"Meteor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in ecstasy, consoled, And my gaze trembles toward the azure arc, When in the wide world-records I behold Flame like a meteor God's finger thro' the dark But if, at times, bowed over the abyss Wherein man crawls toward immortality,— Beholding here how sore his suffering is, I make my prayer with tears, it ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... principal task was to help with an English and Armenian grammar, for which, when it was ready, he wrote a preface. Byron usually came to the monastery only for the day, but there was a bedroom for him which he occasionally occupied. The superior, he says, had a "beard like a meteor." A brother who was there at the time and survived till the seventies told a visitor that his "Lordship was as ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... This treaty, like a rainbow on the edge of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded, at the same time, the sure prognostic of fair weather. If we reject it, the vivid colors will grow pale,—it will be a baleful meteor portending ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... was different. This thing of light and air, this dancing sunbeam, this creature of the morning, exquisite in every detail, perfectly poised, swifter than thought, yet arresting at every turn, vivid as a meteor, yet beyond all scrutiny, all ocular power of comprehension, she set every nerve in him a-quiver. She seized upon his fancy and flung it to and fro, catching a million colours in her radiant flights. She made the hot blood throb in his temples. She beat upon the door of his heart. She ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of liquid in the tall narrow glass. Every now and then he nervously ran his fingers through his straight black hair, which lay damply plastered to his head. His jacket was faded and worn, and above the left pocket was emblazoned the meteor insignia of the spaceman. A dark patch on his back showed where the perspiration had seeped through. He blinked and rubbed the corner of his eye as a drop of perspiration ran down and ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... the ruins in the lands of Hun Doptchin Djamtso there is a small lake which sometimes burns with a red flame, terrifying the Mongols and herds of horses. Naturally this lake is rich with legends. Here a meteor formerly fell and sank far into the earth. In the hole this lake appeared. Now, it seems, the inhabitants of the subterranean passages, semi-man and semi-demon, are laboring to extract this "stone of the sky" from its deep bed and it is setting the water on fire ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... with which we had entertained our minds during its appearance. The rest of the night we passed in melancholy conjectures on the light which had deserted us, which the major part of the sailors concluded to be a meteor. In this distress we had one comfort, which was a plentiful store of provisions; this so supported the spirits of the sailors, that they declared had they but a sufficient quantity of brandy they cared not whether they ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... Odd, but I never knew his surname, or maybe it was his given name, for Gregory could function as well in one respect as the other. He would boast continually of what he would do to wine, women, and song once we returned to Earth. Poor Gregory. The meteor that hulled our ship struck squarely through the engine room where he was on duty. Probably he never knew that he had died. At least his fate had the mercy of being brief. Certainly it is not like mine. ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... came to Wilmington a rough country lad, secured employment, went to work, saved his money, bought property and became a citizen of note and respectability. He joined the engine company and rose like a meteor to its foremost rank. The relations between the races in the South have always been such that it requires a Negro of Spartan courage to face a white man and return blow for blow, it matters not how righteous may be his cause. Captain Nicholas ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... on, muttering to himself: 'What the priest of God has bound, man may not untie—it must be cut asunder!' Unconsciously drawing his sword, he raises it in the air, the glittering blade flashing like a meteor in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... upwards to heaven. The celestial kettle-drums began to play and floral showers were rained down. The Siddhas and regenerate Rishis, filled with delight, exclaimed, 'Excellent, Excellent!' 'The life-breaths of Bhishma, piercing through the crown of his head, shot up through the welkin like a large meteor and soon became invisible. Even thus, O great king, did Santanu's son, that pillar of Bharata's race, united himself with eternity. Then the high-souled Pandavas and Vidura, taking a large quantity ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... few hours in the house with her, would have been deceived, as Mr. Grant had been, for her black eyes were full of animation; her manner was spirited, and her answers were quick and sharp. She was light and rather graceful in form; she did not appear to walk; she flashed about like a meteor. She was bold and daring in her flights, and as strong as most boys of her years. She would not run away from a rude boy; she laughed in the thunder storm, and did not fear to go through the ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... with a laugh went the bonny wee man To his old horse grazing nigh, And away like a meteor flash they went Far ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... shot down that meteor chain And hallow'd all the beauty twice again, Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring, Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing. But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen The dimness of this world: that greyish green That Nature loves the best ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn; Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow: When the ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... other! Loving one another made them love God the more, and love cast out all fear. If this was the Last, they would face it together, and if it proved the Beginning, they would rejoice together. At sight of every shooting meteor, Julia clung ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Himself and give light to the world, but He has chosen differently. He wants to send it through us, and if we don't give it the world will not have it. We should be giving light all the time to our neighbors. God does not put a meteor in the sky to tell us when to shine. We are to be giving light all the time wherever we are, at home, or in the social circle, or in our place in the church. We should feel always we may never have another opportunity for it, and so ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... on the left far up in mid-air a bright light was blazing which we knew at once to be a beacon on South Mountain, many miles distant, though it was too dark to see even the outline of the range. That spot of fire, hanging aloft there in the pitchy darkness like a great meteor, had in it somewhat of portentous awe to us. It seemed the eye of a Cyclops watching the foe. Our imaginations had not yet taken in the scope of a vast army, nor the stupendous movements of a great battle like Gettysburg. The apparition of extended ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... and took the plunge. About half-way down, the descent became suddenly steeper, and the lead-dog swerved to one side, bringing the sledge around like the lash of a whip, overturning it, and shooting me like a huge living meteor through the air into a deep soft drift of snow at the bottom. I must have fallen at least eighteen feet, for I buried myself entirely, with the exception of my lower extremities, which, projecting above the snow, kicked a ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... in the labors of the field, cultivating sorgho, a kind of millet which forms the chief basis of their diet; and the most stupid expressions of astonishment ensued as the Victoria sped past like a meteor. That evening the balloon halted about forty miles from Yola, and ahead of it, but in the distance, rose the two sharp cones ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... he acquired by his own deeds of arms, was far more dear to his excited imagination, than that which a course of policy and wisdom would have spread around his government. Accordingly, his reign was like the course of a brilliant and rapid meteor, which shoots along the face of Heaven, shedding around an unnecessary and portentous light, which is instantly swallowed up by universal darkness; his feats of chivalry furnishing themes for bards and minstrels, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... you, like me, like the first passer-by. Chance unites these individuals physically, the occasion unites them psychologically; they do not know each other, and after the moment when they find themselves together, they may never see each other again. To use a metaphor, it is a psychological meteor, of the most unforeseen, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... place—in shabby, fascinating Jacksonville, where one meets everybody and does nothing in particular except lounge about and be happy. So the Jook and I lounged and were happy with a placid, unexciting sort of happiness, until the day when Kitty Grey descended upon us with the suddenness of a meteor, and very like one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... On September 15 a meteor fell, which might be another omen—nobody could say exactly what it meant. Then about three hundred and sixty leagues from the Canaries the ships began to encounter patches of floating yellow-green sea-weed, which grew more numerous until the fleet was sailing ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... had been touched at length, and on the deep waters beneath was shining Love's own meteor-light—a light that was reflected ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... that some persons discovered, between Manheim and Heidelberg in Germany, a mass of melted glass where a hay-stack had been struck by lightning. They supposed it to be a meteor, but chemical analysis showed that it was only the compound of silica and potash which served to strengthen ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... and the domestics of the family usually sat around them for a considerable time, until supper was prepared. On the night when the conductors of Thorgunna's funeral returned to Froda, there appeared, visible to all who were present, a meteor, or spectral appearance, resembling a half-moon, which glided around the boarded walls of the mansion in an opposite direction to the course of the sun, and continued to perform its revolutions until the domestics retired to rest. This apparition ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... then two silver stripes formed at the bow and ran along the boat. They were surrounded by bright, whirling sparks, and at the bow of the outrigger the gayest fireworks of silver light sprang up, sparkling and dying away as if the boat had been a meteor. The oars, too, dripped light, as though they were bringing up fine silver dust from below. The naked boy in front of me shone like a marble statue on a dark background as his beautiful body worked in rhythmic ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... milliner's hack room,—the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And what are the haughtiest of us, but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's day? Here is a tin-peddler, whose glittering ware bedazzles all beholders, like a travelling meteor, or opposition sun; and on the other side a seller of spruce-beer, which brisk liquor is confined in several dozen of stone bottles. Here comes a party of ladies on horseback, in green riding-habits, and gentlemen attendant; and there a flock of sheep for the market, pattering over the bridge ...
— The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to find a friendly beach. The intensely phosphorescent water flashed about us, the only relief to the inky blackness of the night. Occasionally a salmon or a big halibut, disturbed by our canoe, went streaming like a meteor through the water, throwing off coruscations of light. As we neared the shore, the waves breaking upon the rocks furnished us the only illumination. Sometimes their black tops with waving seaweed, surrounded by phosphorescent breakers, would have ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes the Spark,—the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre; so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and—is gone! The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like a hot iron, and entered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... ladies saw them scrambling down the black, scarped sides of the headland opposite, and then they disappeared behind rocks and into crannies. Then a pink meteor flashed from the black ledge, followed in an instant by a dark-blue one, and both went breasting out to sea. And in front of the cave two less venturesome figures beguiled the onlookers and themselves into the belief that they were ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... the moment when he might pounce unnoticed on his unprepared victim, it followed, with momentary pleasure and excitement, the activity and skill displayed by the harmless paddler, in the swift and meteor-like race that set the troubled surface of the Huron in a sheet of hissing foam. Nor was this all. When the eye turned wood-ward, it fell heavily, and without interest, upon a dim and dusky point, known to enter upon savage scenes and unexplored countries; whereas, whenever it reposed upon the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... would think, 'Perhaps some night When new things happen, a meteor-ball May slip through the sky in a line of light, And earth breathe hard, and landmarks fall, And my waves no longer champ nor chafe, Since a stone will have rolled from its place: ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... lakes of dew, Fairy cliffs of crystal sheen Passed we; and the forest's blue Sea of branches tossed between: Once we saw a gryphon make One soft iris as it passed Like the curving meteor's wake O'er the forest, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... claims our Praise; If Terrour strikes, then Lee deserves the Bays. We grant a Genius shines in Jaffeir's Part, And Roman Brutus speaks a Master's Art. But still we often Mourn to see their Phrase An Earthly Vapour, or at Mounting Blaze. A rising Meteor never was design'd, T'amaze the sober part of Human kind. Were I to write for Fame, I would not chuse A Prostitute and Mercenary Muse. Which for poor Gains must in rich Trappings go, Emptily Gay, magnificently Low, Like Ancient Rome's Religion, ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... smiling:—his last sight 645 Was the great moon, which o'er the western line Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills It rests; and still as the divided frame 650 Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, That ever beat in mystic sympathy With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still: And when two lessening points of light alone Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 655 Of his faint respiration scarce did stir ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... dull and inert in society, as the blazing meteor when it descends to earth is only ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... filled the minds of the people with superstitious notions, and they were strongly disposed to credit and propagate accounts of prodigies, and for that reason more were reported. It was said, "that two suns had been seen; that it had become light for a time during the night; that at Setia a meteor had been seen, extending from the east to the west; that at Tarracina a gate, at Anagnia a gate and the wall in many places, had been struck by lightning; that in the temple of Juno Sospita, at Lanuvium, a noise had been heard, accompanied with a tremendous crash." There was a ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... twilight mountains dark with pine, It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams, 4635 Whose golden waves in many a purple line Fade fast, till borne on sunlight's ebbing streams, Dilating, on earth's verge the sunken meteor gleams. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... held it rigidly grasped in his right hand. Stooping down, he caught a blazing brand with his left, swung it rapidly over his head a few times to give it additional blaze, and then darted away like a meteor directly among the wolverines. The latter scattered in greater terror than ever, but the Indian, instead of ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... cried; And high amid the fields of air, Above the clouds, together we will ride, And posting on the viewless winds, So leave the cares of earth and all its thoughts behind. I can sail, and I can fly, 230 To all regions of the sky, On the shooting meteor's course, On a winged griffin-horse! She spoke: when Wisdom's self drew nigh, A noble sternness in her searching eye; Like Pallas helmed, and in her hand a spear, As not in idle warfare bent, but still, As resolute, to cope with every earthly ill. In youthful dignity severe, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... passing through extensive desolate marshes, the dazzling white plumage of a stationary egret has exercised the same attraction. At night we experience the sensation in a greater degree, when the silver sheen of the moon makes a broad path on the water; or when a meteor leaves a glowing track across the sky; while a still more familiar instance is seen in the powerful attraction on the sight of glowing embers in a darkened room. The mere brightness, or vividness of the contrast, fascinates the mind; but the effect ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... It was easy to understand the hastened throb of her heart upon first becoming aware of his presence. Who has not known what it is to unexpectedly recognise the turn of a certain profile or the characteristic carriage of a pair of shoulders, meaning more to the inner heart than had a meteor flashed across the sky? Most of us have known some one whose smile could make heaven or whose indifference could spell hell to us, and those who by some fortuitous circumstances have spent their life without encountering either one or both these experiences, are still sufficiently ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar;— The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... his companion gently touched him, and pointing in a direction nearly straight across the lake, said 'Yon's ta cove.' A small point of light was seen to twinkle in the direction in which he pointed, and gradually increasing in size and lustre, seemed to flicker like a meteor upon the verge of the horizon. While Edward watched this phenomenon, the distant dash of oars was heard. The measured sound approached near and more near, and presently a loud whistle was heard in the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... of the wood, Bird of an ancient brood, Flitting thy lonely way, A meteor in the summer's day, From wood to wood, from hill to hill, Low over forest, field, and rill, What wouldst thou say? Why shouldst thou haunt the day? What makes thy melancholy float? What bravery inspires thy throat, And bears thee up above the clouds, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... Yon meteor-mantled hill see Franklin tread, Heaven's awful thunders tolling o'er his head, Convolving clouds the billowy skies deform, And forky flames emblaze the blackening storm, See the descending streams around him burn, Glance ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... it had grievously entrapped her. And into what hands! Not into hands which could cast one ray of honour on a devoted head. The contrast between the sane service—giving men she admired, and the hopping skipping social meteor, weaver of webs, thrower of nets, who offered her his history for a nuptial acquisition, was ghastly, most discomforting. He seemed to have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cloisters of a convent, where she had, perhaps, been sequestered, in order that her bloom might not eclipse the declining charms of her mother, and who appeared timid, bashful, and diffident, was no sooner married to a man in a certain rank in life, than she shone as a meteor of extravagance and dissipation. Such a wife thought of nothing but the gratification of her own desires; because she considered it as a matter of course that all the cares of the family ought to devolve by right on the husband. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... lightning. Are we led to think electricity abounds only in the summer when we see storm-clouds, as it were, the veins and ore-beds of it? I imagine it is equally abundant in winter, and more equable and better tempered. Who ever breasted a snowstorm without being excited and exhilarated, as if this meteor had come charged with latent aurorae of the North, as doubtless it has? It is like being pelted with sparks from a battery. Behold the frost-work on the pane,—the wild, fantastic limnings and etchings! can there be any doubt but this subtle agent has ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... the report at ATIC, our first reaction was that the master sergeants had seen a large meteor. From the evidence I had written off, as meteors, all previous similar UFO ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... metaphor,—certainly inhabits the aged bosom of your father's sister). Horatio's upraised eye rested on the wrinkled front of his antique relative, just as the corrective thought gleamed in visionary brightness o'er his brain; the poetic inspiration of the moment fled like the passing meteor, but the feeling which excited it remained engrafted on his memory for ever. "How shall we find him out, my dear Horatio?" said my aunt, her whole countenance animated with delight at the last flattering ejaculation of her nephew-"where ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... had got the first plan well-going and was deciding whether to wear the mauve meteor or the white chiffon with the rosebud embroidery as a first julep for my friends, a sweetness came in through my window that took my breath away and I lay still with my hand over my heart and listened. It was Billy singing right ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... instance, quoted by that interesting physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, shows the same effect upon a large scale. A melted mass of glassy substance was found on a meadow between Mannheim and Heidelberg, in Germany, after a thunder-storm. It was, at first, supposed to be a meteor; but, when chemically examined, it proved to consist of silex, combined with potash,—in the form in which it exists in grasses; and, upon further inquiry, it was ascertained that a stack of hay had stood upon the spot, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening years till now that he took up the search. A third, being encamped on a hunting-expedition full forty miles south of the White Mountains, awoke at midnight and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so that the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the innumerable attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all adventurers, though ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... (Margaret of Burgundy) thought he (Perkin Warbeck) was perfect in his lesson, she began to cast with herself from what coast this blazing star should first appear, and at what time it must be upon the horizon of Ireland; for there had the like meteor strong ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... of realistically moving Saturn was rougher than a cob. And that's where the opposition fixed us. They claimed there wasn't enough drama in the tour. Let it end with a flash of light, a roar, and a meteor striking nearby. ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... day was destined to be one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the Maison Vauquer. Hitherto the most startling occurrence in its tranquil existence had been the portentous, meteor-like apparition of the sham Comtesse de l'Ambermesnil. But the catastrophes of this great day were to cast all previous events into the shade, and supply an inexhaustible topic of conversation for Mme. Vauquer and her boarders so ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... break the spell and mar the process. The clouds are smoother, and slower in their movements, with less definite outlines than those which bring rain. In fact, everything is prophetic of the gentle and noiseless meteor that is approaching, and of the stillness that is to succeed it, when "all the batteries of sound are spiked," as Lowell says, and "we see the movements of life as a deaf man sees it,—a mere wraith of the clamorous existence that inflicts ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... gracious ear; The maid her purpose holds, and ponders momently, And oftentimes grows sick, and cannot speak for fear, But sometimes taketh heart, and sudden hope and strong Shines in her soul, as brightest meteor ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... there is not a more picturesque and dashing character in literature outside of the adventures of Claude Duval. Everywhere we behold him waving his steel (as he calls his sword); he wheels before our dazzled eyes like a meteor; he charges, and the foe fly like sheep before him. And no sooner is he come into town from killing a score or two of Yankees, than the ladies—who are all good Union women and have just taken the oath of allegiance—crowd to kiss and caress him; or, as he puts it in his own vivid language, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... Caroline was now extreme, owing to famine within and war without. In this dark hour, one day, four sails appeared, steering toward the mouth of the river. Was this the long-expected relief from France? Or were these Spanish vessels? Presently "the meteor flag of England" floated out on the breeze, and soon a boat brought a friendly message from the commander, the famous Sir John Hawkins. Being a strenuous Puritan, he was a warm sympathizer with the Protestants of France. Returning from selling a cargo ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... apprentice in his father's law office, Scott took his own way to become a "virtuoso"; a rather queer way it must sometimes have seemed to his good preceptors. He refused point-blank to learn Greek, and cared little for Latin. His scholarship was so erratic that he glanced meteor-like from the head to the foot of his classes and back again, according as luck gave or withheld the question to which his highly selective memory had retained the answer. But outside of school hours he was ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... life! thy glittering wings explore Earth's loneliest bounds and ocean's wildest shore. Lo! to the wintry winds the pilot yields His bark, careering o'er unfathom'd fields; Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar Where Andes, giant of the western star, With meteor-standard to the winds unfurl'd, Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world. Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm, Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form! Rocks, waves, and winds the shatter'd bark delay— Thy heart is ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar:— The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of "surprise packet." Poets, we are told, are born, and not made, but Mr. Powell Williams seems to have been made, and not born. At least, no one seems to know anything much about his early career. He appeared to burst upon the municipal horizon all at once, like a meteor emerging from outer space, but when he came in contact with the Corporation atmosphere he soon became ignited and fired by municipal enthusiasm, and, encouraged by those who perceived his capacity, he rapidly began to be a conspicuous ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... the religion of my nature is so much hidden from my peers? why do they question me, who never question them? why persist to regard as a meteor an orb of assured hope? Can no soul know me wholly? shall I never know the deep delight of gratitude to any but the All-Knowing? I shall wait for —— very peaceably, in reverent love as ever; but I cannot see why he should not have the pleasure ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... little tragic centre of life and death—half its inhabitants in sleep, hushed for a few brief hours in their humble moorland nests. The fall of waters from the weir at the Bridge Factory came up from the valley in dreamy cadences; a light dimly burned in old Joseph's window; and a meteor swept with a mighty arc the western sky. The soul of ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... and all its environing scenes disappeared behind Mousehole and St Clement's Isle, Baptista's ephemeral, meteor-like husband impressed her yet more as a fantasy. She was still in such a trance-like state that she had been an hour on the little packet-boat before she became aware of the agitating fact that Mr Heddegan was on board with her. Involuntarily she slipped ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one. The morning-redness happens to be the favorite meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand to him for truth and faith; and, he believes, should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... thy heart, young Giaour![66] 190 I know thee not, I loathe thy race, But in thy lineaments I trace What Time shall strengthen, not efface: Though young and pale, that sallow front Is scathed by fiery Passion's brunt; Though bent on earth thine evil eye,[cu] As meteor-like thou glidest by, Right well I view and deem thee one Whom Othman's sons ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the second. So this went on till Mr. Brisket resolved that his immediate matrimony should depend on the reality of Johnson's existence. If it should appear that Johnson, with all his paper, was a false meteor; that no one had deceived the metropolitan public; that no one had been taken and had then escaped, he would tell Miss Brown that he did not see his way. The light of his intelligence told him that promissory notes from such a source, even though signed by all the firm, would be illusory. If, on ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... had come over the scene during the time they were at work on the snow-hut. The night had settled down, and now the whole sky was lit up with the vivid and beautiful coruscations of the Aurora Borealis—that magnificent meteor of the north which, in some measure, makes up to the inhabitants for the absence of the sun. It spread over the whole extent of the sky in the form of an irregular arch, and was intensely brilliant. But ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten years, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... it upset the received Aristotelian doctrine of the immutability of the heavens. According to that doctrine the heavens were unchangeable, perfect, subject neither to growth nor to decay. Here was a body, not a meteor but a real distant star, which had not been visible and which would shortly fade away again, but which ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... a falling meteor. I caught her with that quick trick known to all acrobats, which left her ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... Eastern swam up my bay, she was 600 feet long, Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I forget not to sing; Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven, Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shooting over our heads, (A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over our heads, Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;) Of such, and fitful as they, I sing—with gleams from them would ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... in the sweet spring weather, while Roderick was on the stand at Epsom, watching the City and Suburban winner pursue his meteor course along the close-cropped sward, Lord Mallow was sitting at ease in a flowery fauteuil in the Queen Anne morning-room at Kensington, sipping orange-scented tea out of eggshell porcelain, and listening to Lady Mabel's dulcet accents, as she somewhat ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... further in the nature of art would result, and it was not until towards the end of the eighteenth that another genius arose, in the person of FRANCISCO GOYA (1746-1828). Of this extraordinary phenomenon in the firmament of art it is impossible to say more than a very few words in this place. Like a meteor, he is rather to be pointed at than talked about, when there are so many stars and planets whose regular courses have to be observed and recorded. He was like a sharp knife drawn across the face of Spain, gashing it here and there, but for the most part just touching ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... foolish young man called Kuvalda Meteor. One night he came to sleep in the dosshouse, and had remained ever since among these men, much to their astonishment. At first they did not take much notice of him. In the daytime, like all the others, he went away to find something ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... sensations to be nothing short of thrilling. For it must be borne in mind that this was her first and wholly unexpected outburst into society; the experience was that of an obscure aerolite suddenly become a noble meteor. She longed to say or do something magnificent—something strange and exhilarating, in keeping with her new ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Numbers of Elevation in R. Obs. (Also English Feet, and of Readings of Aneroid Meteor. Soc. or Corrected Barometer in ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... malice thou inspirest I never fail On thee to wreak the tribute when I rail; Fool's commonplace thou art, their weak ensconcing fort, Th'appeal of dulness in the last resort: Heaven, with a parent's eye regarding earth, Deals out to man the planet of his birth: But sees thy meteor blaze about me shine, And passing o'er, mistakes thee still for mine: Ah, should I tell a secret yet unknown, That thou ne'er hadst a being of thy own, But a wild form dependent on the brain, Scattering loose features ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... He had felt her coldness to him much more severely than he had that of Mary Bonner. He had taught himself to look upon that little episode with Mary as though it had really meant nothing. She had just crossed the sky of his heaven like a meteor, and for a moment had disturbed its serenity. And Polly also had been to him a false light, leading him astray for awhile under exceptional, and, as he thought, quite pardonable circumstances. But dear little Clary had been his own peculiar star,—a star that was bound to have been true ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... today amid a hurricane of wind ... I walked with a childish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showers of beauty to the body. It rained grace ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... at Harvard supplemented its account by recording the falling, just before dawn of the 11th, of an extraordinarily brilliant meteor that flamed with a curious red and green light as it entered the earth's atmosphere. This meteor did not burn itself out, but fell, still retaining its luminosity, from a point near the zenith, ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... waking eyes are dream-held too; With gold a meteor marks the deep-domed sky And fountain-like the fiery sparks float by. Oh! Beauty of the Eastern Night, you woo My spirit like the odalisque, who held Men captive till ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... lamp that hung from the mast of the vessel, casting a tremulous flicker on the sombrous tide, when all at once a great noise like the crash of thunder, or the roll of cannon, echoed through the air, and a meteor more brilliant than an imperial crown of diamonds, flared through the sky from height to depth, and with a blazing coruscation of flying stars and flame, dropped hissingly down into the sea. The fishermen startled, all looked up—the ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... ago, and explained how it had come about. He too found a solar system. But he was less fortunate than I, and while exploring this uninhabited system, far out still from the central sun, where there should have been no masses of matter, one of those rare things, a giant stony meteor that even a magnetic shield will not stop careened into the rear of his ship. Damaged badly, barely able to move, they settled to a planet. The atmosphere was breathable, the temperature mild. But while they could navigate planetary distances, they could ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... Bengaline, Berber, Brocade, Brocatel, Bombazine, Chenille, Chiffon, China Silk, Crepe, Crepe de Chine, Eolienne, Foulard, Glace, India Silk, Japanese Silk, Jersey Cloth, Meteor, Moire, Mozambique, Organzine, Panne, Peau de Soie, Plush, Pongee, Popeline, Poplin, Figured Poplin, Terry Poplin, Sarsenet, Satin, Soleil, Taffeta, Tulle, Velour, Velvet, Velveteen, Tabby ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... delay before the answer came. "Captain, we've taken a meteor strike aft, apparently a metallic body. It must have hit us a tremendous wallop because it's set up a rotation. ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... the soul; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. Man, but for that, no action could attend, And but for this, were active to no end: Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Destroying others, by himself destroyed. Most strength the moving principle requires; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead. As, on the jag of a mountain crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle, alit, one moment may sit In the light of its ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... whose "time-honoured" noise you durst not find fault with, even if you would, and which you come insensibly to like; and that huge long-bodied hornet,[3] that angry and terrible disturber of the peace, borne on wings, as it were, of the wind, and darting through space like a meteor! ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... lighthouse was enveloped in flames nearly to the bottom, for the outside planking, being caulked and covered with pitch, was very inflammable. The top glowed against the dark sky and looked in the midst of the smoke like a fiery meteor. The Eddystone Rock was suffused with a dull red light, as if it were becoming red hot, and the surf round it appeared to hiss against the fire, while in the dark shadow of the cave the three lighthouse keepers were seen ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... child of want and woe! A brilliant meteor in an ebon sky! Thy soul's weird music all did flow From ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... wounded and the soldiers were wholly engrossed in caring for him. During the delay which ensued they learned that a body of the enemy had come from home with a huge fleet commanded by Hanno, and they turned their attention to these new arrivals. When the forces had been marshaled in hostile array, a meteor like a star appeared above the Romans and after rising high to the left of the Carthaginians plunged into their ranks. The naval combat was a vigorous one on the part of both nations, and for several reasons; especially were the Carthaginians ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... them to discharge their civil and religious duties. Thus it was a rule of the Spartan constitution that every eighth year the ephors should choose a clear and moonless night and sitting down observe the sky in silence. If during their vigil they saw a meteor or shooting star, they inferred that the king had sinned against the deity, and they suspended him from his functions until the Delphic or Olympic oracle should reinstate him in them. This custom, which ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... bestriding their fantastical steed; the one an old hag with hideous lineaments and distorted person, and the other a proud dame, still beautiful, though no longer young, pale as death, and her loose jetty hair streaming like a meteor ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Lady Mary was coming to Florence came to the ears of Horace Walpole, who was staying there. If he had not yet made her acquaintance, he certainly knew much about her. "On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor," he wrote to Richard West, July 31, 1740. "Those learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole[9] are to be joined by the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. You have not been witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and consequently cannot ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... gold flashed splendidly in the sun! Our voyage, thus far, had been one of surprises, and this was not the least. Crowning a slender, pointed roof, its connection with the latter was not immediately visible: it seemed to spring into the air and hang there, like a marvellous meteor shot from the sun. Presently, however, the whole building appeared,—an hexagonal church, of pale-red brick, the architecture of which was an admirable reproduction of the older Byzantine forms. It stood upon a rocky islet, on either side of which a narrow channel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... slow. As it gained height it looked—save for its speed—like a fantastic meteor flaming through the night, for the orange plumage that streamed from beneath lit the ball with dazzling color. A glowing sphere, it staggered midway between floor and ceiling, creeping ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... him three days (July 13th-16th, 1749), in his Royal Cottage of Sans-Souci seemingly, in his choicest manner. Curiosity, which is now nothing like so vivid as it then was, would be glad to listen a little, in this meeting of two Suns, or of one Sun and one immense Tar-Barrel, or Atmospheric Meteor really of shining nature, and taken for a Sun. But the Books are silent; not the least detail, or hint, or feature granted us. Only Fancy;—and this of Smelfungus, by way of long farewell ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe With haggard eyes the Poet stood (Loose his beard and hoary hair Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air), And with a master's hand and prophet's fire Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre: 'Hark, how each giant oak and desert-cave Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; Vocal no ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... There was a pass here beyond which the reefs began once more and stretched on, a barrier to the shoal inside waters. When the skiff had drawn about the sand spit, the reflecting waters around the Marie had vanished, and the fire appeared as a fallen meteor burning on the flat, black belt ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... full high advanced Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind, With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed, Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while Sonorous ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... say, they're always accompanied by a dazzling light, as they shoot through space, burning the air along with them. Yes, siree, that must have been a big meteor stone." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... invite thee to her hall, Regard not thou her tempting call Her splendors meteor glare; Tho' courteous Flattery there await And Wealth adorn the dome of State, There stalks the midnight spectre CARE; PEACE, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... all-composing Hour Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the Power— She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold Of night primeval and of chaos old! Before her Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires, As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain; As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand oppress'd Closed one by one to everlasting ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... as out of a theatre or a dream, to find the east wind still blowing and the chimney-pots of the old battered city still around you. Jack has the far finer mind, Burly the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated poetry, Burly the romantic prose, of similar themes; the one glances high like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; the other, with many changing hues of fire, burns at the sea-level, like a conflagration; but both have the same humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched ardour in pursuit, the same gusts of talk ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as usual, discharged not merely balls of stone and iron to demolish the walls, but flaming balls of inextinguishable combustibles designed to set fire to the houses. One of these, which passed high through the air like a meteor, sending out sparks and crackling as it went, entered the window of a tower which was used as a magazine of gunpowder. The tower blew up with a tremendous explosion; the Moors who were upon its battlements were hurled into the air, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... and forms which had been her gospel; his bantering, indifferent attitude toward life—to her always so serious and sacred; she suspected that he even might have unorthodox views on matters of religion. When he had gone she somehow had the feeling that a great fiery meteor of unknown portent had swept ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to sleep. The child's imagination was aflame. This scarlet woman, this meteor from hell flashing before the delighted eyes of men, she, then, had bound Hubert for ever in her toils; no release for him now, no ransom to eternity. No instant's doubt of the news came to Adela; in her eyes imprimatur ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... with wonder, and some with terrour, but wonder and terrour are transitory passions. He will soon be more closely viewed, or more attentively examined; and what folly has taken for a comet, that from its flaming hair shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the vapours of putrefying democracy, and kindled into flame by the effervescence of interest, struggling with conviction; which, after having plunged its followers in a bog, will leave us, inquiring ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... low on the horizon, and with the rapidity peculiar to these low latitudes, was about to set vertically, like an enormous meteor. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... cry between the silences, A shadow-birth of clouds at strife With sunshine on the hills of life; Between the cradle and the shroud, A meteor's flight ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of politicks was introduced. JOHNSON. 'Pulteney was as paltry a fellow as could be. He was a Whig, who pretended to be honest; and you know it is ridiculous for a Whig to pretend to be honest. He cannot hold it out.' He called Mr Pitt a meteor; Sir Robert Walpole a fixed star. He said, 'It is wonderful to think that all the force of government was required to prevent Wilkes from being chosen the chief magistrate of London, though the liverymen knew he would ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... spirit of mortal be proud? Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes from life to his ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... mercifully spare you,) when a chance peep into Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets' showed me mine own fine subject as the work of some long-forgotten bard! This moral earthquake demolished in a moment my goodly aerial fabric; the fair plot burst like a meteor; and an after-recollection of a certain French tragedy-queen, Agrippina, showed me that the ground was still further preoccupied. But it is high time to tell the destined name of my abortive play; in four ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... The old graveyard, with its over-arching trees and long aisles of shadows, faded from her sight. Instead, she saw the Kingsport Harbor of nearly a century agone. Out of the mist came slowly a great frigate, brilliant with "the meteor flag of England." Behind her was another, with a still, heroic form, wrapped in his own starry flag, lying on the quarter deck—the gallant Lawrence. Time's finger had turned back his pages, and that was the Shannon sailing triumphant ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... evening cloud impress'd, Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines Delightfully, to th' levell'd sun opposed: Lovely refraction ! while the vivid brede In listed colours glows, th' unconscious swain, With vacant eye, gazes on the divine Phenomenon, gleaming o'er the illumined fields, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... summoned that it was my fortune to see the shower of falling stars in November, 1833. From the time I arose until after daylight there was no part of the heavens that was not illuminated—not with one meteor merely—but with many hundreds. Many of them left a long train, extending through twenty, thirty, or even forty degrees. I called at Bard's window and told him that the stars were falling, but he refused to ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... upon their dignified old heads. The whole place seemed aware of him. Glancing a moment at the upper nursery windows, he could just distinguish the bars through which his little hands once netted stars, and as he did so a meteor shot across the sky its flashing light of wonder. Behind the Little Cedar it dived into the sunset afterglow. And, hardly had it dipped away, when another, coming crosswise from the south, drove its length of molten, shining wire straight ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the retardation of the earth (which is hypothetically assumed to exist) may be due in part, or wholly, to the increase of the moment of inertia of the earth by meteors falling upon its surface. This suggestion also meets with the entire approval of Sir W. Thomson, who shows that meteor-dust, accumulating at the rate of one foot in 4,000 years, would account for the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... his name Was mighty on the earth; to-day,—'tis what? The meteor of the night of distant years, That flashed unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld, Musing, at midnight, upon prophecies, Who at her only lattice, saw the gleam Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly Closed her pale lips, and locked the secret up, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... little mountain with the force of shot fired from the great guns of a battle-ship, and shattered there, or if they fell upon its side, tore away tons of rock and passed with them into the chasm like a meteor surrounded by its satellites. Indeed, no bombardment devised and directed by man could have been half so terrible or, had there been anything to destroy, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... wise, were grandiose great, How many a servant of the State Had left a more enduring name. But all is not for all; 'tis far From flaming meteor to fixed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... seem to be exceptional. The number of known or suspected accordances of cometary tracks with meteor streams contained in a list drawn up in 1878[1216] by Professor Alexander S. Herschel (who has made the subject peculiarly his own) amounts to seventy-six; although the four first detected still remain the most conspicuous, and perhaps the only absolutely sure examples of a relation ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... age as the artist, did his work and lapsed into imbecility, surviving him sixteen years; Richardson became the happy father of the English Novel; Sterne took his Sentimental Journey; Chatterton, the meteor, flashed across the literary sky; Gray mused in the churchyard and laid his head upon the lap of earth; Burns was promoted from the Excise to be the idol of all Scotland. The year that Gainsborough died, Napoleon, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard |
