"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... northwest wind seeks out the tiniest crevice in one's armor. How did those long-ago people manage? Their walls were not sheeted, and they did not know the use of building-paper. Our old wide siding had been laid directly on the bare timbers, the studding; every crevice under the windows, every crack in the plaster, was a short circuit with zero. We decided to take off the antique siding, cut out the bad places, and relay it flat, as sheeting. Over it we would lay building-paper, and on top of this, good substantial ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... somewhat against the Czar's story, that the Holy Alliance was not formed till the autumn of 1815, and that he and Frederick William arrived at Paris in the spring of 1814; and that in the interval he and Francis II. came very near going to war on the Polish question. Alexander was crack-brained, and a mystic, and it is far more likely that he should have originated the Holy Alliance than that the idea should have proceeded from so wooden-headed a personage as the Prussian king, who had about as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... that it was evidently the noise made by the scraping of the smuggler's boots against the stone, as he ascended the zigzag crack to ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... Nothing is heard but laughter, conversation, songs, and anecdotes, all rising in a loud key, among the louder humming of the spinning-wheels and the stridulous noise of the reeds, as they incessantly crack the cuts in the hands of the reelers, who are perpetually turning them from morning to night, in order to ascertain the quantity which every competitor has spun; and she, of course, who has spun most wins the kemp, and is the queen for ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Indian, Pompey. He was known to be a crack marksman. They watched for him. Daniel Boone glimpsed him, high up in a tree; waited for a chance, took quick aim—and down from the tree crashed Pompey, dead before he struck the turf. After the siege they found him, shot through the head ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Ohuivo live in houses. The few caves that are occupied are not improved in any way. One cave contained ancient habitations, and tradition says that there the Tubares had once established themselves. The cave is nothing but a nearly horizontal crack in the rock, situated on the southern side of the river, some 300 feet above the bottom of the valley. It runs from south-east to north-west to a length of about 200 feet, interrupted perpendicularly by a crevice. Entering the cave at the southernmost end I found twelve low-walled rooms, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... pass a juvenile crime bill that provides more prosecutors and probation officers to crack down on gangs and guns and drugs and bar violent juveniles from buying guns for life. And I ask you to dramatically expand our support for after-school programs. I think every American should know ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... lady Desdemona to mediate for him with her lord; that she was of a frank, obliging disposition, and would readily undertake a good office of this sort, and set Cassio right again in the general's favour; and then this crack in their love would be made stronger than ever. A good advice of Iago, if it had not been given for wicked purposes, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... arm; and thus one after another they appeared to Faustus in form as they were in hell. Lucifer himself sate in a manner of a man all hairy, but of brown colour like a squirrel, curled, and his tail curling upwards on his back as the squirrels use. I think he could crack nuts too like a squirrel. After him came Belzebub in curled hair of a horse-flesh colour, his head like the head of a bull, with a mighty pair of horns, and two long ears down to the ground, and two wings ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... a letter-opener, crowded bits of paper into the keyhole of the door and up and down the crack. Then he closed the one window, turned out the two gas-jets, and opened the stop-cocks again. An odor of gas soon pervaded the room into which came only a faint light from the State House dome. And now a more hideous hallucination came to that hopeless, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut." ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... trousers pockets, and the other tore my shirt open. I heard a sudden row, a blow, and the fall of a body; then one of them came tumbling down on the top of us and knocked the two fellows over, then they jumped up, and I heard your pistol crack twice and two falls, and as I got up on to my feet to lend a hand I saw one of the fellows bolting down the street, running off in another direction. That was the one, I think, that came down on ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... to moulder in a semi-detached villa.' Well, that struck me as reasonable. 'All right,' I said; 'and do you mean to tell me I can get on that carpet and go straight to London, England?' I said 'London, England,' captain, because he seemed to have been so long in your part of the world. 'In the crack of a whip,' said he. I figured up the time. What is the difference between ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... steed! A spirit of wild, ungovernable glee instantly arose within him. Seizing the handle of the heavy hunting-whip, which still hung from his right wrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought it down on his charger's flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing the animal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up its heels, in a way that ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... be in every sense of the word an arduous training, for the first regiment of Guards being considered all the world over as the crack corps of the German army, and as the embodiment of military perfection in every sense of the word, its officers, realizing that it is, so to speak, the star phalanx of Germany, are engaged, morning, noon and night, in maintaining it at its proper ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... that was still in sight, le Bourdon bent his body far over the gunwale, grasping the rice-plants at the same time, and hauling his little craft through them, in the way that sailors call "hand over hand." This expedient most probably saved his life. While bending over the gunwale, he heard the crack of the rifles, and the whizzing of two bullets that appeared to pass just behind him. By this time the whole of the canoe was within ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... hand raised to strike when something happened. A lithe, muscular form glided under the upraised fist, and the next moment there was a sharp crack as the newcomer's fist collided with ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... themselves in a circle, and by striking the shell with a stone succeed in opening it.' That they may try is possible enough; for there is no doubt, I believe, that monkeys—at least the South American—do use stones to crack nuts; and I have seen myself a monkey, untaught, use a stick to rake his food up to him when put beyond the reach of his chain. The impossibility in this case would lie, not in want of wits, but want ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... oppressive smoke and the uncanny noise far down in the depths. Dull and regular, it sounded like the piston of an engine or a great drum, heard through the noises of a factory. Presently there was silence, and then, without any warning, came a tearing crack, the thunder as of 100 heavy guns, a metallic din, and a cloud of smoke rose; and while we forced ourselves to stay and watch, the inferno below thundered a roaring echo, the walls shook, and a thousand dark specks flew up like a swarm of frightened birds. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... bang!" challenged another "express," the shots so close together as to be almost simultaneous. "Crack! crack! crack!" retorted the Winchesters, and from the fact that silence followed I drew a clear inference. I said to myself, "That is an ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... you good and me bad. (He is silent.) Do you remember the time Kari and I went up the glacier, and he fell down into a crack? He told you I had been so frightened that I shook all over. It was not for his life I feared; I feared my ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... only at second-hand, through a medium perhaps wanting in transparence. Her hesitancy considerably surprised him. To Carlisle, as was almost equally inevitable, it was as if in the solid rock of their mutual understanding there had suddenly appeared a tiny crack. She felt the reasonableness as well as the tenderness with which Hugo spoke; she wanted nothing in the world but to do what he wanted. And yet it seemed somehow a physical impossibility for her now ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... behind my temporary rank," I answered hotly. "I waive it, gladly. Anything, for a chance to puncture that rotten carcass of yours or to get a good fair crack at your ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... Dick was all eagerness now. "There's to be a jolly crowd there. Sammie told me that he has invited a crack-a-jack of an artist he met at the club. He is an English chap and has been out here only a short time. He puts out some great stuff in the way of pictures, so I understand. Then, that Westcote girl is to be there. My, I'm anxious to meet her. She is worth while ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... the churchwardens of Y that his late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory. 'And yet,' he said, 'you all cracked him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the churchwarden of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before you get rid ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... throw away the parings of their nails, but carefully stow them in cracks of the walls or of the boards, in the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection. The Armenians do not throw away their cut hair and nails and extracted teeth, but hide them in places that are esteemed holy, such as a crack in the church wall, a pillar of the house, or a hollow tree. They think that all these severed portions of themselves will be wanted at the resurrection, and that he who has not stowed them away in a safe ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... he went home with Peter Pink, And plenty had to eat and drink; And got new clothes upon his back; And got a hat without a crack; And shoes and stockings for his toes, A handkerchief, to wipe his nose. You've wash'd my face, and cut my hair, Quite clean I am, I do declare! "So now good-bye; straight home I go; I'm off to let my mother know! ...
— Tommy Tatters - Uncle Toby's Series • Unknown
... Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... till I get my breath, will you?" pleaded Holmes. "I think you may crack me a bottle of that Tokay over there. I have a ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... full, but the driver informed us that an "extra" (or separate sleigh of smaller dimensions than the stage) had been provided for us; so that we enjoyed the enviable advantage of having it all to ourselves. Crack went the whip, and off went the leader with a bound, the wheeler following at a pace between a trot and a gallop, and our "extra" keeping close in the rear. The lamps were still burning as we left the city, although the first streaks of dawn illumined the eastern sky. In fifteen minutes more ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... crack a bottle together?" (It was astonishing and deplorable how cliches survived ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... disguised like himself, to observe what was transacting in the city. As he was passing through a street in that part of the town inhabited only by the meaner sort, he heard some people talking very loud; and going close to the house whence the noise proceeded, and looking through a crack in the door, perceived a light, and three sisters sitting on a sofa, conversing together after supper. By what the eldest said, he presently understood the subjeft of their conversation was wishes: "For," said she, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... before. He knew this street, set upon a hill, rising steeply between oak and maple trees. Those lampposts were old friends, that crack in the pavement was an ancient landmark. Here were the houses, heavy with familiarity. They seemed to lean expectantly toward him, like spectators waiting for the final act of an ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... I did not wish to realize that it was my last ride, and my last association with any of the men of the mountains whom I had learned to trust, and in some respects to admire. No more hunters' tales told while the pine knots crack and blaze; no more thrilling narratives of adventures with Indians and bears; and never again shall I hear that strange talk of Nature and her doings which is the speech of those who live with her and her alone. Already the dismalness of a level land comes over me. The canyon of the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... of filthy-tongued creatures!" Hsi Jen laughed, "when you've got nothing to do, you make me the scapegoat to crack your jokes, and poke your fun at! But what kind of death will, I wonder, each of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... that seemed the most natural way of expressing his gratitude. Ahniny looked round to see if anybody was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no good to "holler." She saw nobody; but a stout young fellow, leading a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her through a crack in a picket fence, not a great way off the road. Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" Alminy, and never did he see any encouraging look, or hear any "Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?" or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village belles under stand ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was the astonishment of the grave and reverend authorities at Randlebury School when they perceived, coming up the carriage drive, a cab with a boy of thirteen perched on the box, tugging at the reins, hallooing to the horse, and making his whip crack like so many fireworks; while inside, comfortably lounging amid a pile of luggage, reclined cabby at his ease, grinning from ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... me. Sometimes it was a poem that held it, sometimes a drawing,—angel, arabesque, caricature, or a mere hieroglyphic symbol of which I could make nothing. A rag of cloud on one page, as I remember, with a streak of red zigzagging out of it across the paper as naturally as a crack runs through a China bowl. On the next page a dead bird,—some little favorite, I suppose; for it was worked out with a special love, and I saw on the leaf that sign with which once or twice in my life I have had a letter sealed,—a round spot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... to-day of that fireless, empty, forsaken house, where the winter sun shines in and creeps slowly along the floor; the bitter cold is in and around the house, and the snow has sifted in at every crack; outside it is untrodden by any living creature's footstep. The wind blows and rushes and shakes the loose window-sashes in their frames, while the padlock knocks—knocks ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... hand me an egg," said Nan, and Flossie picked one up from the dish. She was handing it over to her sister, but her chubby fingers slipped and—crack! went the egg down on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... with a scene in the interior of a factory. Men, girls and boys are employed. The foreman observes a warning crack in the wall and calls the proprietor's attention to it. In this case the manufacturer is the owner of the building, but he refuses to make repairs. His argument is that the wall has stood for many years and so is likely to stand for many more; it would be a waste of money to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... sound that strikes upon his ear when the leaves, softly shaken by the evening breeze, seem to sigh through the air, or when the tempest, bursting forth with fury, shakes the gigantic trees that crack like reeds. "The chirping of the birds, the cry of the wild beasts, in a word, all those sweet, grave, or imposing voices that animate the wilderness, are so many musical lessons, which he easily remembers." In illustration of this, the missionary describes the singing of a Chippewa chief, and ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... run away. And I marked that the North Wind had two great ornamental daubs like shutter-fastenings painted on his cheeks. I sniffed preparation, too, on his followers, and I was sure they were getting ready for some new deviltry. I handed the note to Mr. Brady through the crack of the door that he vouchsafed to me, and when he had slammed and bolted me out, I ran into the street and stood for some time behind the trunk of a big hickory, watching the followers of the North Wind. Some were painting themselves, others cleaning their rifles and sharpening ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... know whether Babie has heard. She has serious thoughts of coming out as a lady-help, editing the 'Traveller's Joy' as a popular magazine, giving lessons in Greek, or painting the crack picture in the Royal Academy. In fact, she would rather prefer to have the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor louse, returned him to his place and bid him live there at discretion, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Snodge, who are both necessary to a united government, but who unluckily detest each other, refuse to sit in the same Cabinet, unless Darrell sit between—to save them, I suppose, from the fate of the cats of Kilkenny. Sir John Cautly, our crack county member, declares that if Darrell does not come in, 'tis because the CRISIS is going too far! Harry Bold, our most popular speaker, says, if Darrell stay out, 'tis a sign that the CRISIS is a retrograde movement! In short, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of his coat and carried them to his sister the frog, who dwelt in a marsh, and he asked her to sew them together. The frog had sore eyes, and when she sewed them together she did not do it properly. Hence the wolverine was very angry, and he hit her a crack on the head and knocked her into the water. Then he took up the coat and went and found his youngest sister, the mouse. He told her of his troubles, and how the frog had so badly done her work. Then he showed the mouse how he wanted the coat to be sewed. His ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... bearing. He opens his mouth to speak, but only a husky murmur replaces the harsh stridency of his usual utterance. "What devilish foolery is this—" But ere he can get further, some bucolic statesman brings his massive palm down on the table with a bang that makes the oaken plank crack, and thunders out—"The charter! Where's ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... breath, was leaning against one of the pillars, his arm passed around it for support. Lenora, with Quest and French, searched hastily amongst the packing-cases. Suddenly there was a loud crack, the sound of falling masonry, followed by a scream from Laura. French, with a roar of anger, rushed towards her. She was lying on her side, already half covered by falling bricks and masonry. He dragged her away, just ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... or was not a horseman is a question on which there is authority which clashes with Roosevelt's. A year's experience with broncos had taught him much, and though Sylvane remained indisputably the crack rider of the Maltese Cross outfit, Roosevelt more than held his own. "He was not a purty rider," as one of his cowpunching friends expressed it, "but a hell of ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... cover the dome must be renewed eight or ten times in a century. Winckelmann attributes their rapid decay to the corrosive action of the sirocco wind; Fea to the variations in temperature, which cause the lead to melt in summer, and crack in winter. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... who had once before obliged the commonwealth of taste, with a very agreeable comedy in his City Politics, yet, in Sir Courtly Nice went far beyond it, and very much surpassed himself; for though there is something in the part of Crack, which borders upon farce, the Spanish author alone must answer for that: for Mr. Crowne could not omit the part of Crack, that is, of Tarugo, and the Spanish farce depending upon it, without a downright affront to the King, who had given him the play for his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... your stomachs are yearning for—why, I am the man for you all," Little John said at once, "and I will beat the four of you heartily, whether you be friends or enemies." Then he began to twirl his staff right merrily, and gave the dumb fellow such a crack upon his crown that he began ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... knowledge was not far behind The Knight's, but of another kind, 480 And he another way came by 't: Some call it GIFTS, and some NEW-LIGHT; A liberal art, that costs no pains Of study, industry, or brains. His wit was sent him for a token, 485 But in the carriage crack'd and broken. Like commendation nine-pence crook'd, With — To and from my love — it look'd. He ne'er consider'd it, as loth To look a gift-horse in the mouth; 490 And very wisely wou'd lay forth ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... that I promptly smashed the thermometer, and we had a fine chase after the quicksilver. You never saw anything like it! It ran like a rabbit, in and out of the nooks and corners of the chair, until at last it disappeared through a crack in the floor; went to ground, you know. Doesn't ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... governess and Rachel were looking on. Rachel had arrived at Westhope the day before from Southminster. "Take your time, my son," said Dick, just eluding by a hair's-breadth a charge through a geranium-bed on the part of the eldest boy. "If you are such jolly little fools as to crack your little skulls on the sun-dial, I shall eat them both myself. Miss Turner says you may have them, so you've only got to take them. I can't keep on offering them all day long. My time"—(Dick ran his bicycle up a terrace, and, as soon as the boys were ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... did come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in Till I came hither: What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The Man that there was ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... Bang! crack! bang! went three pistols in rapid succession, and as the reports died away the bob cat fell in a heap on the bottom of the launch, snarling viciously. Then Dandy, still exhausted from his fight in the water, leaped on the beast ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... word "Bank" ought not to have been "Blanche"-street; a name given to it in honour of the lady to whom the principal building in the street belonged, when, just as he had finished speaking, we heard, as if above us, a smart crack. On looking round to ascertain the cause, a sight burst upon our view, that none who witnessed it could ever forget. The instant we turned, we beheld the church tower give way, on the south-west ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... birch. Colette, put kettle on for bile water qvick. Tak' dis seat, lady. I pull off dem blanket. You no need dem more. Turriple cole now. Las' night we 'ear de wolfs 'untin' along dem 'ardwood ridges, back of de river; it ees always sign of big cole. And de river she crack awful, and de trees dey split like guns shoot. Glad you ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... the horse himself and tightened the girths. They walked together towards the great gate of solid wood which fitted into the high wall so closely that none could peep through so much as a crack. At the door the colonel lingered, leaning against his great horse and stroking its shoulder ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... lighter colors of the skin below. As they went under, their huge, black tails, great winged things not unlike the screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now and then one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor, rather; for they were feeding upon the caplin, pretty little fishes that swarm along these shores at this particular season. We could track them beneath the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the other's finger, and then the officer interfered and put the "Greaser" into the "dark cell" to answer for it because the woman that did it laid it on him, and the other woman did not deny it because, as she said afterward, she "wanted another crack at the huzzy when her finger quit hurting," and so she did not want her removed. By this time those two women had mutilated each other's clothes to that extent that there was not sufficient left to cover their nakedness. I found that one of these creatures had spent nine years in the county ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... alliteratively, 'A Memento of Margate.' Of these many were broken, but they had been mended with glue, and it is well known that pottery in the eyes of the connoisseur loses none of its value by a crack or two. Then there were portraits innumerable—little yellow cartes-de-visite in velvet frames, some of which were decorated with shells; they showed strange people with old-fashioned clothes, the women with bodices ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... of England Hallowe'en was called "nut-crack" and "snap-apple night." It was celebrated by "young ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his rapt ship run on her side so low That she drinks water and her keel plows air. (Byron's Conspiracy, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... ther strangest thing happens. Ther tree opens a crack runnin' all ther way from ther roots up as far as Unc' Fletch kin see. Ther crack is big ernuff ter put yer finger in, but Unc' Fletch doesn't do no such ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... "He did not shoot me, so what does it matter? That was a fine crack on the head you gave him! He will remember us, I think, next ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... had become an open madness: soldiers were sentenced to a thousand lashes for trifling offences, with the result (among others less mentionable) that the Iron Duke of Wellington complained that it was impossible to get an order obeyed in the British army except in two or three crack regiments. Such frantic excesses of this disgusting neurosis provoked a reaction against it; but the clamor for it by depraved persons never ceased, and was tolerated by a nation trained to it from childhood in the schools until ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... call them "old maids;" but it is a malicious appellation, unless it can be proved that they have refused to be wives. I would always take the part of a spinster; they are a peculiar people, far more "sinned against than sinning." Every blockhead thinks himself at liberty to crack a joke upon them; and when he says something, that he conceives to be wondrous smart, about Miss Such-an-One and her cat or poodle dog, he conceives himself a marvellous clever fellow; yea, even those of her own sex who are below what is called ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... of the children huddled together for warmth in one bed, and the parents and balance of the family in the other. I slept on the floor near the door in my sleeping-bag, with my nose glued to the crack to get a breath of God's cold air, in spite of the need for warmth—for not a blanket did the house possess. When I asked, a little hurt, where were the blankets which we had sent last year, the mother somewhat indignantly pointed to various trousers and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... English army in Ireland of a dyssentary, when no other remedy could prevail: The same also in pleurisies, &c. The juice of the outward rind of the nut, makes an excellent gargle for a sore-throat: The kernel being rubb'd upon any crack or chink of a leaking or crazy vessel, stops it better than either clay, pitch, or wax: In France they eat them blanch'd and fresh, with wine and salt, having first cut them out of the shells before they are hardned, with a short broad ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... her evolutions and discipline, perhaps from the old English word for a fine boy. Crack is generally used for first-rate ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... New.—The canvas you work on should not be too freshly primed. The painting is likely to crack if the priming is not well dried. You cannot always be sure that the canvas you get at stores is old, so you have an additional reason for getting a good stock and keeping it on hand. Then, if you have had it in your own possession ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... there they stopped. They could not dent that compacted mass. The soldiers struggled manfully, but they were held at bay. Harrigan could see the heaving shoulders of the defender over the heads of the assailants, and the crack of hard-driven fists. The attackers were crushed together and had little room to swing their arms with full force, while the big man stood with his back against the wall of the cottage and made every ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... little crowd gathered round the door, however, to see how Jacques De Arthenay looked when he'd made a fool of himself, as they expressed it. They were in a merry mood, the friendly neighbours, and had sundry jests ready to crack upon the bridegroom when he should appear; but when he finally stood in the doorway, with the little pale bride on his arm, it became apparent that jests were not in order. People calc'lated that Jacques was in one ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... seat. At that instant the quiet was suddenly and harshly broken. The stillness of the plain seemed literally split with the crack of firearms. Two shots rang out in rapid succession, and the faintest of echoes from the distant hills suggested an opposing fire at long range. But the first two ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... should be broken off. To prevent the plants falling over after the seed-stalks are grown, dig deep holes, and plant the entire stump in the ground. Scarecrows should be set up, or some like precaution be taken, to keep away the little seed-birds, that begin to crack the pods as soon as they commence to ripen. A plaster cat is a very good scarecrow to frighten away birds from seed and small fruits, if its location ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... their directions. Being desired to lay himself down amongst them, then, as many of them as could get round him began to squeeze him with both hands, from head to foot, but more particularly in the part where the pain was lodged till they made his bones crack, and his flesh became a perfect mummy. After undergoing this discipline about a quarter of an hour, he was glad to be released from the women. The operation, however gave him immediate relief; so that he was encouraged to submit to another rubbing down ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... wagoner who walks beside them. The voice is also greatly used by polo players. Horses are very catholic in their admiration for tit-bits. They like all kinds of sweets and fruit, and will even crunch up the stones of plums and peaches, which require good teeth to crack. An old favourite of mine was particularly fond of ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... so knead again. Then add a spoonful of shortening at a time until the dough begins to crack ...
— The Khaki Kook Book - A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes - Mostly from Hindustan • Mary Kennedy Core
... for age, and they are cheaper and better there than in any other part of the world. The next time you meet us in the Park, we'll show you a pair of boots made for us by Legrand in 1841, which we have ridden in and walked in now three winters; there is not a crack in them; they, like their master, have never lost their soles, (we can't say so much for our hearts,) they fit us like our own skin, and they cost less than a pound sterling. Dear old Hoby may go and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... to indicate that in spite of the expansion joints, the concrete will crack more or less and many engineers think it advisable to omit expansion joints in constructing the pavement and when cracks develop to pour bituminous material into them, thus forming ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept it?" I asked, turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. At this inquiry the crack of the door widened and Charles appeared, on fire with enthusiasm, and so possessed with self-importance that he forgot the betrayal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to justify itself, might be told off without warning to hammer out scales and exercises, and to bedew the senseless keys with tears of weariness or of revolt. But in subjects common to either sex, and held to be necessary even for him whose ambition soared no higher than to crack a whip in a circus-ring—in geography, for instance, arithmetic, or the weary doings of kings and queens—each would have scorned to excel. And, indeed, whatever our individual gifts, a general dogged determination to shirk and to evade kept us all at much the same dead level,—a level ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... my master, to tell him the news." This is a very lively negress, her tongue never stops; she retails all the news of the country to me, and is a great politician in her way. Some of these Ghat negresses are actually witty, and crack jokes with the grave Touaricks. The Touaricks are too gallant to be offended with the freedom of even female slaves. I felt somewhat alarmed, thinking the discomfitted party might come and avenge their defeat upon the unlucky Christian stranger. We barricaded the door, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork—a big rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it a little from its fatal end? He was ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... do it, an' there ain't no Injuns near 'nough to play us any tricks. But they'd see the door was open, even if only a crack, and they'd know we was gittin' desperate, or sufferin' a heap, an' that would tickle 'em. I'm ag'in' givin' 'em even that bit of enjoyment. If we can make a break when it gits dark afore the fire-arrers begin lightin' things up we'll ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... time until some one knocked on our door and we were all wide awake in a minute. The fire had burned down and only a soft, indistinct glow from the embers lighted the room, while through a hole in the roof I could see a star glimmering frostily. It was Gavotte at the door and he called through a crack saying he had been hearing queer noises for an hour and he was going to investigate. He had called us so that we need not be alarmed should we hear the noise and not find him. We scrambled into our clothes quickly and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... auditorium where the Adult department of the Sunday-school meets, gives a short exposition of the lesson for the day, and answers from the Question Box. These cover a great variety of subjects, from the absurdity of some crack-brained crank to the pathetic appeal of some needy soul. Some of these questions may be sent in by mail during the week, but the greater part of them are handed to the pastor by the ushers. To secure ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... chair and grabbed its arms until I could hear my knuckles crack. My mind snapped shut with an almost audible crack. ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... not pretend that he was altogether ignorant of her meaning, though, certainly, he had never guessed that she minded the teasing. But before he knew what to say, her eyes were clear again, and the sudden crack in the surface ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... account, to a place where you appear to be the only man of legal learning. However, those who come from where you are either say you are proud because you give no "opinions," or insulting because you give bad ones.[689] But I am now longing to crack a joke with you face to face. So come as soon as ever you can, and don't go and visit your native Apulia, that we may have the joy of welcoming your safe return. For if you go there, like another Ulysses, you will not recognize ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... that thing England is apparently not in a geographical or a policial position to furnish in sufficient numbers. The British public now know this, and unfortunately the "forward party" in Russia knows it, and that is why bearded faces at St. Petersburg crack open and emit rumbles of genuine merriment every time Sir Edward Grey stands up in the House of Commons and explains to his countrymen that he has most ample and categorical assurances from Russia that her sole purpose in sending two or three armies into Persia is to show her displeasure ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... thy gentle accumulation of bricabrac should have passed away in such a manner! by means of a man who brings down a butterfly with a blunderbuss, and talks of a pin's head through a speaking-trumpet! Why, the auctioneer's very voice was enough to crack the Sevres porcelain and blow the lace into annihilation. Let it be remembered that I speak of the gentleman in his public character merely, meaning to insinuate nothing more than I would by stating that Lord Brougham speaks with a northern accent, or that the voice of Mr. Shell ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... metal. Perhaps it was some subconscious feeling. At any rate, he held it aloft and gazed at it in the light. As he did so a strange thing happened. Reflected in its surface on the glass, yet distorted like a convex mirror, he could see the door of the closet open just a crack and the evil faces of Balcom and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... of a chain of volcanic islands in the West Indies suggests the probability that it follows a crack of great antiquity, though the issue of lava and ashes for several centuries may have been limited to a few isolated points. Just how these vents have been reopened is one of the most difficult questions still ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... embellishment has been made, by placing a stuffed bear near the house, probably in imitation of the Zoological Gardens; but the idea is rather a failure, and would appear more suitable over the door of a perfumer's shop, to intimate the presence of bear's grease. A little gim-crack model of a wooden house is also visible, by way of an ornament, stuck on the summit of a wooden pillar, but the effect is disproportioned to all surrounding objects, even more than the designs on Chinese paper; where men of six feet high are represented ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... condemns me—[to Milton] Thou art wise, Prudent, and skill'd in learned rhetorick— Think'st thou 'twere sad to gaze upon the look, That sudden on the harlot's painted features, Set in the stale attraction of forc'd smiles, Darkens so wildly—that, like one amaz'd, From the crack'd glass she staggers, to her brow Lifts her wan, jewell'd finger—tries to think? The wanton provocation of her features Chang'd all to sickly twilight, blank dismay— And when thought comes, to see the poor wretch quiver, Her eyes' ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... the mare sometimes, as he was doing now. "There is a little ridge in the hoof, girl, but it won't crack; I know it won't crack." And, "This nail is too high. It is my fault. I was gabbin' when ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... Morgan (as Anne Scott had wickedly christened them) trotting from their pasture to lay their noses over the paling, and, as Washington Irving says of the old white-haired hedger with the Parisian snuff-box, 'to have a pleasant crack ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... longer had a title. Then I saw too that it was a large official document from Rome, and I knew that the long-expected transferal had come. Thereupon I dreamt that I was fleeing with Elsje and that I carried her across a great plain of ice. The ice cracked under my feet and every crack was a snapping spark of bluish fire like a flash of lightning. This betokened ill, but Elsje was ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... in the twilight under the clump of cedars that crowned the hill which overlooked Deep-mead Farm—broad acres of land that the Seviers had had granted them from Virginia—dead, his pistol under his shoulder and a smile on his face. Just so he had looked as he rode at the head of our crack gray regiment in that hell-reeking charge at Perryville, and it was such a smile we had followed into the trenches at Franklin. Stalwart, dashing, joyous Andrew, how we had all loved ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... John asked, Where the testimony should be then? He answered, In the hands of a few, who should be despised and undervalued of all[221], but especially by these ministers who buried Christ; but after that he shall get up upon them, and at the crack of his winding sheet as many of them as are alive, who were at his burial, shall be distracted and mad with fear, not knowing what to do; then, John, there shall be brave days such as the church of Scotland never saw the like, but I shall not ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... nuts (I will not call them cheaters), Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters. Ope then the shells, and you shall have the meat; They here are brought for you to crack and eat. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in the distance the crack of a whip; she ran to the window and saw the phaeton as it made the turn round the lawn, drawn by two horses. Seated beside Annette, in the back seat of the carriage, Olivier waved his handkerchief as he saw the Countess, to which she responded by waving him ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... hour and a half—taking their turns at chopping—almost without speaking. At length the top of the tree began to waver, and a loud crack announced that it was about to fall. Frank and Archie were chopping, and the blows of their axes resounded with redoubled force, and the other boys caught up the guns, and ran off in the direction in which ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... whose first meeting with Lincoln in a log school-house has been previously described in these pages, subsequently became a clerk in Lincoln's law-office at Springfield, and furnishes some excellent reminiscences of that interesting period. "A crack-brained attorney who lived in Springfield, supported mainly by the other lawyers of the place, became indebted, in the sum of two dollars and fifty cents, to a wealthy citizen of the county, a recent comer. The creditor, failing after repeated efforts ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... day. Wait became a little more cheerful. Knowles affirmed having heard him laugh to himself in peals one day. Others had seen him walking about on deck at night. His little place, with the door ajar on a long hook, was always full of tobacco smoke. We spoke through the crack cheerfully, sometimes abusively, as we passed by, intent on our work. He fascinated us. He would never let doubt die. He overshadowed the ship. Invulnerable in his promise of speedy corruption he trampled on our self-respect, he demonstrated to us daily ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... "Ye might crack some of their skulls and then they'd git out a warrant and Rease Lynch (referring to the town constable), would ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... translation can express. War['e] means "I," or "mine," or "one's own," etc., according to circumstances; and war['e] m['e] (written separately) might be rendered "its own eyes." But war['e]m['e] (one word) means a crack, rent, split, or fissure. The reader should remember that the term saka-bashira means not only "upside-down post," but also the goblin or spectre ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... gazed where the Singing Mouse pointed, quite beyond the dusty walls, and there I saw as it had said. I heard not the thunder of the hoofs of buffalo, nor the faint crack of the twig beneath the panther's foot. I saw not the lurching gallop of the long-jawed wolf, nor the high, elastic bounding of the deer. The level swinging speed of the antelope, the slinking of the lynx, the crashing flight of the wapiti—no, it was none of these that came to mind; nor did ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... him a moment and then laughed; and he laughed so rarely that it distorted the yellow parchment of his face as if it must crack it. The sound of his laughter was something like the creaking of a cart imitated by a ventriloquist. But Padre Francesco knit his bushy brows, for he thought the sailor was making game of him, who had been ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... sever, rend, smash, shatter, shiver, splinter, batter, burst, rupture, crack; infringe, violate, disobey, transgress, trespass; communicate, disclose, divulge, tell, impart, broach; discipline, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... treach'rous tapster,[2] Thomas, Hangs a new Angel two doors from us, As fine as daubers' hands can make it, In hopes that strangers may mistake it, We[3] think it both a shame and sin To quit the true old Angel Inn. Now this is Stella's case in fact, An angel's face a little crack'd. (Could poets or could painters fix How angels look at thirty-six:) This drew us in at first to find In such a form an angel's mind; And every virtue now supplies The fainting rays of Stella's eyes. See, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... wings to him that cannot sleep, And time seems then not for to fly, but creep; Slowly her chariot drives, as if that she Had broke her wheel, or crack'd her axletree. Just so it is with me, who, list'ning, pray The winds to blow the tedious night away, That I might see the cheerful, peeping day. Sick is my heart! O Saviour! do Thou please To make my bed soft in my sicknesses: Lighten my candle, so that I beneath Sleep not for ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... paused, irresolute. He took off his forage-cap and mopped his brow with his handkerchief, then stood there twisting the cap in his hands. He looked down the dim hall-way, then through the crack of the door, then down at his boots, and all the time Hatton stood there holding wide open the door, yet hoping and praying he would not come in. Something told the lieutenant that the matter so plainly worrying the commanding officer was one neither he nor McLean could speak of if ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... boats and little rakes and hoes and decorate sticks with patterns cut upon the bark. He was clever with his knife and made diligent use of it. He would also stand for hours on the top of a monolith—he thought it was a gate-post—and try to crack his cattle-whip like a pistol-shot. He had to climb to a height to get the lash ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Anthony, and raising his cane, brought it down with a crack on Doyle's head. The chauffeur was half-way up the walk by that time, and broke into a run. He saw Doyle, against the light, reel, recover and raise his fist, but he did not bring ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire; The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats imperious, his staccato note; The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bullrush tipsy with his weight: Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, Feels the soft air, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller |
