowing, hence its name. Bill Day had a gigantic watchman's rattle, a hickory spring on a cog-wheel. It is called in the West, a horse-fiddle, because it is so unlike either a horse or a fiddle. Then there were melodious tin pans and conch-shells and tin horns. But the most deadly noise was made by Jim West, who had two iron skillet-lids ("leds" he called them) which, when placed face to face, and rubbed, as you have seen children rub tumblers, made a sound discordant and deafening ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Mr Stevenson, after the first breakfast, did his literary work, until the sound of a conch summoned the family to a lunch, or second breakfast, about eleven o'clock. After this there was rest and music till four, and then outdoor work or play, lawn-tennis being a very favourite pastime, and in the evening they had more ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... an immortal maid and mortal man Should share each other's nature knit in bliss. The brave Iberians far the beach o'erspread Ere dawn with distant awe; none hear the mew, None mark the curlew flapping o'er the field; Silence held all, and fond expectancy. Now suddenly the conch above the sea Sounds, and goes sounding through the woods profound. They, where they hear the echo, turn their eyes, But nothing see they, save a purple mist Roll from the distant mountain down the shore: It rolls, it sails, it settles, it dissolves— Now shines the nymph to ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... in the windows, even shinier and whiter than at the Rafferties; there was an incredibly bright-coloured rug on the floor, and bright coloured pictures of Mount Vesuvius and of Garibaldi on the walls. Also there was a cabinet with many interesting treasures to look at—a bit of coral and a conch-shell, a shark's tooth and an Indian arrow-head, and a stuffed linnet with a glass cover over him. A while back Hal would not have thought of such things as especially stimulating to the imagination; but that was before he had begun to ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... glorious, the lord of the world, arrayed in yellow, with hand ornaments of glowing gold, riding on Vinateya, as the sun on a cloud, arrived with his conch, his discus, and his club in his hand. Being adored by the excellent celestials, and welcomed by Brahma, he drew near and stood before him. All the gods then addressed Vishnu, "O Madhusudana, thou art able ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... men shook their weapons and shouted a few insults, then settled down to a quiet conversation. Fasimba was garbed in the same type of hideous and fear-inspiring outfit as Ch'aka, differing only in unimportant details. Instead of a conch, his head was encased in the skull of one of the amphibious rosmaroj, brightened up with some extra tusks and horns. The differences between the two men were all minor, and mostly a matter of decoration or variation of weapon design. They were obviously ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... that it was the work of studious design, is proved by a second one commenced in a neighbouring quarry—commenced, but not further prosecuted, evidently because it would not answer, from the soft, chalky material of the wall on one side. Its external shape of the conch is that of the ass's ear. The aperture, through which the light now enters from its further end, and from a height of one hundred and twenty feet, was till lately not known to exist; it not being supposed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... to have had a multiple origin. The ram's horn of the early Briton and the perforated conch-shell of the South Sea Islander are natural trumpets; when they were copied in brass and other metals they evolved rapidly to become the varied wind instruments typified to-day by the cornet and the tuba. In the same way the reed of the Greek shepherd ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... table, conchological, entomological and ornithological, which might stay us a while if we were making a catalogue. A conch-shell twenty inches long and ten in diameter will do for a sample—not a small gasteropod! They do not excel us so much in butterflies as I had expected, but some of the beetles are fearful things—six inches long, and with veritable arms on their heads each five inches long, with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... cistern, we found a superb sight was to be had of all those steps, lighted from above and cutting off their shadows with marvelous precision. I then heard the hum of which I have already spoken: the immense granite conch had ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... interesting mosaic which is probably of this period, and has only recently been described, is at the small church of Keti in Cyprus. This, which may be the only Byzantine mosaic in the British dominions, fills the conch of a tiny apse, but is none the less of great dignity. In the centre is a figure of the Virgin with the Holy Child in her arms standing between two angels who hold disks marked with the sign [CHI]. They are named Michael and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... of conch-shell it was proclaimed before the palace, on the beach, and at the head of the valley, that Noomai, King of Hannamanoo, and friend of Hardee-Hardee, the white, kept open heart and table for all tattooers whatsoever; but to entitle themselves to this hospitality, they ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... me in the hall. 'Welcome, Mr. MacCarty-Mor,' (mind that, MacCarty-Mor!) said he—'welcome kindly! Sure it's delighted I am to see you—and you are just in time for dinner.' With that a sarvent began sounding a big conch-shell, a great door was flung open, and the next thing, I found myself in an ilegant room, sitting down to dinner with ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... with the flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the colonial shield centered on the outer half of the flag; the shield is yellow and contains a conch shell, lobster, and cactus ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... stairs lay a big pink conch shell amid the fragments of what had been Miss Barry's platter; and at the top of the stairs knelt a terrified Davy, gazing down with wide-open eyes ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, but he possessed little influence, being altogether a minor divinity. He is usually represented as preceding his father and acting as his trumpeter, using a conch-shell for this purpose. He lived with his parents in their beautiful golden palace beneath the sea at AEgea, and his favourite pastime was to ride over the billows on horses or sea-monsters. Triton is always represented as half man, half fish, the body below ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... down the trail through wind and darkness, the chief blowing a conch-shell for the crew. In the straw shanty where my hosts had spread their mats that I might have the full occupancy of their comfortable home, we found Mrs. Seventh Man making tea for me. Vanquished Often sat apart in the shadow, her face averted, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... hours for a thousand dollars, and were sure of winning the money? Believe me, my friend, the world has many such martyrs, unknown, obscure, suffering men, whose names Rumor never blows through her miserable conch-shell,—and I am one of them. As Bully Bertram says, in Maturin's pimento play,—"I am a wretch, and proud of wretchedness." A child, the offspring of your own loins, is something worth watching for. Such a father is your true Tapley; —there is some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... his allegiance thus; her slaves ought to live and die in her service, even though their fidelity were never rewarded by a single smile. She watched them, with a frowning brow, until they disappeared, and then sought her conch in anything but a tranquil mood, haunted by the lover-like pair that had so roused her wrath, and still kept ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... however, that it must be Nicholas, whom he had never seen, and who had blown such an imperative summons on the conch the night before. Halvard's temper was communicated to him; he moved abruptly to ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer |
