"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... horizon, a brown wilderness dotted with ruins. Ruins of villas, of farms, of temples, with here and there a church or a monastery that told of the newer time. Olives in scant patches, a lost vineyard, a speck of tilled soil, proved that men still laboured amid this vast and awful silence, but rarely was a human figure visible. As they approached the city, marshy ground and stagnant pools lay on either hand, causing them to glance sadly at those great ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... overlooked in the wonder at seeing him lurch upward through the air, all glorious in black tights and yellow breech-clout. Up and up he soars above the tree-tops, and the wind gently wafts him along, a pendant to a dusky globe hanging in the sky. He is just a speck now swaying to and fro. The globe plunges upward; the pendant drops like a shot. There is a rustling sound. It is the intake of the breath of horror from ten thousand pairs of lungs. Look! Look! The edges of the parachute ruffle, and then it blossoms out like an opening ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... the front of the line, his shaggy mane by which came his name floating over his shoulders. Out into the sunshine of a perfect day the riders went, and the group around the platform stood silently and watched until they were a speck in the distance blurring with the sunny plain and occasional ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... laugh, Hugh, but I am in earnest. You have not watched the storms as I have; you do not know how suddenly they come. Even in the summer, a speck of a cloud will grow into a thunder-storm in a few minutes, and in the autumn the gales are fearful. I remember last year in September, two vessels were lost in plain sight from the bank where we were standing a moment ago. One came driving down the lake at daylight and went ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... recently. But close by, behind the horizontal branch of the great oak, was a tangled patch of undergrowth and brambles, broken and pressed down in places, as though it had been entered by a human being. As Colwyn was looking at this place, his eye was attracted by a yellow speck in the background of green. It was a tiny fragment of khaki, caught on one of ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... over Dulcie got up and took off her best dress, and put on her old blue kimono. She wanted no dinner. She sang two verses of "Sammy." Then she became intensely interested in a little red speck on the side of her nose. And after that was attended to, she drew up a chair to the rickety table, and told her fortune with an ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... bunk house and thought of these things, his eye was attracted by a speck moving toward him across the prairie. He watched it with the interest one might have in a ship at sea; as one watches in a place in which few moving things are seen. The speck was small, and was coming toward ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... irate at the charge of having aught of Green in her eye?—hath with her cambric handkerchief rubbed the sinister orb into a state of roseate irritation—externally—but there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor speck, nor fly,—Green or otherwise—nor particle of solid opaque matter floating in it. 'Tis, indeed, pure optic illusion on the Widow's part, illusion born, perchance, partly of fear, partly of pique. There is nothing, my dear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... to rise in swift whorls, and the next I knew it was speeding eastward again till it became a speck in ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... about to resume his beat when he was joined by his inspector. The latter agreed that the conclusion arrived at by the constable was probably the right one and they were about to pass on when the inspector noticed a small speck of light shining through the lower part of the painted window, where a small piece of the paint had either been scratched or had shelled off the glass. He knelt down and found that it was possible to get a view of the interior of the office, and as he peered ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... we found a little work being done in a dry gulch near the river bank. We made our camp at this spot and had plenty of wood, water and grass. We found there was something to be learned in the art of gold mining. We had no tools nor money, and had never seen a speck of native gold and did not know how to separate it from the dirt nor where to search for it. We were poor, ignorant emigrants. There were two or three men camped here. One of them was more social than the ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... the Rat Leprosy and on the Fate of the Human and Rat Leper Bacillus in Flies. Jour. Infec. Diseases, Vol. 5, No. 5, 1908. Discussion and references, experiments with flies, summary, etc. More than 1,115 lepra-like bacilli were counted in a single fly-speck. ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... I saw a black dot there, but it was only my fancy creating what I expected my sight to behold. Let us look again all around the horizon, where it touches the water, following it as we would a line. Ah, I think I see a dark speck, just a black mote at this distance, and I am still unable to separate fancy from fact, but it may be fact. What do you ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... went into the yard to watch the far-away speck in the sky that was humming so persistently. "Why, there's another! There are two of them," he exclaimed, as ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... little star in the nebula of Orion's belt; so distant that it will take light a thousand millions of years to come from it to the earth, journeying at the rate of twelve millions of miles a minute. There is no Heaven this side of that: you see all the way through: there is not a speck of Heaven; and do you think there is any beyond it; and if so, when would you reach it? There is no Providence. Nature is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; thought is a fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous result of a fortuitous ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... animals do, upon elements that have gone through the cycle of vegetable life. The secret of vegetable life, then, is in the green substance of the leaf where science is powerless to unlock it. Conjure with the elements as it may, it cannot produce the least speck of living matter. It can by synthesis produce many of the organic compounds, but only from matter that has already been through the organic cycle. It has lately produced rubber, but from ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... few ripples, a few undulations that, left behind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of the ship, subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circular stillness of water and sky with the black speck of the moving hull ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... without a certain satisfaction that we stood there and contemplated the scene. The little dark speck down there — our tent — in the midst of this chaos, gave us a feeling of strength and power. We knew in our hearts that the ground would have to be ugly indeed if we were not to manoeuvre our way across it and find a place for that little home of ours. Crash upon crash, roar ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... car thundered by the little house asleep. But the police did not glance that way—nor did the big, white-capped man glance that way. His eyes were fixed on the racer ahead—dwindling to a speck in its cloud of dust. He pushed up his visor and laughed aloud. "Give it up!" he said genially, "give it up!—you can't catch that car!—I know my own car, I guess!" He laughed again. "We shall find it somewhere along the road—when he is through ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... own home and cooked and served their own meals. We used wooden trays and wooden spoons. Once a week all the cullud chillun went to the Big House to eat dinner. The table was out in de yard. My nickname was "Speck". I didn't like to eat bread and milk when I went up there and I'd just sit there. Finally they'd let me go in de house and my mother would feed me. She was the house woman and my Auntie was cook. I don't know why ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... hed too much. I ain't a speck thankful! I'm mightily t'other thing, whatever 'tis. Write to her yourself, if you're a mind tu. You can make a better fist at it, anyways. Comes as nateral to women to lie as sap to run. I'll be etarnally blessed ef I touch paper for to do it." And he flung ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... Hal sent the airship lower and lower. Soon, a faint gray speck below became visible, assuming larger and larger proportions, until all aboard ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... let me prescribe to you. Use a little bit of alum twice or thrice in a week, no bigger than half your nail, till it has all dissolved in your mouth, and then spit out. This has fortified my teeth, that they are as strong as the pen of Junius.(1061) I learned it of Mrs. Grosvenor, who had not a speck in her teeth to her death. For your other complaints, I revert to my old sermon, temperance. If you will live in a hermitage, methinks it is no great addition to live like a hermit. Look in Sadeler's prints, they had beards down to their girdles; and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... he moved about, and clomb Even to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, Down that long water opening on the deep Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go From less to less and vanish into light. And the new sun rose bringing the ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... had reached us from Cape Town. We used to ride morning and evening on the flat country which surrounds Mafeking, where no tree or hill obscures the view for miles; and one then realized what a tiny place the seat of government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate really was, a mere speck of corrugated iron roofs on the brown expanse of the burnt-up veldt, far away from everywhere. I think it was this very isolation that created the interest in the siege at home, and one of the reasons why the Boers were so anxious to ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... summit of the hill, every morning from daylight until the sun sunk, did we sweep the horizon, in hope of seeing a sail. At every fleeting speck which arose from the bosom of the sea, the heart bounded, and the telescope was lifted to the eye. If a ship appeared here, we knew she must be bound to us; for on the shores of this vast ocean (the largest in the world) we were the only community which possessed ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... out of a tall French window to a terrace, and from the terrace to the ground. There was a dull muttering in the sky to the east, and a speck appeared, drew nearer swiftly, grew larger, and became a small army biplane. It descended steeply to earth behind a tall planting of trees. Bell lighted a cigarette and moved purposelessly down an ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... close to her, with a mute grief clearly written in his sober, sagacious countenance, and each clung to the other, as to a last stay and solace. He was a powerful animal, with huge limbs, and a think, shaggy covering, sable as midnight, without a speck of white about him. Around his neck was a silver chain, supporting a broad piece of plate, on which was engraved, in German letters, the single word, "Hartwell." How long she sat there Beulah knew not; but a growl roused ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... mount was scattering the pebbles of the river-bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her overnight that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... had yet left us, a sail had been discerned from the fore-top-mast-head, at a great distance, probably three leagues or more. At first it was a mere speck, altogether out of sight from the deck. By the force of attraction, or something else equally inscrutable, two ships in a calm, and equally affected by the currents, will always approximate, more ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... smartest chaps going, good at my job, with prospects as rosy as any man's in my regiment. There wasn't a cloud the size of your hand, apparently, in my particular bit of sky at the time I speak of; not a speck! Then I met this young lady, and— [pointing to the box-ottoman] well, ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked out in pink letters the name ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... from the rugged main shore, a mile away to the east of us; then it increased to a chorus of wailing, and we knew that the Indians had that morning abandoned their dogs there. The wailing continued, then we saw a tiny black speck coming from the far shore. When it was half-way across the ice-cold bay we could hear the gasps of a tired swimmer. He got along fairly, dodging the cakes of ice, until within about 200 yards, when his course ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... The children did not care a fig about that kind of talk; so they walked off to a corner, and began to play with some funny things they found. One was an old man all made of black wadding, and another was a very fat old woman made of white wadding. The old woman hadn't the least speck of a foot to stand on; her body was just a great round roll of wadding, without legs; I never saw a real, live old woman without legs, did you? But this one must have come from no one knows where. You see, she and the black wadding man were left by Santa Claus ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... one whuppin' dat I 'members, an' dat wuz jist a middlin' one. De massa told me ter pick de cotton an' I sot down in de middle an' didn't wuck a speck. De oberseer come an' he frailed me wid a cotton-stalk; he wuz a heap meaner ter de niggers dan Massa Dick wuz. I saw some niggers what wuz beat bad, but I ain't neber had no ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... pavement, dreading to speck his exquisite boots, and how artlessly he would carry one glove in his hand, in order to show oil his elegant ring. His umbrella was the size of an ordinary young lady's parasol, and as for his collars—of course it was impossible to turn his head one way or the other with those things ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... acquisition so beautiful and so unique. This diamond was called the "Regent." It is of the size of a greengage plum, nearly round, of a thickness which corresponds with its volume, perfectly white, free from all spot, speck, or blemish, of admirable water, and weighs more than 500 grains. I much applauded myself for having induced the Regent to make ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... helped, by their goading cries, to render the death of these wretched beings more wretched still. And in the midst of these old men, a little septuagenarian, dainty, powdered, flicking his lace shirt frill if a speck of dust settled there, pinching his Spanish tobacco from a golden snuff-box, with a diamond monogram, eating his "amber sugarplums" from a Sevres bonbonniere, given him by Madame du Barry, and adorned with the donor's portrait—this septuagenarian—conceive the picture, my dear Sir John—dancing ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... forehead. Just across a conical hill rose into the golden air, the highest hill in all the countryside, but here but a little thing, for the loch was as high as many a hill-top. Just on its face was a scaur, and there a raven—a speck—was wheeling slowly. Among the little islands broods of mallard were swimming, and trout in a bay were splashing with wide circles. The whole place had seemed caught up into an ecstasy, a riot ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Jeff up here, and let him graze, while I go over to that camp"—indicating a white speck between the trees—"and then I may inquire if any one has seen a girl like Tavia pass up ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... been sighted from aloft. This news sent a thrill of joy into the hearts of all on board, for Spark Island lay ten leagues off the coast of Kalorama. Every eye was now fixed in the direction indicated, and many were the glasses brought into use. After various scannings, what seemed a mere speck on the horizon was pronounced by the commander to be nothing less than the famous Spark Island, a bit of land quite resembling the steeple of one of our fashionable churches, and which nature, in one of her strange freaks had ejected from the bottom of the sea, that certain gulls ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... already turned blue; and as she pressed it slightly, a whitish froth issued from the mouth. From between his lashes she brushed away some speck, very carefully, as though fearful of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... America, in a passage whose picturesque beauty has made it one of the commonplaces of literature, in which he represents the angel of Lord Bathurst drawing up the curtain of futurity, unfolding the rising glories of England, and pointing out to him America, a little speck scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, yet which was destined before he tasted of death to show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which then attracted the admiration of the world. There are many now ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... deeper, and the chill that had begun during the past days to creep about her heart tightened and grew cold, as if it were changing to an icy band, which would freeze her pulses in its tightening clasp. She looked out through the sunshine, watching the light boat till it became a mere speck in the distance, and finally disappeared among the windings of the long curve of land which stretched ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... will, for a splash in the water or the slightest sound would call the attention of the sentries there, and if the alarm were given the boats of the two ships outside would have us to a certainty. I think the night is going to be most favourable. The clouds are low, and I have felt a speck or two of mist; it will come on faster presently, and it will want keen eyes to see five yards away when the night falls. Luckily there is not a breath of wind at present; and I hope there will not be until ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... eyes from his face to the path of moon beams in which Leonard's boat floated far off like a dark speck against the ripples of light. When she went on, it was in a lower tone, with a note in her voice which Flint had never heard there before,—the ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and that ribbon is the boundary between Empire and Republic. On such a clear day as this the view from the hill is extraordinarily interesting. From its grassy top a little aeroplane cannon stares to heaven, watching the east for the danger speck; and the circumference of the hill is furrowed by a deep trench—a "bowel," rather—winding invisibly from one subterranean observation post to another. In each of these earthly warrens (ingeniously wattled, roofed and iron-sheeted) stand two ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... animated discussion on their future prospects, the signal was given, that the steamer was in sight, and had already rounded the point. How audibly to herself did Flora's heart beat, as a small, black speck in the distance gradually increased to a black cloud; and not a doubt remained, that ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... my respects to Dr. Angelo and other friends, whose extreme courtesy and goodness had made my residence at Cameta so agreeable. After dinner the guests, according to custom at the house of the Correias, walked into the cool verandah which overlooks the river; and there we saw the Santa Rosa, a mere speck in the offing miles away, tacking down river with a fine breeze. I was now in a fix, for it would be useless attempting to overtake the cuberta, and besides the sea ran too high for any montaria. I was then told that ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... is seen in the far distant depths of space as a faint and scarcely discernible speck. It draws nearer and nearer with continually increasing velocity, growing continually larger and brighter. Faster and faster it rushes on until it makes its nearest approach to our sun, and then, sweeping ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... a little speck, And then it seemed a mist: It moved and moved, and took at last A certain ...
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and he watched the guns flashing like another stream along the water, and then looked again to the Lewallen cabin. Never, morning, noon, or night, when he came from the rhododendrons, or when they closed about him, did he fail to turn his eyes that way. Often he would see a bright speck moving about the dim lines of the cabin, and he would scarcely breathe while he watched it, so easily would it disappear. Always he had thought it was Martha, and now he knew it was, for the old miller had told him more of the girl, and had wrung his heart with pity. She had ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... The machine appeared, a distant speck in the clear sky. It grew rapidly larger, flying fast. It was seen to be a biplane. It passed directly over the camp, flying so low that the head of the pilot was plainly visible. In a few minutes it passed from sight. The hum of its engines grew fainter. But till ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... knows that if a bottle be so much as turned in its couch it must sleep again for years before it is really fit to drink; he knows how difficult it is to get the wine out of the bottle clear as ruby or yellow diamond; he knows that if so much as a speck of sediment gets into the decanter, to precisely the extent of the speck is the ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... ex-sheriff reached in his vest for a cigar. As he bit the end off and felt for a match, he saw a black speck wavering in the distance. He shaded his eyes ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... climb up to the edge of the boat and peer down into the water. Finally he could brook the delay no longer and plunged boldly overboard; but he had either changed his mind or lost his reckoning, for he started back in the direction from which he had come, and the last I saw of him he was a mere speck vanishing in ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... gardening. With such a fund of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity. There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiours in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which disgusted Voltaire so much ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... the distance a moving speck on the water caught his eye. For a few minutes he watched it in suspense, then gave ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... look at her necklace in the pool, and caught sight of a speck of vivid scarlet on the brow of the hill—another and another. They were the huntsmen returning from their unsuccessful run, for she had seen the breathless panting fox an hour before when he crossed the moor ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... appears in 'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser the gold is, the sooner it appears. A practised digger can work off the last speck of gravel, without losing a 'colour', by just working the water round and off in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, recover practically ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... the cliff road and coming from the direction of Northbourne a black speck developed, resolving itself at last into the form of an old man carrying a basket. The basket was filled with apples and Banbury cakes. Jones bought eight Banbury cakes and two apples with his one and nine pence, and then took his seat on the warm turf by the way to devour ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... front, taking a water view, lay the batteries that had been built on the rocks which form the south-western termination of the island. Over these rocks, which were black and picturesque, and over the batteries they supported, was obtained a view of the noble bay, dotted here and there with some speck of a sail, or possibly with some vessel anchored on its placid bosom. Of the two rows of elegant houses, most of them of brick, and with very few exceptions principally of two stories in height, it is scarcely necessary to speak, as there ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... or sixty miles we had seen the Cassala mountain—at first a blue speck above the horizon. It now rose in all the beauty of a smooth and bare block of granite, about 3,500 feet above the level of the country with the town of Cassala at the base, and the roaring torrent Gash flowing at our feet. When we reached the end of the day's march, it was ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... chemical atom is so infinitesimally small that it requires a group of not less than a billion to make the group barely visible under the most powerful microscope, and a thousand such groups would have to be put together in order to make it just visible to the naked eye as a mere speck ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... mountains mingled with the skies, and the last dim speck of land having faded, we set our eyes to scan the waste of sea before us. From Madeira's fair groves we passed barren Masilia, the Cape of Green, the Happy Isles, Jago, Jalofo, and vast Mandinga, the hated shore of the Gorgades, the jutting cape called by us ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... perfection of appliance, Faith merged at length in undisputed sight, The mystic mover was revealed to science, No Dark Companion, but — a speck of light. ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... dwelt on the first floor. He was too weak to go upstairs by himself, and he and his friend therefore walked into the front room together. It was in complete order, although it was so early in the morning. Everything was dusted; even the lower fire-bar had not a speck of ashes on it, and on the hob already was a saucepan in which Mrs. Coleman proposed to cook the one o'clock dinner. On the walls were portraits of Sir Francis Burdett, Major Cartwright, and the mezzotint engraving of Sadler's Bunyan. ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... the low-hung sun, far in the south. Perhaps a quarter mile in that direction lay the white rise of a hill much larger than its fellows, probably, the man thought, a volcano. Towards it he laboriously made his way. His tiny figure was only a speck on the far-flung, deserted landscape—a human mite, puny and futile against the giant, hostile ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... sun was low, though it was possible, as Raoul perceived, to detect the speck that was still swinging at the Minerva's fore-yard-arm; a circumstance to which the young man, with considerate feeling, refrained from adverting. The Proserpine had been some time in motion, standing out of the fleet under a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sunshine of Christ's presence, will need a dance to enliven him, or a horse race—or a walking match—to keep up his interest in life. There will be "melody in his heart" without the opera; and life will be full and bright and strong, without a speck of tinsel pleasure. Work will be sweet, and play will be joyous; and by one and by the ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... the blue above me, A tiny speck in the sky, Rained down from its bosom's fulness A shower of melody, Dropping through the golden ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... there was nothing of that human warmth which shows that sympathy has reached the soul beneath the mask of flesh it wears. The look was that of remoteness, of utter isolation. There was in its stony apathy, it seemed to him, the pathos which we find in the blind who show no film or speck over the organs of sight; for Nature had meant her to be lovely, and left out nothing but love. And yet the master could not help feeling that some instinct was working in this girl which was in some way leading her to seek his presence. She did not ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... he did try, and succeeded, for the kite was carried upward on the breeze as lightly as a feather; and when the string was all out, John stood in great delight, holding fast the stick and gazing on the kite, which now seemed like a little white speck in the blue sky. "Look, look, aunt, how high it flies! and it pulls like a team of horses, so that I can hardly hold it. I wish I had a mile of string: I am sure it would go to the ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... desert us. It usually came in about one o'clock, but that hour and another had passed and yet we watched for the first change. Without a breeze our chances of overhauling the stranger were gone. Only a white speck like the wing of a gull now marked her whereabouts on the edge of the horizon, and in another hour she would be invisible even ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... from his table; He kisses his child and wife; Then he haunts a wood, till he orphans a brood, Or robs a deer of its life. He aims at a speck in the azure; Winged love, that has flown at a call; It reels down to die, and he lets it lie; His pleasure was ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Clyde-built steamers was a different matter. Perhaps a lookout in the maintop of a cruiser, steaming idly about the Atlantic, between Nassau and Wilmington, would spy, far off on the horizon, a black speck, moving swiftly along the ocean. No curling smoke would tell of the blockade-runner's presence, and nothing could be seen until the hull of the steamer itself was perceptible. With the quick hail of the lookout, the man-of-war would head for the prize, and start in hot pursuit. Certain ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... looked about for birds, but saw none. My aged informant said, "In the winter there are some doves." No wild beast haunt the environs; they cannot get at the water. The people keep a few sheep, goats, and fowls. There are also a dozen or so of camels. It is remarkable that the soil of this speck of vegetable existence is entirely sandy, and all the water comes out of the sand. But in places, indeed, on the coast of Barbary, the finest and most vigorous vegetation often bursts forth out of a purely ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... miles away, a speck on the dusty carpet of the desert, something moved! Hours must elapse before that tiny figure, provided it were approaching, could reach the solitary palm. Delightedly, Rita contemplated the infinity of time. Even if the figure moved ever so slowly, she should be waiting there beneath the palm to ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Melbury won her. She was a child of a woman, and would cry like rain if so be he huffed her. Whenever she and her husband came to a puddle in their walks together he'd take her up like a half-penny doll and put her over without dirting her a speck. And if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he'll make her as nesh as her mother was. But here ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... on the ground, still hesitating and troubled, 'The Joy of the flourishing tree and the Lord of all Magnificence is my Lord,' he answered slowly, 'the gift I crave is unworthy of his bountiful goodness. How shall one small speck of dust be noticed in the full blaze of the noonday sun? Yet, in truth, I have promised this mere speck of dust, this white stranger woman, by the mouth of my interpreter, that I would mention to my lord's sublimity her desire to bask in the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... left to right, at the same time pouring out a rapid flood of words. They had caught sight of a hawk high up and far away from them, and they were trying to persuade it to fly towards the right. Presently the hawk, a tiny speck in the sky, sailed slowly out of sight behind a hill on the right, and the men settled themselves to watch for a second hawk which must fly towards the left, and a third which must circle round and round. In the course of about half-an-hour two hawks had obligingly put in an appearance, and ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Lord James, bending over to brush a speck from his knee. "Quite a pity, indeed!" He straightened and turned to Mrs. Gantry, with a forced smile. "Er—it's deuced stupid of me—agreeing to dine, y'know—deuced stupid. Must beg pardon for cutting it! I'd quite forgotten ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... strangers, and round-faced little Clover seemed such a fragile support! There was no help for it. The thing was decided on, decided for the best, as they all hoped; but Dr. Carr was not at all happy in his mind as he watched the steamer become a gradually lessening speck in the distance, and he sighed heavily when at last he ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... her neck, Her bare arm showed its dimple, Her apron spread without a speck, Her air ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... mate came floating through the blue sky that silhouetted the trees in the garden. She made a pretence of alighting upon the balcony railing, sheered off, coquetted among the treetops, came back again, retreated so far that she was merely a white speck against the blue vault, and then, true to her sex, having proved her liberty only to tire of it, with a flight so swift that the eye could scarcely follow her, she came back again and rested upon the farther end of the balcony, where ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... him what time it was, I believe. Then when he looked so disappointed and sulky, I knew I was right, and I patted Sallie Cox on the head for being so clever—so clever as not to care, chiefly. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves you, if you don't care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe Payson wouldn't stop running till ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... be turning the tables on me precious soon. Caught me out twice to-night, and got through the tough bit of the chorus much better than I did. How does he do it?—and with that mountain of other things on his shoulders! There's one speck in the fruit, however, as far as I can ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... soul for hours, and though I knew we were getting into dangerous parts again, I hoped we might work through all right. Of course I thought first about my errand, and my mind was on every turn of the road and every speck in the landscape, but all the same there was one corner of it—or of something—that didn't forget that red-headed girl—not an instant. I kept wondering if I'd ever see her again, and I was mighty clear that I would, if there was enough left of me by the time I could get off duty to go ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... placed nearly half the horses out of the running; the next threw out two more, though the "King" cleared it in his stride, so close in the wake of his rival that a speck of white foam flecked the haunches of ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That little fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing (nachtende) moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy lost horse-shoe,—is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the whole Universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun; is fed by air that circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dog-star; ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Even the superior gentleman who introduced them to him had a slightly dimmed and tarnished appearance as he sat beside his friends. There was an immaculate finish and newness about all their appointments—not a speck upon their linen, nor a grain of dust upon their broadcloth and polished boots. If the theory be true that character is shown in dress, these men, outwardly so spotless, must be worthy of the confidence with ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... as briefly as possible what happened after I was left behind in that horrible place. By the light of the moon I saw them go—from the ridge I saw them put out to sea. I watched them until the boat was a mere speck on the luminous waters, and finally vanished from sight. I was left alone, a desperately wounded man, on an arid sulphurous ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare. Seldom in these acres is heard any voice But voice of cold water that runs here and there Through rocks and lank heather growing without care. No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry For fear of the dark speck that ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... until he was nothing but a speck. "I wish I had wings," sighed Grandfather Frog, and once more began to hop along up the ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... "Ned isn't sorry,—be sure of that; for he wants his dear 'Whitewash' restored again to the bosom of society, lest the walls of his reputation should by chance suffer from fly-speck." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... walked in complete darkness and in silence, save the gurgling of another stream, hid from sight the shadowy semblance of houses and barns and sheds. Their disappearance slumped her spirits again, for without them she was no more than a solitary speck in the vast loneliness. Their actual nearness could not comfort her. She was seized with a reasonless, panicky fear that by the time she crossed the stream and climbed the hill beyond they would no longer be there where she had seen them. She was lifting her skirts to wade the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... had made swift progress toward it. The ice-bound Vermilion did not check him, and the sealed sloughs shortened his path. Onward he had sped, tirelessly. In half an hour his scarlet nubia had blended into the black of his fur-lined coat; in an hour he was only a speck, now in sight upon the top of a swell, now lost in its trough. And then he had disappeared altogether over the long, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and I say I was to blame. He said he knocked the lantern out of my hand, but, gee whiz, I should have kept it out of his way. Anyway, it went tumbling down and it went so far that it looked like just a little red speck. It stayed lighted till it crashed away down in the bottom of that place. And the light turned yellow and spread a little bit, then went out. I guess the oil spilled on a rock down there. Anyway, ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the sun, Ted looked for several minutes at the dark speck bobbing along in the distance, a mere shadow against the yellow surface of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... breeze has died away! Every leaf is still now! There's not a cloud or a speck in ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night. Next day, when we were returning to London outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... looked down into the water; at the fragrance of the evergreens that surrounded the beautiful palace with its balustrades, dedicated to all the worst passions of the human race; with the sharp rocky outline of Turbia; with an almost invisible speck on the horizon which they said was Corsica; with everything, which, whether mirage or reality, lifted her out of herself, and plunged her into that state of excited happiness and indescribable sense of bodily comfort, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... as if laden with the deadly exhalations of the pestilence. Nor did the workings of his imagination stop here. He fancied even at this distance—nearly seven miles—that he could discern Solomon Eagle on the summit of Saint Paul's. At first the figure looked like a small black speck; but it gradually dilated, until it became twice the size of the cathedral, upon the central tower of which its feet rested, while its arms were spread abroad over the city. In its right hand the gigantic figure held a blazing torch, and in the left a phial, from the ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... at Venning, and the boy noticed that the pupils of the eyes had a white speck, which gave to them ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... us, softened by distance, from the higher slopes of the mountains; and now and then a magnificent eagle, startled from his solitary watch on some jutting rock, expanded his broad-barred wings, launched himself into air, and soared upward in ever-widening circles until he became a mere moving speck against the white snowy crater of the Avachinski volcano. Never had I seen a picture of such wild primitive loneliness as that presented by this beautiful fertile valley, encircled by smoking volcanoes and snow-covered mountains, yet ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... travellers had reached the last stage of their journey, while their horses were baiting, West walked on alone. It was a beautiful morning; the air was perfectly placid, not a speck of vapour in the sky, and a profound tranquillity seemed almost sensibly diffused over the landscape. The appearance of Nature was calculated to lighten and elevate the spirits; but the general silence ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing at the geese that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... more I prepared to fire, and as I did so I saw that two of the French passengers had their telescopes fixed upon the object at which, after taking very careful aim, speck as it seemed, ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... not have nice things like her. She had a coral necklace, and a blue silk bonnet, and a white dress, with flowers worked all over it with a needle. Did my best dress have flowers worked over it with a needle? I should think not. And I hadn't a speck of a necklace, nor any bonnet but just straw. I did not know that Squire Allen was one of the wealthiest men in the state, and could afford beautiful things for his little daughter, while my father was poor, or at least not rich, and my mother had to puzzle her brains ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... boots was!' Such exclamations, murmured at intervals, and followed by chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With regard to his boots, he need have had no anxiety. They were of the shiniest patent leather, much too tight, and without a speck of dust upon them. But his nervousness infected me with a cruel dread. All those eyes were going to watch how we comported ourselves in jumping from the landing-steps into the boat! If this operation, upon a ceremonious occasion, has terrors even for ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... him, on either hand, the forest of houses stretched away almost to infinity. The thought of it was as crushing as that of interstellar distances, of the pathless void into which God threw a handful of dust and then quietly ordained that each speck should be a sun and the pivot of a ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... smokeless, for the fine spray of oil which comes from the injector consists of such minute drops of the liquid and is so thoroughly mixed with oxygen that when it burns the combustion is complete, and only steam and carbonic acid gas go out of the top of the kiln. Not a speck of soot comes from the kiln or the smokestack or soils the whitewashed purity of the boiler room. Oil fuel is absolutely clean. It is labor saving, too. No fireman has to keep shoveling coal, there are no ashes to be dragged ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... relieved here and there by tweeds, on dark mottled pillars of green marble and on lugubrious canvases. The gentlemen sat in the benches, having hitched their trousers slightly above their knees and laid their hats in security. They sat well back and gazed formally at the distant speck of red light which was suspended before ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... illustrate the strained and peculiar condition of affairs in Atchison county. Archimedes Speck lived on the Stranger Creek, several miles below the residence of the writer. He was a man of magnificent physical development, and was a pronounced Free State man. His wife's people originally came from North Carolina, and she was proud of her Southern blood; and the husband and wife did ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any of the wild creatures, but not so sharp an ear or nose. But in the birds he finds his match. How quickly the old turkey discovers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the bushes, or behind the fence near which he alights! One advantage the bird surely has, and that is, owing to the form, structure, and position of the eye, it has ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... states. What enriches a part enriches the whole." To the future he turned an untroubled face: "As population increases, poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our country." Virginia and North Carolina, already overstocked with slaves, favored prohibiting the traffic in them; but South Carolina was adamant. She must have fresh supplies of slaves or she would ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... down, removed his glasses, held them up to the light, found a speck upon them, polished it carefully away, replaced the spectacles upon his nose, and ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... is, therefore, to act upon things as they are and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... more critical examination of P. caniceps it appears to me, judging from Hodgson's types of the species, that it has larger ears, and if this should prove to be a persistent character, then the grey head and the chestnut speck above and below the eye, and the bright chestnut tuft behind the ears, assume a specific importance which they would not otherwise have." But he adds that his observations are merely from preserved specimens, and that the question of the magnitude of the ears is one yet to ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... stood for a moment a picture of blank surprise; then he burst into a loud guffaw at the discomfited money-lender. Jacky heard the laugh and smiled. Then she passed out of earshot and concentrated her attention upon the distant speck of animal life. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... broke the silence with one of the hoarse laughs with which he generally prefaced his boastful remarks. 'See that speck yonder? That's Balmoral, on t' hill; you can see it for twenty miles round on a clear day like this. There's not another property in the country that comes nigh it, though I say ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... painful to witness. He glances casually at a huge, towering vermilion construction that is whizzing towards him on four wheels, preceded by a glint of brass and a wisp of steam; and then with disdain he ignores it as less important than a mere speck of odorous matter in the mud. The next instant he is lying inert in the mud. His confidence in the goodness of God had been misplaced. Since the beginning of time God had ordained him ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... a maneuver which the crew executed immediately. Then the vessel resumed its course, still escorted by the little cutter, which sailed side by side with it, menacing it with the mouths of its six cannon. The boat followed in the wake of the ship, a speck near ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Larry did most of the talking, Pen scarcely responding. Then he was off, steering in great circles toward town, Pen watching with the quickening of pulse and a renewal of the elation she had felt when taking the air. When he was but a mere speck in the sky, she went ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... they had caused, made his way to the scene of the ruins. He could find no trace of the Godfreys and was returning by the border of the lake to his log cabin, when he saw the sloop far in the distance like a speck on the frozen surface of the lake. He hastened out to where she lay. To his surprise and joy he found out, when nearing the little craft, signs of life on board. Sparks were issuing from the cabin. Very soon he was on board. ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... player. To get the ball past him was almost an impossibility. It was his return that was weak. He only had one stroke; the ball went a hundred feet or so into the air and descended in his opponent's court. The other man would stand watching it, a little speck in the Heavens, growing gradually bigger and bigger as it neared the earth. Newcomers would chatter to him, thinking he had detected a balloon or an eagle. He would wave them aside, explain to them that he would talk to them later, after ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... side of the entrance to this bay. At that vast distance I could trace no signs of life about this harbour. No stockyards, cattle, nor even smoke, although at the highest northern point of the bay I saw a mass of white objects which might have been either tents or vessels. I perceived a white speck, which I took for breakers or white sand, on the projecting point of the north-eastern shore. (B.) On that day nine years exactly I first beheld the heads of Port Jackson, a rather singular coincidence. Thus the mountain on which I ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... race all at once. It was when he came within sight of the avenue, which was so bare, which had no trees except at distant intervals. There he saw a speck upon the way, a slowly moving figure which he recognised at once. It was his mother, coming down, as was her wont, to meet—whom? Her husband. Geoff's hot heart, all blazing with childish rage, sank into a shivering calm ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... will have to be the glacier," said Seppi, "and I'm glad goats are so sure-footed. We'd better start along, for it's getting later every minute, and I'm bound to reach that farm-house before dark." He pointed to a speck ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... course, they can't see me 'way down here," said Helen, shaking her head. "They wouldn't notice such a speck on ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... biology, or Hylozoism, which holds its quarter-million species of living beings, animal and vegetable, to be progressive modifications of one great fundamental unity, an unity of so-called mental faculties as well as of bodily structure. And this is the jelly-speck. He scoffs at the popular idea that man is the great central figure round which all things gyrate like marionettes; in fact, the anthropocentric era of Draper, which, strange to say, lives by the side ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... and you needn't be afraid of his not bein' able to pay you. A lot more than that man would have paid you for his little gal, if you'd catched the right one. So if you take me to Pop, and get me there safe and sound, it will be an awful good speck ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... rock. A snake! Now a sounding rush through the wood, and a passing shadow. An eagle! He brushes so close to the child, that he strikes at the bird with a stick, and then watches him as he shoots up like a rocket and, measuring the fields of air in ever-widening circles, hangs like a motionless speck upon the sky; though, measure his wings across, and you will find he is nearer fifteen ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... rushed at them from ahead. At first it was a speck, then an island, and then a continent in size, and through it moved other brighter lights. This time a slight suggestion of an impact was felt. Here was matter of a form they could not guess. It was Chet who pointed to the glass of their control room. The heavy lights ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... above) More footprints up there, stopping at that window, and under the window this key-ring, without a speck of rust ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... you notice the least thing in my conduct that dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna's conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don't hesitate: collar me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. Is ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... wonderful progress which America had made during the period of a single human life. There is no American heart, I imagine, that does not glow, both with conscious, patriotic pride, and admiration for one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so often as the vision of "that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body," and the progress of its astonishing development and growth, are recalled to the recollection. But a stronger feeling might be produced, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... with the crowd and watched two fine lads go up the gangplank, each carrying a red handkerchief containing his worldly goods. As the good ship moved away we lifted a wild wail of woe that drowned the sobbing of the waves. Everybody cried—I wept, too—and as the great, black ship became but a speck on the Western horizon we embraced ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... was a tiny chickadee. This fragile little speck of birddom fluttered into the house one stormy day, and the Chief warmed it in his hands and fed it warm milk and crumbs. From that day on it belonged, brave soul and wee body, to him. As the days ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... not a holder of property. Not a ninth of what he detains from the world is his own. Keep your hands from picking and stealing is no ways referable to his acquists. I doubt whether bearing false witness against thy neighbor at all contemplated this possible scrub. Could Moses have seen the speck in vision? An ex post facto law alone could relieve him, and we are taught to expect no eleventh commandment. The out-law to the Mosaic dispensation!—unworthy to have seen Moses' behind—to lay his desecrating hands upon Elia! Has the irriverent ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb |
