"Splinter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told their own story. One long, horrified look was enough for Mary. The others hung over the spot as if it held some unexplainable fascination, pointing out the step which tripped her first, the rusty nail to which still clung a shred of her dress torn out in falling, the jagged splinter that must have been the one which made the ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... joy for her! whene'er in winter The winds at night had made a rout, And scatter'd many a lusty splinter, And many a rotten bough about. Yet never had she, well or sick, As every man who knew her says, A pile before hand, wood or stick, Enough to ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... nothing but the signal for retreat saved this frigate from destruction. "What will Nelson think of us?" was Riou's mournful exclamation when he unwillingly drew off. He had been wounded in the head by a splinter, and was sitting on a gun, encouraging his men, when, just as the AMAZON showed her stern to the Trekroner battery, his clerk was killed by his side; and another shot swept away several marines who were hauling in the ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... was thus employed one morning a splinter flew up and wounded one of his eyes. An inflammation took place; he lost the sight of that eye, and subsequently of the other. Poor Joe gradually pined away, and grew melancholy. Colonel Wildman ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... let me see what you have written," said Rameau, somewhat imperiously, in the sharp voice habitual to him, and which pierced Graham's ear like a splinter of glass. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... comes from Malacca, Siam, and Cambodia,[137] being in large round sticks and very massy, of a black colour interspersed with ash-coloured veins. Its taste is somewhat bitter, and odoriferous; and when a splinter is laid upon a burning coal it melts into bubbles like pitch, continuing to fry till the whole is consumed, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... her so clearly that the thought struck him that he had never seen her before. She appeared in that instant as a toy, a trivial toy made of coloured glass; and as a maleficent toy, for he felt if he played with it any longer that it would break and splinter in his fingers. 'As brilliant, as hard, and as dangerous as a piece of broken glass.' He wondered why he had been attracted by this bit of coloured glass; he laughed at his folly and went home certain that he could lose her without pain. But memory of her delicate neck and her wistful ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... splendor of winter, Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices, Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter, And then plunge down the muffled abysses In the quiet ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... even lookin' 'round, to free himse'f from the clutch of Silver Phil. Which he's the splinter of a second too late. Silver Phil makes a spring like a mountain lion, laig-locks an' all, an' grabs the gun. As the gyard goes clatterin' down sta'rs. Silver Phil pumps two loads into him an' curls him up at the foot. Then Silver Phil hurls ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... swooping irresistibly, as if the devil had kicked it. You come to watch for shells—to listen to the deafening rattle of the big guns, the shrilling whistle of the small, to guess at their pace and their direction. You see now a house smashed in, a heap of chips and rubble; now you see a splinter kicking up a fountain of clinking stone-shivers; presently you meet a wounded man on a stretcher. This is your dangerous time. If you have nothing else to do, and especially if you listen and calculate, you are done: you get ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... But there can be no question that he did not at this time enter into that full assurance of faith which afterwards characterised him; still, his faith at this period, though weak, was real. In a letter home, referring to the death of a Captain Craigie, who was killed by a splinter from a shell, he says, "I am glad to say that he was a serious man. The shell burst above him, and by what is called chance struck him in the back, killing him at once." It is interesting to note from the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... remarked Green, whose face had been touched by a splinter of bark torn from the tree by one ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... of the night coaches out of Bristol—was standing before the inn, the horses smoking, the lamps flaring cheerfully, a crowd round it; the driver had just unbuckled his reins and flung them either way. Sir George pushed his horse up to the splinter-bar and hailed him, asking whether he had met a closed chaise and four travelling ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... so much better than this, Archie!" said she, looking out the window upon the barren space, and around the room at the dingy and tottering walls. They were both very grateful—the old woman and the boy—but nobody could tell with what tenacity their affections clung to every splinter of the old building, and what a bitter step it was, that last one, over the threshold of ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... made answer, it was for her sake that he would run again; and entered the barrier; she sent the Duke of Savoy to him to entreat him a second time to return, but to no purpose; he ran; the lances were broke, and a splinter of the Count de Montgomery's lance hit the King's eye, and stuck there. The King fell; his gentlemen and Monsieur de Montmorency, who was one of the Mareschals of the field, ran to him; they were astonished ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... had there slain Morold, the betrothed of Isolda; and to Isolda he sends as a present Morold's head. He is himself wounded, and by chance it is Isolda, "a skilful leech," who nurses him back to health. She has found in Morold's head a splinter of a sword-blade, and finds it was broken out of Tristan's weapon. Full of anger, she raises the sword to slay the sick man: he opens his eyes, and "the sword dropped from my fingers"—her doom is upon her: ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... red strips from the proud cities of men; I name my passage the Highway of Instant Death; I splinter world-old forests with my laugh, And whirl the ancient snows of Hecla sheer into Orion's eyes. I dance on the deep under the big Indian stars, And wrap the water spout about my sinuous hips As a dancer winds ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... couldn't write His own name when He started out to save the worl'; an' when he come to the p'int whar His enemies tuk hol' of Him, the rider jes crossed his fingers up over his head 'n' axed us if we didn't know how it hurt to run a splinter into a feller's hand when he's loggin' or a thorn into yer foot ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... out Colomb's orders. The French went forward almost at the charge, the Germans waiting for them from behind the hedges, whence poured a hail of lead. Gougeard's horse was shot under him, a couple of bullets went through his coat, and another—or, as some said, a splinter of a shell—knocked off his kepi. Still, he continued leading his men, and in the fast failing light the Germans, after repeated encounters, were driven back to the verge ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... replied the stout sea-dog, smiling. "When we tackled a Manila ship on the way home from Guayaquil, I got a ball through the jaw, and a splinter in the left foot. It laid me up for full three weeks, but, gentlemen, a cat and Woodes Rogers both ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... compass in his arms; And will to-morrow, with the trumpet's call, Mid-way between their tents and these our walls, Maintain what I have said. If any come, My sword shall honour him; if none shall dare, Then shall I say, at my return to Troy, The Grecian dames are sun-burnt, and not worth The splinter of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Hardy, as he disengaged the last splinter, and gently opened the ill-used cupboard door. "Oh, thunder and turf, look here," he went on, as the state of affairs inside disclosed itself to his view; "how many times have I told that thief George never to put anything on this side of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... thinking that I was going to embarrass her; but she broke the pan and gave each of us a fragment. To think that anybody at my age could eat such things was an idea possible only to the very artless mind. Mademoiselle Prefere, suddenly awakened from her dream, indignantly pushed away the sugary splinter of earthenware, and deemed it opportune to inform me that she herself was ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... story of the splinter and the beam! Is England's rule of the sea no military system then? Can there be conceived a more far-reaching militarism than that which stretches out its conquests over five continents? Which even clutches at the straw which republican ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... him take off his muddy shoes in the woodshed. Woe to him if he ever brought a splinter of whittling, or a fragment of nutshell, into the distressingly ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... if he were coming back home. But the old squaws and the children did not give him peace. They crowded around him, uttering cries that he knew must be taunts or jeers. Then they began to push and pull him and to snatch at his hair. Finally an old squaw thrust a splinter clean through his coat and into his arm. The pain was exquisite, but, turning, he took her chin firmly in one hand and with the other slapped her cheeks so severely that she would have fallen to the ground ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... ranks among the first for lumber, furniture, cabinets, and finishing material. It has no rival in use for gun stocks and airplane propellers; as walnut wood is light, strong, will not get rough, but wears smoother with use. Neither will it splinter when pierced by a bullet. Walnut wood has been largely responsible, at times, for keeping us a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... splinter, had now given way beneath me. I was floating about with no hope but the chance of something almost impossible. They had "left me alone," not with my glory, but with an appetite that resembled an avalanche seeking whom it might devour. I had passed one dinnerless day, and half ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... critical, looked her over from head to foot. Esther for the first time realised her dishevelled appearance, her hatless head. She saw the hard eyes fix themselves in a suspicious stare on a point upon her cheek under the left eye. Mechanically she put up her hand and discovered a needle-like splinter of glass sticking into her face. She had not felt it before: it must have come from the electric-bulb which Holliday's revolver had shattered. There must be a good deal of blood on ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, 'T were easier for you To put the water back When floods have slit the hills, And scooped a turnpike for themselves, And blotted ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... being so far right, he worked and scraped out the mortar, satisfied even with getting away the tiniest scraps, feeling as he did that if he could only dislodge one stone he could bring up from below plenty of great and splinter-shaped pieces with which he could hammer, and take out the rest, or enough for his body to ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... very slowly along the earthen floor, drawing her hands along the slabs as she went. A splinter from one of them ran into her finger—but that did not matter. Now she touched the door, which lay back towards her, for the blacks had not waited to close it. She pushed it very softly, holding her breath at the creak of the hinge and listening intently for the recurrent snore which sounded through ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... head to dodge a ragged splinter of freshly torn wood which came whistling past, cast far away from the tornado proper by those erratic winds. And at the same instant the machine itself recoiled, shivering and creaking in all its cunning joints ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... did his light waves splinter Into silvery shafts the streaming light; And I said I loved thee, Konigswinter, For the glory that was thine ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... he said, "house-breaking." And he forced the blade into the crevice of the wood and broke away a huge splinter, leaving a gap and glimpse of the dark window-pane inside. The room within was entirely unlighted, so that for the first few seconds the window seemed a dead and opaque surface, as dark as a strip of slate. Then came a ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... around his bullet head, hard and tough and cunning in war; and little Ginger, with his whimsical face and freckles, and love of pretty girls and all children, until he was killed in Flanders; and the Permanent Temporary Lieutenant who fell on the Somme; and the Giant who had a splinter through his brain beyond Arras; and many other Highland gentlemen, and one English padre who went with them always to the trenches, until a shell took his head off at ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... more, coming terrifyingly near; a crash far louder than the nearest thunder; a colossal thump to the earth which seems to move the whole world about an inch from its base; a scatter of flying bits and all sorts of under-noises, rustle of a flying wood splinter, whir of fragments, scatter of falling earth. Before it is half finished another shriek exactly similar is coming through it. Another crash—apparently right on the crown of your head, as if the roof beams of the sky had been burst in. You can ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... when Annie was a very little girl she broke her arm and papa mended it. So he did up Fluffy-dumpty's leg with a splinter, and then wound a bandage round it. Annie took care of her. Mary used to help Annie ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... groups and leaders: Australian Democratic Labor Party (anti-Communist Labor Party splinter group); Peace and Nuclear Disarmament Action (Nuclear ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the full arrogance of his might and his youth. Afraid? Not he! He laughed as Numa bore down upon him; he laughed and couched his spear, setting the point for the broad breast. And then the lion was upon him. A great paw swept away the heavy war spear, splintering it as the hand of man might splinter a dry twig. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... spite of their protest, and peeped into the nest, and found four gleaming white eggs studding the bottom like pearls. Alas! when I visited the place two weeks later, the little domicile had been raided, the half-decayed walls having been broken down. A tuft of gray hair hanging to a splinter proved the invader to have been a predatory animal of some kind, probably a cat. The birds were nowhere to be seen—unless a pair chirping in the woods on the other side of the valley were the same couple, trying to rear a family ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the strangers / the men of Ruediger, From shaft full many a splinter / saw ye fly in air In hand of doughty warrior / that jousted lustily. Them might ye 'fore the ladies / pricking ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... Spenser and of Milton. The claim of Spenser to be considered as a sacred poet does by no means rest upon his hymns alone: although even those would be enough alone to embalm and consecrate the whole volume which contains them; as a splinter of the true cross is supposed by Catholic sailors to ensure the safety of the vessel. But whoever will attentively consider the Faerie Queene itself, will find that it is, almost throughout, such as might have been expected from the author of those truly sacred hymns. It is a continual, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... cavern'd shapes that Typhon bled, Greet each wand'ring spectre's sight; Where pixies dance on wind-blown strands, Lurke gyte incubi in a hall. Here, then, reigns gyving, batter'd Doom! Where shadows vague and coffined light, Spit broths from splinter'd wracks and domes. Where viscid mists and vulpine cries Rise from the moat of dungeoned gloom And rasp the stationed walls of night Until sequestered skulls and bones Are made to hear the moaning sighs That some mad Titan, rayed in gold, Wrests ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... Pierre stuck a splinter into the fire to light another cigarette, and paused as if expecting the governor to speak, but no word coming, he continued: "I had my arm around him while we talked and come slowly down the hill. Soon he stopped ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a splinter on one of the light tent-poles. Billy's heart gave a sudden jump. A tress of Isobel's long, loose hair had caught in the splinter, and a dozen golden-brown strands had remained to give him away. For a moment he forgot that Bucky Smith was watching him. He saw Isobel again as ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... not have skillets when they're in the woods," said Rob, as he took a long splinter he had prepared, thrust it into one of the saddles, and then, poking the other end into the ground close to the fire, allowed the meat to get the benefit of the heat. "We must do what we can in this old-fashioned way. The best sauce, after ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... obey the summons, Miss Edna Splinter emerged from the rear door. She hurried toward the two. Miss Splinter was one of those fine spinsters which one so often finds stranded in small villages located near large cities. She was one of the few friends of the Captain in ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... Brown as his running mate, hoping by this coalition to achieve victory. The Republicans, still unwilling to go the whole way for woman suffrage by giving it the recognition of a plank in their platform, did, however, offer women a splinter at which Susan grasped eagerly because it was the first time an important, powerful political party had ever mentioned women ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... It was a fair welcome, and done for Rudeger's sake. The knights, from both sides, pricked gallantly to the greeting, and showed their horsemanship in the presence of the maidens, that saw it gladly enow. When Rudeger's men rode up to the strangers, many a splinter flew into the air from the hands of the heroes, that tilted on knightly wise. They rode to win praise from the women. When the tourney was ended, the men greeted each other, and fair Gotelind was led up to Kriemhild. ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... of an implacable enemy. A woman was dashed at his very feet torn and bleeding, her face mangled so that he grew sick and faint at the sight; pinned against the seat opposite, transfixed by a long splinter as with a javelin, was the dapper young man, horribly writhing and mowing, and then stark dead in an instant, staring with wide open eyes and distorted face like a ghastly mask. Moans and shrieks, grindings and roarings, howlings ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... the teeth of a crocodile not splinter under that word? It seems to us as if Mr Bowyer's verses ought to be boiled before they can be read. And when he says, 'Twas thou, what is the wretch talking to? Can he be apostrophising the knout? We very much fear it. If so then, you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... asked herself; yet she felt no fear, and shook her head under her plaid, sure that, even if he were, no danger would reach him: the gun aimed at him would strike some broken branch, the knife drawn against him would break like a splinter before it struck him, the man who rushed on him would stumble and fall before he could touch that haughty head. He was above all danger, above all fear; he knew neither care nor grief; alas! he did not feel like other men. His head was lifted freely, his eyes were ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Patterson. We made all the Sail we Cou'd Crowd after the Brigt. which by this time was almost out of Sight. The damage we Received was not much. Only one man Slightly wounded in the Engagement by a Splinter, John Taylor, two more by an Accident a peice Going off after the fight and shott them both in the Arm. We Received upwards of 20 Shott in Our Sails, 2 through Our Mast and one through Our Gunnell port and all This day the Revenge ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... Dakota brave wishes to "propose" to a "dusky maid", he visits her teepee at night after she has retired, or rather, laid down in her robe to sleep. He lights a splinter of wood and holds it to her face. If she blows out the light, he is accepted; if she covers her head and leaves it burning, he is rejected. The rejection however is not considered final till it has been thrice repeated. Even then the maiden ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... capital. The Paper ingenious, only that it split into 4 parts (besides a side splinter) in the carriage. I have transferred it to the common English Paper, manufactured of rags, for better preservation. I never knew before how the Iliad and Odyssey were written. Tis strikingly corroborated by observations on Cats. These domestic ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... him; he comes when people are in extremis, but they don't send for him every time they make a slight moral slip, tell a lie for instance, or smuggle a silk dress through the customhouse; but they call in the doctor when a child is cutting a tooth or gets a splinter in its finger. So it does n't mean much to send for him, only a pleasant chat about the news of the day; for putting the baby to rights does n't take long. Besides, everybody does n't like to talk about the next world; people are modest in their desires, and find this world as good as they ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as it were with the early sunbeams. It was an old-fashioned room;—the windows with chintz shades, the floor painted, with a single strip of rag carpet; the old low-post bed-stead, with its check blue and white spread, the high-backed splinter chairs, told of life that had made but little progress in modern improvement. And Jonathan Fax himself, lean, long-headed, and lantern-jawed, looked grimmer than ever under his new veil of solemn feeling. He sat ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... forth the tongues of flame and wreaths of smoke, and soon they get the range with deadly precision. The British guns promptly reply. The gunners stand to their pieces, though an iron hail is crashing all around them. Now one and another is struck down by a splinter or fragment of shell, and, while another steps into his place, is borne off to the bomb-proof casemates, where the surgeon plies ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... fetch him over that he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me. For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit of the mind, a proud and 'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said to my poor wife, reminded me a little of our Master George; not in his ordinary aspect, to be sure, but as Master George might look if he was going to the devil. Pray ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... wax in the cloth will cause the tie to adhere sufficiently to the wood so that no other ligature is required. In budding in the spring, when the flow of sap is very copious, it is well to tie in a small splinter about the size of a match just below the bud to drain off the excess sap. This will save many buds from being killed by souring of the sap. In two to three weeks time the tie should be loosened so ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... splinter, and shiver came from below as the doctor forced the first block to the edge of the shelf where ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... wakened and she sat up, rubbing her eyes. The attic was almost dark. She went downstairs hurriedly, forgetting her borrowed finery until her long train caught on a projecting splinter and had to be loosened. When she reached her own door she started toward her mirror, anxious to see how she looked, but that triumphant cry from the room below made ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... He gained permission from his grandmother to remove his bed to his own garret, and there, from the bedstead at which he no longer kneeled, he would often rise at four in the morning, even when the snow lay a foot thick on the skylight, kindle his lamp by means of a tinder-box and a splinter of wood dipped in sulphur, and sitting down in the keen cold, turn half a page of Addison into something as near Ciceronian Latin as he could effect. This would take him from an hour and a half to two hours, when he would tumble again into bed, blue and stiff, and sleep till ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... front of the shattered bone lay exposed. The doctor sighed, as he pushed at this with a steady finger, his eyes frowning, absorbed. The bullet wound in the anterior edge was not clean cut. Near it was a long, heavy splinter of bone, the cause of the inflammation—something not suspected in the hurried dressing of the wound in the half darkness at the river edge. This bone end, but loosely attached, was broken free, thrust down into the angry and ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... she slipped to her knees beside him, and his hand held hers while the blazing splinter set the pine kindling aflame. Quickly the whole room was aglow with light and warmth, in cheerful contrast to the stormy ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... the summer, there was a Schutzenfest, in which a large wooden eagle was shot from the pole. Whoever brought down the last splinter became king. This honour once fell to my share, and I was permitted to choose a queen. I crowned Marie Breimann, a pretty, slender young girl from Brunswick, whose Greek profile and thick silken hair had captivated my fancy. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a splinter of it remains; it was burned down in 1805, and the ruins later engulfed by the river. But I fancy we can see it, from the description. So there our party spent that first winter, and long and cold enough ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... is war in the skies! Lo! the black-winged legions of tempest arise O'er those sharp splinter'd rocks that are gleaming below In the soft light, so fair and so fatal, as though Some seraph burn'd through them, the thunderbolt searching Which the black cloud unbosom'd just now. Lo! the lurching And ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... heauie mutuall loade of Moane, Now cheere each other, in each others Loue: Though we haue spent our Haruest of this King, We are to reape the Haruest of his Sonne. The broken rancour of your high-swolne hates, But lately splinter'd, knit, and ioyn'd together, Must gently be preseru'd, cherisht, and kept: Me seemeth good, that with some little Traine, Forthwith from Ludlow, the young Prince be set Hither to London, to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... fire-pots, the tar and cement. So I have a vivid idea of mighty labours in steel and stone, and I believe that I am acquainted with all the fiendish noises which can be made by man or machinery. The whack of heavy falling bodies, the sudden shivering splinter of chopped logs, the crystal shatter of pounded ice, the crash of a tree hurled to the earth by a hurricane, the irrational, persistent chaos of noise made by switching freight-trains, the explosion of gas, the blasting of ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... only doubt was ours, One only dread we knew— Could the day that dawned so well Go down for the Darker Powers? Would the fleet get through? And ever the shot and shell Came with the howl of hell, The splinter-clouds rose and fell, And the long line of corpses grew— ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... eyes, bowed her head, and waited for the Superintendent to smite her dead. The smite she felt quite sure would be a noisy one. First of all, she reasoned it would fracture her skull. Naturally then of course it would splinter her spine. Later in all probability it would telescope her knee-joints. And never indeed now that she came to think of it had the arches of her feet felt less capable of resisting so terrible an impact. Quite unconsciously she groped out a little with one hand ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... were no casualties among the Barolongs. The following was the only injury: A shell burst in front of Chief Lekoko as he was engaged in repelling the Boer attack, but no fragments of it touched him. One piece of shell, however, struck a rock and a splinter of the rock grazed his temple. At best only a few rounds of ammunition could be handed out to those of the Barolongs who used their own rifles, and it is doubtful if so little ammunition was ever more economically used, and ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... evidently descending, we gently remonstrated with him on the danger of proceeding, but he only grinned, and flogged in reply; we soon saw the front wheels disappear, and horses began to plunge and kick most alarmingly, but still without his looking at all disturbed. At length the splinter-bar gave way, upon which the black philosopher said very composedly, "I expect you'll best be riding out upon the horses, as we've got into an unhandsome fix here." Miss Wright, who sat composedly smiling at the scene, said, "Yes, Jacob, that is what we must do;" and with some difficulty we, in ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... intimated that our sense of the ludicrous varies in accordance with memory, imagination, observation, and association. The minds of some are so versatile, and so richly endowed with intellectual gifts, that their ideas sparkle and coruscate, they splinter every ray of light into a thousand colours, and produce all kinds of strange juxtapositions and combinations. (This exuberance has probably led to the seemingly contradictory saying that men of sentiment are generally men of humour.) No doubt their sallies would be poor and appreciated ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... on the shoulder of each boy a round hole with a pointed stone; this hole they licked to feel no splinter of stone remained, then filled ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... this danger of the lesser monsters. And at an hundred thousand embrasures within the Mighty Pyramid, the women cried and sobbed, and looked again. And in the lower cities it was told, after, that the Peoples could hear the crash and splinter of the armour, as the Hounds ran to and fro, slaying; aye, even the sound of ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... iron bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside, and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door, and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing. Then the blows of the axe with its splitting and smashing ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... pallid. "If you see 'im, just tell me," he gasped, meeting Thomas gallantly—with the loss of only one splinter. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... could not, at the period of which I write, be called an attractive child; he was not even "interesting" or "unusual." He was very minutely made, with bones so brittle that it seemed that, at any moment, he might crack and splinter into sharp little pieces; and I am afraid that no one would have minded very greatly had this occurred. But although, he was so thin his face had a white and overhanging appearance, his cheeks being pale and puffy and his under-lip ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... a cannon loaded and aimed at Les Tourelles. They, seeing the gleam of the golden shield at the window of the turret, set match to the touch-hole of the cannon, and, as Heaven would have it, the ball struck a splinter of stone from the side of the window, which, breaking through the golden shield, slew my Lord of Salisbury, a good knight. Thus plainly that tower was to be of little comfort to ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar[258-8] towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... comrade's back, and using his axe for dear life; one of twenty men hacking, ripping, tearing down the wooden stakes. But it was Teddy who wriggled through first with Dave at his heels. The man beneath Nat gave a heave with his shoulders and shot him through his gap, a splinter tearing his cheek open. He fell head foremost sprawling down the slippery slope ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... our neighborhood; or, if there were inns, the horses proved to be of too slight a build. At Ballinasloe, and again at Athlone, half the town came out to help us; and, having no suitable horses, thirty or forty men, with shouts of laughter, pulled at ropes fastened to our pole and splinter- bar, and compelled the snorting demons into a flying gallop. But, naturally, a couple of miles saw this resource exhausted. Then came the necessity of "drawing the covers," as the dean called it; that is, hunting amongst the adjacent farmers for powerful cattle. This ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Gand, a bit of an infidel from Lyons, who sometimes amused himself with the Breton's superstition, told him with a grave face, that the splinter belonged not to him, but to the sutler, and, though so small, was doubtless a necessary part of ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Remember John McKeen! How he was stripped and tied to a tree; then the red devils danced around him, howled at him, taunted him, and threw their knives at him till he was full of holes from head to foot. Have you forgotten what they did then? Put a pine splinter in every wound he had, set them on fire and made a living ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... killed by a cannon splinter, Quite in the middle of the winter; Perhaps it was not at that time, But I can get no ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... members, Truck Milnor, insisted that the measurements should be remade by means of a rule graduated by the micrometrical machine of M. Perreaux, which can divide a millimeter into fifteen-hundredths of a millimeter with a diamond splinter, was brought to bear on the lines; and on reading the divisions through a microscope the following were the results: Uncle Prudent had approached the center within less than six fifteenth-hundredths of a millimeter. Phil Evans was within ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... asked. "Think that ain't a runaway nigger? Look." A splinter had been newly rubbed off the rail. "What you reckon done that, sir; a bird or a fish? That's where he jumped. Look yonder, where ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... Jacob's Post carried on the person is sovran against toothache. A Sussex archaeologist tells of an old lady, a resident on Ditchling Common for more than eighty years, whose belief in the Post was so sound that her pocket contained a splinter of it long after all ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... just as I was going into my dug-out. . . . Mouldy luck, and one splinter smashed the last bottle of whisky." The gunner relapsed into moody silence at the remembrance ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... service in the British navy. In an obstinate and bloody battle between English and French squadrons off the Island of Lissa, in the Adriatic, about nine months before, in which Sir William Hoste achieved a splendid victory, his leg had been shattered by a splinter. After a partial recovery he had received his discharge, and was returning to his home in "dear Old Ireland," when a relapse took place, and he took refuge in the hospital. He also could tell tales of wondrous interest connected with man-of-war ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... pendulously from the side, and depriving the animal of all use of it. The arm, by which I mean the fore arm, was movable in any direction upon the shoulder, and there was distinct crepitus: in a word, the nature of the accident was too plain to admit of doubt; nor was there any splinter or loose piece of bone discoverable. I directed that the animal might be laid flat upon his sound side in a hamper, or covered basket or box, of sufficient dimensions, but not large enough to admit of his ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... higher, gilding the misty green of the budding trees, quickening the red maple bloom into fierce scarlet, throwing lances of light down through the pine branches to splinter against the dark earth far below. For an hour it shone; then clouds gathered and shut it from sight. The forest darkened, and the wind arose with a shriek. The young trees cowered before the blast, the strong and vigorous beat their branches together with ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... not done as it was ordered. It made the S.A.'s and the Lynchesters and the Gessex lot laugh. Old Gunter's all right. He's in the Stay Awhile now. You'll be sure to see him. And Colonel Byng's all right, too, except a little bit o' splinter—" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thigh wound. They had thought to amputate, but found the bone shattered from joint to joint—had, with a chain saw, cut it off above the knee, and picked out the bone in pieces. There was a splinter attached to the upper joint, but that was all the bone left in the thigh, and the injury was one from which recovery was impossible. His father, a doctor, was visiting him, and knew he ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... of the long journey she was still trudging patiently and gladly along, side by side with Grandfather—making less fuss over the years—old pain in her knees than we make now over a splinter in a finger—going daily and uncomplainingly ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... incumbrance cast from the decks into the sea. Now and then, a fruitless shot from his bow-chasers, reminded the fugitive that the foe was still on his scent. At last, the cruiser got the range of his guns so perfectly, that a well-aimed ball ripped away our rail and tore a dangerous splinter from the foremast, three feet from deck. It was now perilous to carry a press of sail on the same tack with the weakened spar, whereupon I put the schooner about, and, to my delight, found we ranged ahead a knot faster on this course than the former. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... kickshaws to fetch home. I ain't a child, an' you ain't got no money to waste. I expect you'll go, like's not, an' buy you some kind of a foolish boy's hat; do look an' see if it's reasonable good straw, an' won't splinter all off round the edge. An' you ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the ladye, when thus he had spoken,— Of Sir Raymond's fall a deathly token: 'Twas a lock of his hair all stained with blood, Entwined on a splinter of Holy Rood.— ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... triumph, or for freedom dies. Thund'ring amain along the rocky strand, The Ocean claims her honors with the Land. Loud on the gale she chimes the wild refrain, Or with low murmur wails her heroes slain! In gory hulks, with splinter'd mast and spar, Rocks on her stormy breast the valiant Tar:— Lash'd to the mast he gives the high command, Or midst the fight, ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... roaring of the guns, but he could read the little fellow's lips as he pressed him to drink, and sick to the heart and suffering from the terrible wound which had struck him down, he raised his hand to the tin to steady it and drink, but only to see it fall upon the deck, a splinter having struck ...
— The Powder Monkey • George Manville Fenn
... pole-axe severed the rope that connected the two vessels, and she dropped astern. The desperate and frantic courage of the Spaniards died with their commander; their first lieutenant had received a slight splinter-wound in the foot at the first fire of the Albatross, in consequence of which he went below, and had not been seen on deck since; the second lieutenant's orders were not attended to; and all was anarchy and confusion on board. A few minutes after she drifted from the Albatross, her foremast, already ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... One splinter of human drift which was carried along on the tide gazed about out of a chalky face—morphia-stamped. This chip on the churning eddy bore the name of Paul Burton. He had of course no business there. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... woods uplift Spectral arms the storm-blasts splinter, And the hoary trapper, Winter, Builds his camp of ice and drift, With his snow-pelts furred and shod,— All the land is one ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... an angry growl among the sailors, as the schooner bore away a little, and also fired her broadside. Except that a man was struck down by a splinter from the bulwarks, ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... strike up against a sliver of wood, and got a splinter in your hand," he declared; "see here, I can show you," saying which he used the nails of his finger and thumb for a forceps, and drew out a little splinter that had pushed under the skin, just far enough to bring a drop ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... arsenic. Wire tail same as in mounting. Wrap leg bones with cotton, tow, or excelsior according to size of specimen. Turn the skin back over a core of one of these materials, wrapped upon a splinter or stick, to size of natural body, but somewhat flatter. Sew up abdominal incision neatly. Catch the lips together with two or three stitches. Lay specimen, belly down, upon a soft-wood board. Pin fore paws alongside of the face and hind feet ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... start, But soon he manned his noble heart, And in the first career they ran, The Elfin Knight fell, horse and man; Yet did a splinter of his lance Through Alexander's visor glance, And razed the skin—a puny wound. The King, light leaping to the ground, With naked blade his phantom foe Compelled the future war to show. Of Largs he saw the glorious plain, Where still gigantic ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... up, plowed Uncle Sam, one lonely splinter of shingle still bound within his spokes, and his poor, dented ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... red beard and an academic face beneath a pith helmet was stooping over the siftings from those baskets, intent upon the stream of sand through the wire screens. Patiently he discarded the unending pebbles, discovering at rare intervals some lost bead, some splinter of old sycamore wood, some fragment of pottery in which a Ptolemy had sipped his wine—or a kitchen wench had soaked ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... when at last the way was clear. The chute, polished smooth by the flowing kernels, did not even leave a splinter in his bare flesh, and when he shot down and out he fell on the soft mound of wheat that ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... considered fresher than what saluted the nostrils within. Of course these shelters did not offer so much security from danger as their occupiers fancied (I have already instanced how the recesses of a coal-hole had not been proof against invasion); but they were splinter proof. If husbands and fathers did magnify the protection they afforded, their motives ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... well, indeed, very, very much, a deal, no end of, most, not a little; pretty, pretty well; enough, in a great measure, richly; to a large extent, to a great extent, to a gigantic extent; on a large scale; so; never so, ever so; ever so dole; scrap, shred, tag, splinter, rag, much; by wholesale; mighty, powerfully; with a witness, ultra [Lat.], in the extreme, extremely, exceedingly, intensely, exquisitely, acutely, indefinitely, immeasurably; beyond compare, beyond comparison, beyond measure, beyond all bounds; incalculably, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... very soul sickening under the crushing truth of what Dill in his prim grammatical way was saying, did not answer at all. He was picking blindly, mechanically at the splinter, his face shaded by his worn, gray hat; and he was thinking irrelevantly how a condemned man must feel when they come to him in his cell and in formal words read aloud his death-warrant. One sentence was beating monotonously ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... young man with forced carelessness, "some unimportant splinter gave way and the thing slid ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... before the Starboard Fore Chains; here the Rocks had made their way thro' 4 planks, quite to, and even into the Timbers, and wounded 3 more. The manner these planks were damaged—or cut out, as I may say—is hardly credible; scarce a Splinter was to be seen, but the whole was cut away as if it had been done by the Hands of Man with a blunt-edge Tool. Fortunately for us the Timbers in this place were very close; other wise it would have been impossible to have saved the Ship, and even as it was it appeared very extraordinary that she made ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook |
