"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a black spot on the low horizon. A speck that grew larger, with twinkling, fin-like flashes along each side, and in due time it proved to be a galley like their own bearing down straight for them. Nobody stopped to ask any questions. That was not sea-style ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... prepared for the childlike fancies of untaught minds, whither Hades and Valhalla had gone before them. In our day it is hard to realize the startling effect of the discovery that Man does not dwell at the centre of things, but is the denizen of an obscure and tiny speck of cosmical matter quite invisible amid the innumerable throng of flaming suns that make up our galaxy. To the contemporaries of Copernicus the new theory seemed to strike at the very foundations of Christian theology. In a universe where so much had been ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... cracked his long caribou-gut whip to remind David that he was ready. David had said good-bye to the factor and the clerk at the Company store and there was no longer an excuse to detain him. They struck out across a small lake. Five minutes later he looked back. Father Roland, not much more than a speck on the white plain now, was about to disappear in the forest. It seemed to David that he had stopped, and again he waved his hand, though human eyes could not have seen the movement over ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... cavalry reached the snow-covered banks of the Niobrara, and went into bivouac on the northern shore to await the coming of the black speck that, just before dusk, could be seen far in their wake picking a way through the drifts in its descent from the crest of the divide. "It's the general, of course," said everybody, and the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it neared and neared: As if it dodged a water-sprite, It plunged and ...
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Valleys of Ida[32], there was a white Bull, which was the Glory of the Farmer to whom he belonged. This Bull had a beautiful black Speck between his Horns, all the rest of his Body being as white as Milk. With him the Gnossian and Cydonian Heifers were all in love, and eagerly longed to be embraced by him in the tenderest manner in which Bulls embrace the Fair Sex of Cows. Pasiphae, I am very sorry to ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... clothes. There came from the Foster house the whir of a sewing machine, the fragrant smell of fresh bread. The children came out with faces shining as the morning, hair as smooth as silk, shoes polished. And Grandma knew that if John Foster found a speck of dirt in his house he would have to look for it with a microscope. But there was a kind of horror in the eyes of Fanny's children. They didn't play any more or run away but of their own accord stayed home to fetch and carry for the strange mother who was now always there, who ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... was a clear and rather a chilly night; the stars were twinkling with an intense brightness, and as far as the eye could reach there was not a cloud to be seen. The horizon met the sea in a defined line. A painter could not have painted so clear a sky. There was not a speck upon it. Yet it was blowing great guns from the northwest. When you can see a cloud to windward, you feel that there is a place for the wind to come from; but here it seemed to come from nowhere. No ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... wigwams, which are about the size and shape of an open umbrella resting on its edge. The night was dark throughout the forest, and overhead; the little circle of light within which I stood, seemed like a magician's ring, sacred and safe from evil spirits that filled the air around. It was as the speck of Time amid the ocean of Eternity — as Hope, bright and solitary in the midst of unfathomable darkness. There I felt safe and secure — but without — who might tell what spirits roamed abroad, melancholy and malignant? Peering into that dark ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... hair and dancing brown eyes, "at home all is winter—white, beautiful, glorious winter, with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the splendor of it! And here—here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call winter because they don't know ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... There was a speck of invisible dirt on one of those nonpareil types. Well, the machine allowed for that by inserting of its own accord a space which was the 5-1,000 of an inch thinner than it would have used if the dirt had been ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... work are seen With different balls, and what can it all mean? WILLIAM inquires, and learns with much surprise, In this way they send news and get replies! That now they're telegraphing to Quebec— The fine old city, seen just like a speck— Of their good ship's arrival, safe and sound— Her name—the people's number in her found. Men dreamt not then how soon it would transpire That news, by lightning, could be sent through wire! The fame of this, O Morse! to thee belongs, And thy great name does honor to my ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... looked back toward the castle, and saw a dark speck on the plain. As he looked, it grew larger: it was coming across the grass with the speed of the wind. It came nearer and nearer. It looked long and low, but that might be because it was running at a great stretch. He set Nycteris down under a tree, in the black shadow ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... this truth, that we, just because, if we are Christians, we stand nearest to God, are surest to be searched through and through by the light that streams from Him, and to have every flaw and corrupt speck and black spot brought out into startling prominence. Let no Christian man fancy that he shall escape the righteous judgment of God. The great doctrine of forgiveness does not mean that He suffers our sin to remain upon us unjudged, ay! or unavenged. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... nearer, till the half-light ran with her half- thought, dropping, sinking, dying. "Guise," said the signpost, and a battlement stared down and threw its shadow across her face. "Is that where the dukes lived?" She was a speck in the landscape, moving on wheels that were none of her invention, covering distances of hundreds of miles without amazement, upon a magic mount unknown to her forefathers. Dark and light moved across the face of the falling day. Sometimes when she lifted her eyes great clouds full of ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... they came to a general store, where they occupied themselves in making out an order for supplies and arranging for their delivery on the following day. The trader was a loquacious individual with the unmistakable "Yankee" twang and nasal whine of the man from that important speck of the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... mastered the art of carrying a brimful paper drinking-cup through the aisle without spilling so much as a drop of water, and his cheerful ministrations were in great demand by thirsty passengers. This individual was scout Harris, alias Peewee, alias Kid, alias Shorty, alias Speck, and he was so small that he might have saved his carfare by going parcel post if he had cared to do so. If he had, he should have been registered, for there was only one Peewee Harris in all the ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... stood near the 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
... water, but the greater portion of such blocks are submerged, and considerable caution had to be observed night and day to steer clear of them. They were usually observable at first from the large number of birds resting on them, causing them to appear like a dark speck on the horizon. One of these icebergs (according to an entry made in the ship's log) was stated to be five miles long and of great height, and we were supposed to have passed it at the latter end of the night so near that "a biscuit might be thrown upon ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... mass of long-winded ceremonial nothingnesses, and intricate Belleisle cobwebberies, we seize this one poor speck of human foolery in the native state, as almost the memorablest in that stupendous business. Stupendous indeed; with which all Germany has been in travail these sixteen months, on such terms! And in verity ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the 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 cloud of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... varying from seven to six fathoms; but between the smaller one and the main there are rocks and reefs; and though a passage may exist, it would not be advisable for a vessel to try it. These two small islands possess all the characteristic beauties of the clime. Formed of brown granite, with a speck of white sandy beach, and rising into hills covered with the noblest timber, wreathed with gigantic creepers. Cream-colored pigeons flit from tree to tree, and an eagle or two soared aloft watching their motions. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... light the green buds of spring, which variegated and cheered the scathed bark. It broke loose from their embrace—hovered irresolutely above them—then swept rapidly before the wind, rising till it became as a speck in ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... You call yourself the All in All, but you are the Nothing: your so-called Universe is a mere speck in a Line, and a Line is a mere shadow as compared with—" "Hush, hush, you have said enough," interrupted the Sphere, "now listen, and mark the effect of your harangue on ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... Triest Where a day or two we harbored: A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, One of our company espied A sudden speck to larboard. And as a sea-duck flies and swims At once, so came the light craft up, With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) And by us like a fish it curled, And ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... looking for a speck of dust on the mantelpiece, not for its own intrinsic value, but for the sake of Mary's future. She had apparently no observation of value to offer upon the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... was safely accomplished; the vigilant look-out at the mast-head giving prompt notice of a speck on the horizon no larger than a gull's wing, when the course would be so changed as to lose sight of it. Two cases of yellow fever, both ending fatally, occurred among the passengers during the brief voyage, and we were quarantined ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... all use of their eyes, as he did, in their declining years. Athanis the historian tells us, that even during the war against Hippo and Mamercus, while he was in his camp at Mylae, there appeared a white speck within his eye, from whence all could foresee the deprivation that was coming on him; this, however, did not hinder him then from continuing the siege, and prosecuting the war, till he got both the tyrants into ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... from the water, the trees apparently hid a cluster of other chimneys, for thin spirals of smoke ascended here and there. The little brown roof could never have revealed itself to any but a lover's eye; and that discerned something even smaller, something like a pinkish speck, that moved hither and thither on a piece of greensward that sloped ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... We see in operation a wonderful something called "force" or "energy" in its countless forms of manifestations. We see things that we call "forms of life," varying in manifestation from the tiny speck of slime that we call the Moneron, up to that form ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... to a dingy speck out seaward as they gave Mr. Carter this information—a speck which they assured him was neither more nor less than ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... tiny black speck appeared and as it grew within the scope of my glass, it was easy to recognize the shape of a Taube. That was my ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... and the pages grew in number, and the long reveries of which they were the outcome stretched wide between me and the deserted "Rescue" like the smooth hazy spaces of a dreamy sea. Yet I never actually lost sight of that dark speck in the misty distance. It had grown very small but it asserted itself with the appeal of old associations. It seemed to me that it would be a base thing for me to slip out of the world leaving it out there all alone, waiting for its fate—that would ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... topgallant sail was above the horizon. It looked as if the sea breeze would 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 ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... satirists say what they may, is not efficacious in England, but audacity in colour, audacity in design, and audacity in construction. She would ride in the park in a black and yellow habit, and appear at the opera in white velvet without a speck of colour. Though certainly turned thirty, and probably nearer to forty, she would wear her jet-black hair streaming down her back, and when June came would drive about London in a straw hat. But yet it was always admitted that she was well dressed. And ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the black speck became less ambiguous. George beheld a white stern heaving up and down. He ran forward as if to accelerate her return, crying out to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... lake within view—a wide expanse, winding away among mountains till it was lost behind their promontories. She strained her eyes to see vessels on this lake, and now and then she did perceive a little sail hoisted, or a black speck, which must be a rowboat traversing the waters when they were sheeny in the declining sun. These things, and the lengthening and warmth of the days, quickened her impatience to be removed. She often asked the people of the house whether no news and no messengers had come; but they did not improve ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... beginning of his fourth month of solitude, the mucker saw a smudge of smoke upon the horizon. Slowly it increased in volume and the speck beneath it resolved itself into the hull of a steamer. Closer and closer ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself. And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may—condense it Down to the diamond;—is not metal there, When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips? —Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep? Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised By the swift implement sent home at once, Flushes and glowings radiate and ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... in the face and stooped over to flick an imaginary particle of dust from his trousers' leg. There was but one object in their going and he had not dreamed of being asked what it was. He could not be employed forever in brushing away that speck, and yet he could not, to save his life, construct an answer to Veath's question. In the midst of his despair a sudden resolution came, and he looked up, his ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 floating in ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... causing most scrupulous lustrations of every pane of glass and inch of paint in our parlors, in consequence whereof every shutter and blind must be kept closed for days to come, lest the flies should speck the freshly washed windows and wainscoting? Dear shade of Aunt Mehitabel, forgive our boldness! Have we not been driven for days, in our youth, to read our newspaper in the front veranda, in the kitchen, out in the barn,—anywhere, in fact, where sunshine could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... legs from under him. There was a water-hole a little to the east of the way we had come, and toward that I tried to head. One of the mules gave out, and staggered and groaned, and tried to get up again. I remember hearing him squeal, once; it was horrible. He lay there, a little black speck on the desert. Whitney and I didn't speak to each other at all, but I thought of those two kegs of water he had upset. Have you ever been thirsty—mortally thirsty, until you feel your tongue black in your mouth? ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to the former old stopping place?" he said, as though questioning some invisible companion; "Must we cry 'halt!' for the thousand millionth time? Or can we go on? Dare we go on? If actually we discover the secret—wrapped up like the minutest speck of a kernel in the nut of an electron,—what then? Will it be well or ill? Shall we find it worth while to live on here with nothing to do?—nothing to trouble us or compel us to labour? Without ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... side spots—content if the plough, the fertilizer and the trimming-axe, will but keep away and let it alone. After a long rain, when everything looks bright, often have I stopt in my wood-saunters, south or north, or far west, to take in its dusky green, wash'd clean and sweet, and speck'd copiously with its fruit of clear, hardy blue. The wood of the cedar is of use—but what profit on earth are those sprigs of acrid plums? A question impossible to answer satisfactorily. True, some of the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... stern that glints in heaven may be a lowin' sun, Though like a speck of light it seem amid the welkin dun; The humblest sodger on the field may win a warrior's crest: The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... messenger of death, coming very swiftly through the sky, killing a few mortals down below and then retreating into the hiding- places behind the clouds. There were not many people who saw the "Taube"—the German dove—make its swoop and hurl its fire-balls. There was just a speck in the sky, a glint of metal, and the far- humming of an aerial engine. Perhaps it was a French aviator coming back from a reconnaissance over the enemy's lines on the Aisne, or taking a joy ride over Paris to stretch ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... here in the North Country, of his years of war service. He followed the two figures until the thickening timber hid them. Idly he swept the horizon of black-green trees, blue shadows, and sparkling snow. A speck moved—a mackinaw-clad figure passed swiftly across the clearing above the Little Bijou—only a glimpse—the man took to cover in the burned timber, where the head-high brush made a tangle of brown above which the gaunt, white, black-smeared arms of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... grown savage over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and a speck or two ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... as far as the crest of the hill with Marget, and watched her on the way to the post office till she was only a speck upon the road. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... I had always heard of the laziness prevailing on board whale-ships were now abundantly falsified. From dawn to dark work went on without cessation. Everything was rubbed and scrubbed and scoured until no speck or soil could be found; indeed, no gentleman's yacht or man-of-war is kept more spotlessly clean than ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... well-cooked meat— Cold pullets, pigeons, savory messes— Besides unnumbered fond caresses." The wolf, by force of appetite, Accepts the terms outright, Tears glistened in his eyes; But faring on, he spies A galled spot on the mastiff's neck. "What's that?" he cries. "Oh, nothing but a speck." "A speck?"—"Ay, ay: 'tis not enough to pain me: Perhaps the collar's mark by which they chain me." "Chain! chain you! What! run you not, then, Just where you please and when?" "Not always, sir; but what ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... up the lessening road, but nothing appeared thereon—not so much as a speck. She sighed one word—"Donald!" and turned her face to the town ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... cried Yvon, as soon as his head appeared above the water, and he began to swim as tranquilly as if he had been bathing in the lake of the old castle. Happily the moon was rising. Yvon saw, at a little distance, a black speck among the silvery waves—it was land. He approached it, not without difficulty, and finally succeeded in gaining a foothold. Dripping wet, exhausted with fatigue, and out of breath, he dragged himself on the sand, then, without more anxiety, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... we were in Geneva, you know, and we used to call him 'our mountain boy,' saying that he had brought a speck of the mountain skies away in ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... and gorges, over the wildernesses of unbroken firs which covered all the upper portion of the mountain, deepening its rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,—diminished to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out, leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the wilderness of shadowy gloom. I had come under a spell,—for, often as I had seen the sun set in the mountains and over the lakes, I had never before felt as I now felt, that I was a part in the landscape, and that it was something more to me than rocks and trees. The sunlight ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... interesting youthful audiences and making the rocks of the earth tell their own secular story, was brought to lecture to his House. This eminent man lectured extremely well. He showed how beyond a doubt the globe we inhabit, one speck of matter, floating in the sea of space, had existed for millions upon millions of years, and how by the evolutionary changes of countless ages it had at length become fitted to be the habitation of men, who probably themselves had lived ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... so much flatter on a wind, their cargo more quickly and scientifically stowed, and, most important point of all, their discipline quite excellent. Woe betide the cook or steward whose galley or saloon had a speck of dirt that would make a smudge on the skipper's cleanest cambric handkerchief! It was the same all through, from stem to stern and keel to truck, from foremast hand to skipper. Aboard the best clippers the system was well-nigh perfect. Each man had found, or had the chance of finding, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... Atlantic. Upborne on the wings of the eastward-setting wind, Nissr felt nothing of such trivialities. Twice or thrice, gaps in the cloud-veil let dim ocean appear to the watchers in the glass observation pits; and once they spied a laboring speck on the waters—a great passenger-liner, worrying toward New York in heavy weather. The doings of such, and of the world below, seemed trivial to the Legionaries as follies ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... then, if we reject the simple statement of the Bible, is the mystery of the great universe, in whose extended space suns, planets, stars, and systems unceasingly revolve, and in which our own world is but a little speck. All things created point to God as their origin and source. "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... lad must have been stabb'd as he lay asleep. For by the bedside I found his clothes neatly folded and without a speck of blood. They were clean, though coarse; so thinking they would serve for Delia, I took them, albeit with some scruples at robbing the dead, and covering the body with a sheet, made ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... 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 stood became an important point in my ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... sun, large and important as he is, is but a speck in creation. These myriads of stars that shine nightly in the heavens are all suns. It is calculated that the union of the telescope with the photographic plate brings five hundred millions of these stars into view. Some of them are demonstrated to be hundreds of times larger than ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... up and the mother caught the little girl and began playing with her, tying her hair ribbon, smoothing out her skirts, rubbing a dirt speck from her nose, and cuddling the little one rapturously in her arms. When the two women were alone, Laura sat on the veranda steps with her head resting upon her mother's knee. The mother touched the soft hair and said: "Laura, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... distances." A little later on, although he disapproved of "gaping," as he called it, he taught Miriam so much of geometry as was sufficient to make her understand what he meant when he told her that a fixed star yielded no parallax, and that the earth was consequently the merest speck of dust in the universe. She found his simple trigonometry very, very hard, but to her husband it was easy, and ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... Shipyard opened out, Charley edged into it to get the smoother water. Benicia was in view, and we were bowling along over comparatively easy water, when a speck of a boat danced up ahead of us, directly in our course. It was low-water slack. Charley and I looked at each other. No word was spoken, but at once the yacht began a most astonishing performance, veering and yawing as though the greenest of amateurs was ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... But what was that speck of white far down the bank—that brighter spot upon the universal brightness, moving, advancing? My heart gave one great leap; in a moment my boat's bows were high upon the crumbling bank, and I was gazing ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sobs shook the frames of even strong men. They thought not of formalities in that hour; it was not a shame for the sterner sex to weep. The forms of their friends fast lessened in the distance, and at last their boat looked like a speck on the wave, and the sweet cadences of that beautiful song faintly rolling along to their hearing, like the sigh of an angel, were the last sounds that reached them, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... no wind, and the apparent size of the steamer did not increase. This was a region or season of calms or fitful winds. During the rest of the day the distant vessel continued to be a black speck upon the smooth and gently rolling sea. Again I spent the night on deck, but I did not wake to listen or watch. I was ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Ralph Warrender," she said. "I guess the woman that's married him thinks he's A1 and gilt-edged now, poor soul. But he's just a miserable patchwork mummy really, and there isn't any white in him—no, not a speck." ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... that the public gave to an 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 so illustrious ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... reaches as high as 100,000 miles a second. Instead of being crowded together, however, in their minute system, each of them has, in proportion to its size, as ample a space to move in as a single speck of dust would have in a moderate-sized room (Thomson). This theory not only meets all the facts that have been discovered in an industrious decade of research, not only offers a splendid prospect of introducing unity into the eighty-one different elements ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... Drinker with fastidious care Stretched hand to clear the speck away. "No, no!"— His comrade stayed his arm. "Why," said the first, "What would you have me do?" "Ah, let it float A moment longer!" And the second smiled. "Do you not know what that is?" "No, indeed." "A mere dust-mote, a speck of soot, you think, A plague-germ ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... wisdom of the Egyptians, wherein Moses the man of God was learned of old—why should not he know it too? What awful secrets might not be hidden there about the great world, past, present, and future, of which he knew only so small a speck? Those kings who sat there, they had known it all; their sharp lips seem parting, ready to speak to him.... Oh that they would speak for once!.... and yet that grim sneering smile, that seemed to look ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... headed toward a black speck, apparently a hundred yards below them, and the great steamer slowly drifted down-stream. The speck moved toward shore, and the boat, rapidly shortening distance, seemed to scrape the bank ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... daybreak. But he was making his ascent on the back flank of this particular mountain. He could not see Boulder Lake from there. On the other hand, no creature at Boulder Lake should be able to see him. Only an exploring party which might otherwise sight Jill would be apt to detect him, a slowly moving speck against a mountainside. ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... town of Clonbrony?" thought Lord Colambre. "Is this Ireland? No, it is not Ireland. Let me not, like most of those who forsake their native country, traduce it. Let me not, even to my own mind, commit the injustice of taking a speck for the whole. What I have just seen is the picture only of that to which an Irish estate and Irish tenantry may be degraded in the absence of those whose duty and interest it is to reside in Ireland, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... crowded closer to watch; already the fly was almost too small to be held. The Chemist tried to set it on the ring, but could not; so with his other hand he brushed it lightly into the plate, where it lay, a tiny black speck against the gleaming whiteness of ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... wishes to repent of his yesterdays, let him contemplate them all over during his waking hours in the morning. Then, indeed, is his time. He becomes ashamed before the monotonous rose-bushes that speck the wall, and as his wandering orbs scan the picture-nails and the cobwebs in search of distraction, he will realize the necessity of amendment more fully than the eloquence of a multitude could paint it. It was the weariness of this new realization that caused Guy to stretch out his hand ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... mysterious inner chamber, beneath the calm face, there was being enacted a grim spirit-drama. Corydon's soul was making a monstrous effort to return to its habitation; Corydon felt herself hanging, a tortured speck of being, in a dark and illimitable void. "This may be Hell," she thought. "I have neither hands nor feet, and I cannot fight; but I can will to get back!" This effort cost her ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... fade off, dearie. Your own natural skin is no more color-fast. I handled Elaine Doremus in 'The Snowdrop' for three seasons. Never so much as a speck or a spot on her. My cream ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon, which was to burst in a tornado; and the public are un-apprized how near this catastrophe was. Nothing but a frank and friendly developement of causes and effects on our part, and good sense enough in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable, and would change ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... water. I watched him as every stroke of the oars widened the distance between us, half hoping that he might look back, wave his hand, or even return again—but no!—his boat soon vanished like a small black speck on the sea, and I knew myself to be left alone. Restraining with difficulty the tears that rose to my eyes, I shut the port-hole and drew its little curtain across it— then I sat down to read the letter he had left with ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... saw him stop short, a mere speck of white against a distant hill. Again in creek bottoms, in the edges of woods, they found him, erect, motionless, tail straight out, a living, breathing statue in white. They advanced side by side; the staccato of their shots rang out in the amber air; out of whirling coveys birds ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... I speck! I'm done heerd dat talk eber day dis month," jeered cook number two. "Ef you quits you kin jest bet yer bottom dollar I aint a-gwine to stay. Got more'n ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... speck of light ahead," said Brick, as he glanced down the valley. "The thief must ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... as big as a speck of dirt, then, were it?" she queried. "And maybe mine ain't for Daddy. But the student air a-prayin' for him! It air a damn shame ye ain't got him a-prayin' for yerself and the kid.... Ye'd a seen yer man before now, and the brat would 'a' ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... cautiously and then tipped its body forward and slipped over the edge. They heard a queer buzzing sound, as the tail revolved, and a brisk flapping of the peculiar wings, but they were more interested just then in following with their eyes the tiny speck of light which marked the location of the candle. This light first made a great circle, then dropped slowly downward and suddenly was extinguished, leaving everything ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... in some way to her contact with the orchids, was in part responsible for this confused memory, but it seemed to be associated, too, with the story of Crombie the gardener—and with Antony Ferrara. He felt that somewhere in the darkness surrounding him there was a speck of light, if he could but turn in the right direction to see it. So, whilst Robert Cairn walked restlessly about the big room, the doctor sat with his chin resting in the palm of his hand, seeking to concentrate his mind upon that vague memory, which ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... morality or wisdom of slavery," he said, "are considerations belonging to the 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 ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... enabled it to leap great distances without using its wings. It ate any one who came near its home, so when the people saw Catalina start to climb the mountain they begged her to come back. She paid no heed to their cries, however, but went up higher and higher, till her white dress seemed merely a speck on the ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... kind, and will occasionally lift up his little pipe in a glee. He does not dance, but the honest fellow would give the world to do it; and he leaves his clogs in the passage, though it is a wonder he wears them, for in the muddiest weather he never has a speck on his foot. He was at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was rather gay for a term or two, he says. He is, in a word, full of the milk-and-water of human kindness, and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... people that it seems as if they might catch him; and then, quick as thought, he darts out of their reach, and, in less than a minute, you may see him far up among the clouds, looking like a little black speck upon ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... marble slabs, marble wainscoting, polished brass, polished silver, shining mirrors, on which there was not the smallest speck of dust, very many shining glasses, empty glasses, glasses with straws sticking in them, and glasses partially filled with bits of ice. Bar-keepers in spotless white linen prepared the famous American drinks, innumerable in variety, with a dexterity bordering on art and a stolidity out of which ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... white silk, which no speck has defaced, Is the sign of a bosom with purity graced, And binds you to prove, whatsoever betides, Of damsels distressed the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... of timber between myself and the road were fenced paddocks with scattered farm houses. To the west the forest stretched where far ahead a speck of white caught my eye. I made it a guide mark and ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... we shall meet at the temple. We shall not separate till late. It will be his province to accompany me home. The airy expanse is without a speck. This breeze is usually stedfast, and its promise of a bland and cloudless evening, may be trusted. The moon will rise at eleven, and at that hour, we shall wind along this bank. Possibly that hour may decide my fate. If suitable encouragement ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... the woods that same afternoon by way of the bridge, in order to buy some provisions at the brick store. When he was still a long distance from the bars that divided the lane from the highroad, he espied a dark-clad little speck he knew to be Rodman leaning over the fence, waiting and longing as usual for his home-coming, and his heart warmed at the thought of the boyish welcome that ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have not. We cannot even estimate the real weight of the lightest speck of the Dust that has settled on the life of this people. But we believe that our God, Who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, comprehends to the uttermost the Dust of the Actual, and we believe to see Him work, with Whom ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the northeast whence the banks of cloud had risen, but to the southwest, and it seemed as though a little speck was there against the hurrying film of cloud. We were drawing near the forest line, where a little creek made an indentation. I listened, and from afar came a sound like the strumming of low notes on a guitar, and sad. The terrified scream of a panther ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... chum to cease talking. Then he pointed up to the sky. There was a little speck against the blue, a speck that became larger as ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... house, and one heard deep breaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed her at a short distance to the rear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved slowly, she being weak and her irons heavy. She had on men's attire—all black; a soft woolen stuff, intensely black, funereally black, not a speck of relieving color in it from her throat to the floor. A wide collar of this same black stuff lay in radiating folds upon her shoulders and breast; the sleeves of her doublet were full, down to the elbows, and tight thence to her manacled wrists; below the doublet, tight black hose ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... matter; they feed, as the 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 other products of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... as of one accord, ran out through the engineers' quarters to the open. It was now dark. Little fires dotted the hillsides. A dull red speck, like an ember, showed over the roof, darkened, and disappeared. Then a streak of fire shot out from the black slope and sped on ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... stood on this solitary point paid little attention to the rain that ran off the peak of his sailor's cap or to the gusts of wind that blew about his bushy gray beard. He was still following, with an eye accustomed to pick out objects far at sea, one speck of purple that was now fading into the gray mist of the rain; and the longer he looked the less it became, until the mingled sea and sky showed only the smoke that the great steamer left in its wake. As he stood there, motionless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... the sloop would hold together, or still be on top of the sea, when this gale blew itself out. She was a mere speck on the agitated surface of the sea. My only hope then was that I might be rescued by some larger vessel—and how I should get from the Wavecrest craft to another was beyond the power of ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... human being with whom I could exchange an idea we might hold in common. I learned then fully to appreciate the value of the society and sympathy of my fellow-men. At length, one day as I sat at my usual occupation on the shore, my eyes fell on a white speck just rising above the horizon. Anxiously, intently did I watch it. Slowly it increased. First I made out the topgallant-sails; then the topsails; and at last the courses of a square-rigged schooner. She approached the island. Oh, how my heart beat within me for fear ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... he picked well His footsteps with his rattan; Oh! you ne'er could see the least speck On the shoes of Captain Paton. And on entering the coffee-room About two, all men did know They would see him with his Courier In the middle of the row. Oh! we ne'er shall see the like of Captain Paton ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... young blossom, with analyses B and C, the latter indexed; D, an older blossom, with similar analyses (E and F). Both sorts are to be found upon every spike of bloom, as the inflorescence begins at the base and proceeds upward. As we look into the more open flower we observe a dark-colored speck, which, by analysis, proves to be the lid of the anther. This portion is further shown enlarged in Fig. 20, A. If we gently lift it with a pin, we disclose the pollen masses in the cavity (B) thus opened (C, profile section), ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... which he sped with all the agility his little legs afforded. As soon as the pursuers had entered and ascended to the top of the high ground it became apparent that they would have to run all the way to the farmer's if they wished to get at him. From this summit he could be seen as a minute speck, following an unerring line towards his ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... off to the northward the day before, had left a heavy sea running. For an hour the Adventurer and the Follow Me had been climbing up the slopes of grey-green swells and sliding down into swirling troughs, and for a minute Steve couldn't find the dark speck at which Phil was pointing. When he did at last sight it over the tumbled mounds of water he stared in puzzlement a moment before he took the binoculars from their place and fitted them to his eyes. He looked long and then silently ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour |
