"Black hole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and said, "Here we are, O my son, and glory be to Him who hath brought us thus far in safety! But, O my son, we cannot foregather with the Princess except by night; for night enveileth the fearful." He replied, "True, but what is to be done?" Quoth she, "Hide thee in this black hole," showing him behind the door a dark and deep cistern, with a cover thereto. So he entered the cistern, and she went away and left him there till ended day, when she returned and carried him into the palace, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... and momentarily fell upon a black hole in the thickset hedge. The light disappeared, and as I extended my hand to Carneta she grasped it and climbed ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... eldest sons. The Speaker and the Sergeant-at-arms give permission generally to foreigners, and sometimes to some other persons, to sit in these benches. I do not know which officer of the House of Commons superintends the admission of reporters. Ladies are admitted to the Black Hole assigned to them, by orders from the Sergeant-at-arms. I have no doubt that the Speaker and Sergeant-at-arms are responsible to the House for everything relating to the admission of strangers, and without taking upon myself to ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... the circular clearing. Then others, lugging vats of a dark, heady-smelling liquor, had deposited their burden beside the drums, and formed a second circle. The balance of the thousand had crowded itself together as best it might, leaving bare the center of the clearing with its black hole and fangs of poles. Kirby, looking down at these legions, did not wonder that cold sweat ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... would think fur sure ez the armies o' hell had been spewed out'n that black hole," said a lean man whom the glance of the blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of a racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its violence. "Hoof marks ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... lady-love endured rain and insects in the open, too, but suffered less, because of mutual distraction. The rest of us took turns with the natives below, lying packed between them, much as sardines nestle in a can, wondering whether the famous Black Hole of Calcutta was really such a record-breaker as they say. Brown was of the opinion that the Black Hole was a nosegay compared to our lot —"Besides which, they probably had rum ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... descend the slope of that sandhill which looked like a cloud, and seemed as if covered with felt, in order to preserve in such a place a more complete silence. And here and there we passed a gaping black hole—an airhole, as it seemed, of the profound and inextricable kingdom of mummies, very populous still, in spite of the zeal ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white waters rushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towards the pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noise of thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock, undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... was a level piece of turf close to school, beside a stream, which, at that place, was formed into a deep pool by means of a mill-dam. We had named the pool the black hole. It was the scene of all our school fights. In class that day I was unusually quiet, for I could not help thinking of the impending fight. I felt that it would be a hard one, though I never for a moment doubted the result. To keep my mind ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... because Western men never argue a point when that little black hole is staring them in the face, partly because he remembered with a rush that the last time he had fully possessed his consciousness he had been lying in the snow with the cross gripped hard and the toppling mass of the landslide above him. All that had happened between ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... feet of air-space to himself, and this space ought to communicate freely with the external atmosphere by means of direct or indirect channels. Hence, a sleeping-room for one adult person should not be less than nine by ten feet in breadth and length and nine feet in height. What occurred in the Black Hole at Calcutta is an excellent illustration of the effect of vitiated air. One hundred and forty-six Englishmen were confined in a room eighteen feet square, with two small windows on one side to admit air. Ten hours after their ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... an inch in diameter, through each window at top: the doors, too, were perforated with numerous holes. In this way, a free circulation was secured, and so arranged, that the nurses could not control it; for some of the old-fashioned nurses would not have opened a window in the Black Hole at Calcutta, for fear the ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... the cabins of Mayo or the fever-sheds of Skibbereen. Crowded and filthy, carrying double the legal number of passengers, who were ill-fed and imperfectly clothed, and having no doctor on board, the holds, says an eyewitness, were like the Black Hole of Calcutta, and deaths occurred in myriads. The survivors, on their arrival in the new country, continued to die and to scatter death ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... fire!" The shot boomed across the sunny, blue expanse of water, driving a white puff of smoke before it. The shell disappeared in the waves about one hundred yards ahead of the Japanese steamer. The next shot struck the ship, leaving in her side a black hole with jagged edges ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... mine as a hole. That was all I saw at first—a great black hole in the dark brown earth of the mountain-side, from which ran down a still darker streak into the waste places far below it. But as I looked longer I saw that it was faced by a ledge cut out of the friable soil, on which I was now able to descry the pronounced white of two ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... Scattered about behind the guns, covered with beautiful green turf, shadowed by growing trees, are the dwelling-places of the gunners, deep 'dug-outs,' with no visible sign of their existence except the square, black hole of the doorway. Out in the open a man sits with a pair of field-glasses, sweeping the sky. He is the aeroplane look-out, and at the first sign of a distant speck in the sky or the drone of an engine he blows shrilly on his whistle; every man dives to earth ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... their preoccupation with the relief and elation of a drama finished, had their first warning of what was to come in a voice that did not seem like the voice of the tenderfoot as they had heard it, but of another man. And Leddy was looking at a black hole in a rim of steel which, though twenty yards away, seemed hot against his forehead, while he ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... of the dungeon, hewn in the rock at the foot of the temple, on the summit of the Acropolis, had just opened; and a man was standing on the threshold of this black hole. ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... at the pithead seemed terrible in their never-ending revolutions, as they flew round to bring up the loads of coal. The big yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels, when the tables started, bewildered them. These crashed and roared and crunched and groaned; they would squeal ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... been abolished by the economical furnace-register, and Santa Claus, if he come at all, must do it like an imp of the pit. The volumes for children to pore over, as they bake by the stove, or stew over the black hole in the floor, have also suffered an economic and practical change. No more fires, no more pretty fancies, seems to have been the doom. Parents who think, as we do, that children inhale practicality with our American atmosphere, and that a little encouragement of the imaginative side of their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... 'T was only yesterday he took me to the works, and you'd ha' thought us two Quakers as the spirit hadn't moved, all the way down we were so mum. It's a place to craze a man, certainly; such a noisy black hole! There were one or two things worth looking at, the bellows for instance, or the gale they called a bellows. I could ha' stood near it a whole day; and if I'd a berth in that place, I should like to be bellows-man, if ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... steadily, and now he felt he had means to enter the cave. With a few pieces of this rope he made his way down to where the keg was, and soaked them well in the rum. Then he paused and looked around. The frowning walls seemed more menacing than ever, and that black hole just beyond, which he had tried to enter the day before, glared at his like a huge eye of sinister import. He thought of the ghastly skull he had found the night before, and wondered if it had any connection with this cave. Cautiously, step by step, ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... had opened his eyes at the grave, when a cord was put into his hand, and then he wept passionately, and on his way back to Monypenny, whether his eyes were open or shut, what he saw was his mother being shut up in a black hole and trying for ever and ever to get out. He ran to Elspeth for comfort, but in the meantime she had learned from Blinder's niece that graves are dark and cold, and so he found her sobbing even like himself. Tommy could never bear to ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... history leads me to the conclusion that in all likelihood we should never have been rulers in India had we not been grievously injured as traders, in violation of rights accorded to us by the native powers. All know the story of the black hole of Calcutta, which led to our waging war on the Nawab. We had previously fought with the French and French allies in the south, we had contended with other European rivals, but our rule began with the victory of Plassey. After that victory our only alternative ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... There was a black hole in the wall, and another in the roof; the books were, many of them, soaked and ruined; the floor an inch deep with water, and it would take a whole week to set things to rights. ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... head down over the body kept us continually wet. On that fearful night every man's strength was exerted for his own individual safety. From crowding so close together in so narrow a compass, and having nothing to moisten their mouths, several poor wretches were suffocated, like those in the black hole,—with this only difference, that we were confined by water instead of strong walls; and the least movement or relaxation of our hold would ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... continued—"Our Drawing Room, 154which conveniently holds ten persons, is to be the black hole for thirty—My study, dear beloved retreat, where sonnets have been composed and novels written—this spot which just holds me and my cat, is to be the scene of bagatelle, commerce, or any thing else that a parcel of giggling ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... a crash and an unearthly scream, then a thud that sounded as if it had happened in the middle of the earth. Father Donovan and I looked around in alarm, but Paddy was nowhere to be seen. Toward the wall there was a square black hole, and, rushing up to it, we knew at once what had happened. Paddy had danced a bit too heavy on an old trap-door, and the rusty bolts had broken. It had let him down into a dungeon that had no other entrance; and indeed this was a queer house ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... breeches, which he held up with one hand while he grasped his firelock with the other. The rest were accoutred in similar style, excepting three ragamuffins without shirts, and with but a pair and a half of breeches between them; wherefore they were sent to the black hole, to keep them out of sight, that they might not ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... midnight the outsiders turned in, first the second hand and then the foreman, and, plunging into the "Black Hole," made their toilettes du soir. Then active operations commenced forthwith. In one compartment of the kneading-trough was the "sponge," which had been prepared by the foreman early in the evening, and which now, having properly settled, was mixed with the flour ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of ghosts would be at his heels. "When I got down the road a ways, though, how I would run!" He was always "scairy" if he had to come along the edge of the woods alone at nightfall, and was even afraid of the big black hole under the barn in the daytime: "I was tortured with the thought of what might lurk there in that great black abyss, and would hustle through my work of cleaning the stable, working like Hercules, and often sending in 'Cuff,' the dog, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... negroes, but they still persisted in their refusal. After warning them of the consequences of mutiny, the Major ordered their ringleader to be put in irons, and he was conveyed on board the Saghalin and imprisoned in the "black hole"; but his comrades still held out. It was of vital importance that the Palmetto should go to sea with the first high tide, because the season was already far advanced, and she must inevitably be wrecked by ice if she remained in the river ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... emerged, but there were sufficient stars out to show up the outline of the gaping walls on either side of our way. We passed a number of sentries and entered a black hole in the wall of a ruin. After stumbling over the uneven floor in a darkened passage for some minutes, we entered a small room where several officers were gathered around a table on which two burning candles were stuck in bottles. Our guide, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... in the world again, Jane Vail," he said. "You in yours and I in mine, and 'tis a far cry between the two. 'Twas the black hole of death loosed my tongue, ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... porch for a moment when we were below, and stood out of sight behind the vines. The street was still crowded with curious people, and there was a great black hole with the elm trees, scorched brown, drooping over it—a hole filled with the ashes that were all that was left of the home. Men were playing a hose into it and every time they moved the stream, here or there, a great hiss and cloud of vapor came up. Some one had hung the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... his right hand flashed to the switch controlling the zone of force. Fast as he was, much happened in the mere moment that passed before his flying hand could close the switch. In the last infinitesimal instant of time before the zone closed in, a gaping black hole appeared in the incandescence of the inner screen, and a small portion of a ray of energy so stupendous as to be palpable, struck, like a tangible projectile, the exposed flank of the Skylark. Instantly the refractory arenak turned ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... Waves like mountains; then a black hole, black as pitch, and great high walls. After that—I'll tell 'ee dreckly. As for the maid, laive ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Bengal. In 1756 the young nawab of Bengal, Suraj-ud-Dowlah by name, seized the English fort at Calcutta and locked 146 Englishmen overnight in a stifling prison—the "Black Hole" of Calcutta—from which only twenty-three emerged alive the next morning. Clive, hastening from Madras, chastised Suraj for this atrocity, and forced him to give up Calcutta. And since by this time Great Britain and France were ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... said, "it was as bad for him as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta.'" I did n't know what that meant then; I know now, but haven't time to tell you. Besides it is n't a pleasant story. Then papa added, "Perhaps, after all, it is only a case of suspended animation. ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... the folding-doors into the wings. The O.P. corner was packed—standing room only—and the overflow reached nearly to the doors. The Black Hole of Calcutta was roomy compared with the wings on the night of a new song. Everybody who had the least excuse for being out of his or her dressing-room at that moment was peering through odd chinks in the scenery. Chorus-girls, show-girls, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... place. Major, I no like graves, I see too much of them, and can't tell what lie on other side. Though everyone say they know, Jeekie not quite sure. May be all light and crowns of glory, may be damp black hole and no way out. But this at least true, that I love you better, yes, better than Miss Barbara, for love of woman very poor, uncertain thing, quick come, quick go. Jeekie find that out—often. Yes, if need be, though death most nasty, if need be ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... found himself looking into what seemed to be a very deep and black hole; "wasn't it lucky we got the glim going when we did? I guess I'd dropped into that pit if we'd held off any longer. My good little angel must have ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... little at the corners, but not midway along the side where the fastening was. Archer turned cold at the thought of their predicament, and for a moment even Tom's rather dull imagination pictured the ghastly fate made possible by imprisonment in this black hole. ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... says: "There are 173 prisoners in the wards. On the fifth thirty-two escaped, but three were brought back. These were confined in the Black Hole forty days on half allowance, and obliged to lie on ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... short time to get round, albeit the road was rough and dangerous. We had taken our bearings aright, but for a time we could see no signs of those we had come to seek. But presently with her riding-whip Flora pointed to a deep black hole ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... acervation^, cumulation; glomeration^, agglomeration; conglobation^; conglomeration, conglomerate; coacervate [Chem], coacervation [Chem], coagmentation^, aggregation, concentration, congestion, omnium gaterum [Lat.], spicilegium^, black hole of Calcutta; quantity &c (greatness) 31. collector, gatherer; whip, whipper in. V. assemble [be or come together], collect, muster; meet, unite, join, rejoin; cluster, flock, swarm, surge, stream, herd, crowd, throng, associate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thicket of oleanders drenched the air with the perfume of their heavy poisonous flowering, and behind them a rough clearing of saw grass swept up to the debris of the fallen portico. To the left, beyond the black hole of a decaying well, rose the walls of a second brick building, smaller than the dwelling. A few shreds of rotten porch clung to its face; and the moonlight, pouring through a break above, fell in a livid bar across the obscurity of a high ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... enterprise and wealth of the English traders; and, roused at this moment by the instigation of the French, he appeared before Fort William, seized its settlers, and thrust a hundred and fifty of them into a small prison called the Black Hole of Calcutta. The heat of an Indian summer did its work of death. The wretched prisoners trampled each other under foot in the madness of thirst, and in the morning only twenty-three remained alive. Clive sailed at the news with a thousand Englishmen ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... rains. We pulled with all our strength, but we could not move it. So we called International [-4-8818,-] {4-8818} and together we scraped the earth around the bar. Of a sudden the earth fell in before us, and we saw an old iron grill over a black hole. ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand
... turned his tired but still talkative head over his shoulder, and had found himself looking into a small round black hole, rimmed by a six-sided circlet of steel, with a sort of spike standing up on the top. It fixed him like an iron eye. Through those eternal instants during which the reason is stunned he did not even know what it was. Then he saw behind it the chambered barrel and cocked hammer of a revolver, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Fairy was found a convict, John Crow, who for some offence had been confined in the military guardhouse at Parramatta, whence he found means to make his escape, and reached Sydney in time to swim on board the American. On being brought on shore he received a slight punishment, and was confined in the black hole at the guardhouse at Sydney, out of which he escaped a night or two after, by untiling a part of the roof. After this he was not heard of, till the watch apprehended him at Parramatta, where he had broken into two houses, which he had plundered, and was caught ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... you won't be put in the black hole for refractory conduct, No. 19," replied Evans, quietly ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of course. It was built, or rebuilt, by the Aragonese, with four corner towers, one of which became infamous for a scene that rivals the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Numbers of confined brigands, uncared-for, perished miserably of starvation within its ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... chamber, the centre of its floor pierced by the black hole leading down to the next and lowest level, was lighted dimly by lamps and candles standing upon shelves which jutted from the earthen walls. From all the galleries radiating from it, files of men, staggering under weighted baskets, kept coming to be relieved of their loads by ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... be the case, certainly," replied Dick. "I shall be glad to get back to Bess. I couldn't bring her with me into this black hole. A couple of shots will tell you 'tis Ranulph Rookwood. But mind, no harm to the gipsy girl—to Lady Rookwood, I should say. She's a jewel, take my word for it, which Sir Luke must be mad to throw away." And calling his companions, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in her arms, as though she feared to see him disappear down the black hole, and, in ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... encouraged me greatly. It was very friable and so shallow that my scissors'-point picked it at once. In five minutes' time the brick was clear, so that I easily lifted it out and set it on the floor. The small black hole which was left was large enough to admit my hand. I wasted no time thrusting it in, expecting to feel the box at once and draw it out. But it was farther back than I expected, and while I was feeling about something gave way and fell with a slight, rustling noise down out ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... racked or his heart wounded. It is evil to be in pain. It is evil to carry a heavy heart. It is evil to be stripped of what we have long been accustomed to lean upon. It is evil to be crushed down by loss and want. It is evil to stand by the black hole that swallows the coffin that holds the light of our eyes. It is evil to have the arrows of calumny or hate sticking in our quivering spirits. It is evil to be battered with the shocks of change and doom in the world, to have to toil at ungrateful tasks beyond ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... seem that the boy was right. The little black hole of a passage suddenly opened out into light that almost blinded them by its brilliancy. It was a broad track. On the right was the wall of the cliff pierced with little holes, through which they looked down again on the canon itself, the opposite ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... cliff—then, walked a short distance along the edge, descended a little again, and stopped at a wooden platform built across a deep gully. Here, the miner pulled up a trap-door, and disclosed a perpendicular ladder leading down to a black hole, like the opening of a chimney. "This is the shaft; I will go down first, to catch you in case you tumble; follow me and hold tight;" saying this, our friend squeezed himself through the trap-door, and we went after him as we had ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... to tell you the truth,—I can do it now,—for me it means a jump out of a particularly black hole. You must understand that we're not doing downright badly; we pay our way, but that was about all. I, individually, shouldn't have paid my way for many months longer. God! how I clutched at it! You don't know what it is, Rolfe, to see your damned ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... found it a convenient plea when he restored the dignity of the Roman Senate, but destroyed its independence. It gave countenance to and justified all the atrocities of the Inquisition in Spain. It forced out the stifled groans that issued from the Black Hole of Calcutta. It was written in tears upon the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, and pointed to those dark recesses upon whose gloomy thresholds there was never ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... may be imagined that this forecastle was about as uncomfortable a lodging place, in sinter's cold or summer's heat, as a civilized being could well desire. It undoubtedly possessed advantages over the "Black Hole of Calcutta," but an Esquimaux hut, an Indian wigwam, or a Russian cabin, was a palace in comparison. And this was a type of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... he led the way down the long hall with his noiseless, gliding steps. Laurie, following close behind him, reflected that the place was exactly the sort the ophidian Shaw would choose for a lair, a long black hole, ending in—what? ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... ran on and on in this vein, till presently he noticed that the governess was moving about the room. She crossed over and tried first one door and then the other; both were fastened. Next she lifted the trap-door and peered down into the black hole below. That, too, apparently was satisfactory. Then she came over ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... between the English and the native prince in Bengal. The nabob of that province had died, and his successor, a young man of nineteen, attacked Calcutta. The place fell, after a weak resistance, in June, and the surrender was followed by the famous tragedy known as that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The news reached Madras in August, and Clive, whose name has already been mentioned, sailed with the fleet of Admiral Watson, after a long and vexatious delay. The fleet entered the river in December and appeared before Calcutta ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... so much excited about the Sea Monster suddenly having a big black hole in it that we almost forgot to take the bottle when we went home. We did forget Aunt Ailsa's hatpin, and Greg had to run back for it, because he can run faster than any of the rest of us, and Captain Lewis held the ferry ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... which was more like an outhouse than anything else, she had christened, "The Black Hole of Calcutta." The upper part, which was approached by a ladder as a loft would be, was used as a meeting-room, while the ground floor became a temporary stable for the horses and mules, of which she was left in charge. Since the scene in that upper ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... is," said Lady Delacour to Belinda, "to hear congratulatory speeches from people, who would not care if I were in the black hole at Calcutta this minute; but we must take the world as it goes—dirt and precious stones mixed together. Clarence Hervey, however, n'a pas une ame de boue; he, I am sure, has been really concerned for me: he thinks that his young horses were the sole cause of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... relief of his men, then you will have some idea of the situation. The men are very patient, but they know someone has blundered. Talk about the heroism of the Light Brigade! It is nothing to the heroism that goes cheerfully and uncomplainingly into the Black Hole of Calcutta (there is nothing else that will compare with these transports), all because it is duty. When will the people appreciate the ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... her arms, she opened the window, saying to me, "Don't cry, Milk Blossom. Look at your pretty aunt; she will come back again, and then you can go away with her." Great tears rolled down her calm, round, handsome face. I could see nothing but the dark, black hole which remained there immutable behind me, and in a fit of despair I rushed out to my aunt, who was just getting into a carriage. After that I knew nothing more; everything seemed dark, there was a noise in the distance. I could hear voices far, far away. I had ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... afternoon had jeopardized the entire scheme. Indeed, it was on the verge of utter ruin. For Newman was in the black hole in irons, and the crew were ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... black hole, for it had those words painted on the door, was very dark, and having recently accommodated a drunken deserter, by no means clean. Barnaby felt his way to some straw at the farther end, and looking towards the door, tried to accustom himself to the gloom, which, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Conroyal pulled them out; and then Ham thrust his big body into the opening—he could just squeeze in—and began cautiously working his way forward. It was not a venture for an excited boy to make, the entrance into that black hole ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... listening during a part of this same week to a second confession of that poor fellow whose tongue had outmeasured his discretion. It was listening with reviving dread to the wild and incoherent disclosures of this man, whom it had flung into the black hole of the workhouse. There, crazed by misery and fear of death, he raved about a plot among the blacks to massacre the whites and to put the town to fire and pillage. This second installment of William Paul's excited disclosures, while it increased ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... not yet been. It entered her; it filled her past; it linked itself with everything that she had been and done and believed. And the iron drove down deeper, until of her heart there seemed only to be left a deep black hole. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... a pallet where lay a face like a girl's, Young, and pathetic with dying,—a deep black hole in the curls. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... narrow, motionless threads. The face of the mountain was rugged and bare. It was strewn with detached boulders, and great, jagged rocks projected everywhere like iron teeth. Tydomin pointed to a small black hole near the base, which might be a cave. "That ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... temple of Proserpine, or Apollo, or any god or goddess you please. We were so absurd as to pay a scudo to be taken through a vile tunnel, accompanied by two torch-bearers, and two other dirty wretches, who often carry us pick-a-back through one black hole into another, splashing us through dark pools, putting us down here and there as they pleased, picking us up again, grinning like demons, and by dint of shaking their torches above, and disturbing the water below, raising foul smells enough to intoxicate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... was danger of any kind, he was the first there. One morning there was an explosion in the mine, and more than a score of prisoners were in danger of being suffocated before help could reach them. Indeed everybody was afraid to venture in that black hole from which the hot, sulphurous gases were pouring. Everybody but Jim. Even the warden had to admit Jim's courage. "He aint afraid of the devil," he declared, when he saw the boy jump into an empty coal car, call to the mule to "git up," and disappear in the gas and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... seen thee in the wood. I said in my heart, 'He is noble, he is brave. He will rest not night nor day whilst his brother lies a captive in these cruel hands. I have but to watch and to wait. He will surely come. And when he comes, I will show him the black hole in the wall — the dark passage to the moat — and he will dare to enter where never man has entered before. He will save his brother, and my vow will ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... up hastily, and it went out. His perception of possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the candle in its candlestick. "Here! you be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay, and forthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole in the toilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time he stared from this to the little flame and back, and then looked up and met his own gaze in the looking-glass. By this help he communed with himself in ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... as they followed the two departing figures, and later, as he stood in the door of the bake- shop watching the struggling miners, glistened, with hatred. It was the quality of intense hatred for his fellows in the black hole between the Pennsylvania hills that marked the boy and made him ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... had never seen such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he couldn't find the way up stairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room with ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... broad of unknown depth lay between me and that shore, by which in the natural course of things I should have followed my fish as far as he chose. The rapid itself looked less tremendous than this deep black hole. I hesitated, but the salmon did ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... whole passenger list for company, but their room would have been preferable, for there was no light, there were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and hot. We were much crowded. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta on a small scale. Presently a smoke rose about our feet—a smoke that smelled of all the dead things of earth, of all the putrefaction ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... shining stone, drew himself to it, reached its slanting side, then scrambled frenziedly to the top and threw himself about to face the place of slipping sands. But where the sand had been, his wildly glaring eyes found only a black hole—a vertical bore, like the ancient throat of the volcano; and this, like the tunnel in the sand, was lined ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... own chamber, where I had never been before, and showed me how, in the chimney-neuk, was a way into a certain black hole of little ease, wherein, if any came in search for me, I might lie hidden. And, fetching me a cold fish (Lenten cheer), a loaf, and a stoup of wine, whereof I was glad enough, he left me, groaning the while at his ill-fortune, but ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... striped or colored cloth, which may have the slightest chance of deceiving the distant observer into the belief that it is a legitimate blind. This keeps off the sun, and allows a free circulation of air, which is the great object. When it is absent, the window becomes a mere black hole, having much the same relation to a glazed window that the hollow of a skull has to a bright eye; not unexpressive, but frowning and ghastly, and giving a disagreeable impression of utter emptiness and desolation within. Yet there is character in them: the black dots tell ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... the way over to Portsmouth by himself!" exclaimed good Mrs Driscoll, the Doctor's wife, on hearing the contents of this epistle. "Why, he might be spirited off to the Plantations or the Black Hole of Calcutta, and we never hear any more about him. What could Mr O'Flaherty be ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... ahead, forcing a path for her. Often we had to walk into the bed of the stream. It was icy cold. Some strange beast, perhaps a bird, invisible somewhere, emitted from time to time a faint and lamentable shriek. It was a wild scene, and the orifice of the cave appeared as an inaccessible black hole some ninety feet above ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... black hole! But wait till I can get you out on to the loch! It's romantic enough out there. But look here, Violet! I've got to come to an understanding with you. Now that we've found each other, darling, we are not going to lose each other again, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... fifty settlers and traders, were thrust into an air-tight dungeon—an Indian midsummer. Maddened with heat and with thirst, most of them died before morning, trampling upon each other in frantic efforts to get air and water. This is the story of the "Black Hole of Calcutta;" which led to the victories of Clive, and the establishment of English Empire ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... trap door or cellar way. In this floating dungeon, we miserable young men spent our first night, in sleepless anguish, embittered with the apprehension of our suffering cruel death by suffocation. Here the black hole of Calcutta rose to my view in all its horrors; and the very thought stopped my respiration, and set my brain on fire. In my distress, I stamped with my feet, and beat my head against the side of the ship in the madness ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... was crowded around that black hole in the mound as thick as noon lunchers at a pie counter. And we was strainin' our eyes to see what the faint light of the torch was tryin' to show up. All of a sudden I reaches in and makes a grab at something, bringin' ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that causes a blush upon the face of a virtuous patriot; so you must be contented with your lot, while crime, cowardice, cupidity or low cunning have handed you down from the high tower of a statesman to the black hole of a gambler . . . . Crape the heavens with weeds of woe; gird the earth with sackcloth, and let hell mutter one melody in commemoration of fallen splendor! For the glory of America has departed, and God will set a flaming sword to guard the tree of liberty, while such mint-tithing ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... cases not found in either of the foregoing classes, but where there is something in common between the pairs, as (Church, Temple.) (Pocket, Black Hole.) ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... climbing up the ladder. Rather dismayed, Prince Ferdinand William Otto surveyed the bag. Something had broken, he feared. And in another moment he saw what it was. The little watch which was set in one side of it had slipped away, leaving a round black hole. His ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the cafe called back, "We can't hear you," and I repeated, "Fire higher! You nearly hit me," and pointed with my finger to where the big 44-calibre ball had left a black hole in the green paint of the trough. When they saw this there were excited exclamations from the men, and I heard the one who was giving the orders repeating my warning. And then came the shock of another volley. Simultaneously ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... one, the joints of his wood-work, and the other, those of his iron-work, tighter and tighter, and if it were possible for them to accomplish fully their manifest design, they would be able to furnish rooms almost as fatal to life as "the black hole of Calcutta." But in spite of all that they can do, the materials will shrink, and no fuel has yet been found, which will burn without any air, so that sufficient ventilation is kept up, to prevent such deadly occurrences. Still they ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... hole, pulled it over us all, with the exception of Ventvoegel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations we ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... the ends opposite from men were lost in infinite distance? To dance, or not to dance, was all the choice men had, and rather than play a part in such a show as fell to his lot, it seemed better to break the strings and let the miserable marionette fall into the black hole behind ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... way off of its square base. Instantly the sound of rushing water filled the ear, and the unaccountable, muffled roar that had puzzled them was half explained. The block was hollow, revealing a deep, black hole, out of which poured the sound of the hidden stream. The mystified observers could plainly see the water some ten feet below the surface of the earth, gliding swiftly off through a subterranean passage. The chief made them understand that this well was for the purpose of supplying the image ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law regions to consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have used them. As it was, he contented himself by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the detected youth, who sat on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... extension of mortality; they were chained in the chains of causation and unchangeable as the dead. There are not many men in the modern world who do not know that mood, though it was not discovered by the moderns; it was the final and seemingly fixed mood of nearly all the ancients. Only above the black hole of Bethlehem they had seen a star wandering like a lost spark; and it had done what the eternal suns and planets could not do. It ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... Madras and Ceylon. On the way and in the cities the titled conductors continue their "talks" and lectures about the places visited, with as much of history as time would permit, including an epitome of those great events in India, the Mutiny of the Sepoys, the "Black Hole," and other events of the past. The speakers were assisted by elaborate maps, which the reader can find in his atlas. Statistics are given to some extent for purposes of comparison. Brief notices of the lives of such men as Bishop Heber, Sir Colin Campbell, Henry ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... halt before a black hole in the trench wall, like the entrance to a cave, and bent down and shouted into the opening with a ring of indescribable joy in his voice—with a rejoicing that sounded as if it came ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... asks—none likes to tempt the answer; all guessing what it would be, dreading to hear it spoken. Never did men suffer emotions more painfully intense, passions more heartfelt and harrowing; not even the prisoners of Cawnpore, or the Black Hole of Calcutta. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... having survived such a collision with the local remembrances of the poor historian, very much in those terms which Mr. Governor Holwell might have used on finding himself 'pretty bobbish' on the morning after the memorable night in the Black Hole of Calcutta: he could hardly believe that he still lived. [Footnote 1] And yet, how had the eloquent historian trespassed on his patience and his weak powers of toleration? Livy was certainly not very learned in the archaeologies of his own country; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... with the old Faust-books, and there is even the trace of one before the oldest Faust-book; at least in the archives of the University of Tuebingen an entry has been unearthed in which in 1587 two students were condemned to the 'Karzer,' or 'Black hole,' for composing a 'Puppenspiel' on the subject of ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... out the chairman, starting up. "Look at me and worthy Dr Thompson. Are we persons to enjoy a repetition of the Black Hole of Calcutta? The sangaree, Quasha—suffocation! The thought chokes me!" and he recommenced his devotions to ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the effects of this poison, the horrors of "the Black Hole of Calcutta" are often referred to, where one hundred and forty-six men were crowded into a room only eighteen feet square with but two small windows, and in a hot climate. After a night of such horrible torments as chill the blood to read, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rather go to the Black Hole in Calcutta. Besides, this Sanitary Report is really the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... might see the madness done And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun. But this incarnate hell that yawns before Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench— This purgatory that men call the "trench"— This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war! Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so I lay my heart in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Adam escorted me to the passenger car filled with German immigrants, with tin cups, babies, bags, and bundles innumerable. The ventilators were all closed, the stoves hot, and the air was like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. So, after depositing my cloak and bag in an empty seat, I quietly propped both doors open with a stick of wood, shut up the stoves, and opened all the ventilators with the poker. But the celestial breeze, so ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... wood, having had none of the feast, was not very sleepy, and woke up when he heard footsteps near him. The magicians asked him if he could show them to the lowest part of the castle. "All right," said he; "this way;" and he led them to where there was a great black hole, with a windlass over it. "Get in the bucket," said he, "and I ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... as carefully as I did and here you will find a cave." With that she disappeared into the yawning black hole, leading both burros. Barbara and Anne stared at each other in amazement, and the latter said: "Come carefully! Anything is ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Ebenezer Elliott, declared that "what they wanted was bread in exchange for their cottons, woollens, and hardware, and no other thing can supply the want of that one thing, any more than water could supply the want of air in the Black Hole of ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... friends intending to travel together. But, according to Sydney Grier's conjecture, Mary Elliott did not, after all, sail in the Bombay Castle, but remained behind to marry a certain Captain Buchanan, sailing with him to India the following year. Captain Buchanan lost his life in the Black Hole, and his widow (whether she was Mary Elliott or not) married Warren Hastings. By her second husband she had two children, a son, George, born about 1758, and a daughter born about 1759 who lived only three weeks. The short history of the boy we have already told. Mrs. Hastings ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... shivering, while a tiny puppy, who had hardly any brains at all, was eager to go on. She patted the dog, and "taking herself by both ears," as she expressed it afterwards, walked steadily forward, pushed aside the dense tangle of vines and bushes, and stooped down to enter the black hole which led into the vault of ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... and the road swept downwards across a clear, moonlit valley, till it dived again like a rabbit into the wall of another wood. The entrance to the farther forest looked small and round, like the black hole of a remote railway tunnel. But it was within some hundred yards, and gaped like a cavern before ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... broke in Roderick, "Fung all gone, or if they do, anything better than this black hole, yes, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... best thing for us to do would be to hide the book and the money where you found it. All these months it's stayed in that black hole safe, and it can stand another ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... though only for small boys, seems to have been a very severe one, for Crabbe and his friends were punished for simply 'playing at soldiers.' He was condemned, with his friends, to be shut in a large dog-kennel, known by the terrible name of 'the Black Hole.' Little Crabbe was the first to be pushed in, and the rest were crowded in on top of him, till at last the kennel was so full of boys that they were all but suffocated. Crabbe in vain cried out that he could not breathe, but ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... words, he pulled Hardy along a narrow passage to a small closet, set apart for desperate offenders, and usually known by the name of the BLACK HOLE. "There, sir, take up your lodging there for to- night," said he, pushing him in; "tomorrow I'll know more, or I'll know why," added he, double locking the door, with a tremendous noise, upon his prisoner, and locking also the door at the end of the passage, so that no one ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... of his revolver, under his red sash. No inspiration, no further word would come. But he drew his pistol, advanced two steps, and, taking aim, fired at the late monarch. The ball entered the forehead, leaving a little, black hole, like a spot, nothing more. There was no effect. Then he fired a second shot, which made a second hole, then, a third; and then, without stopping, he emptied his revolver. The brow of Napoleon disappeared in white ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... lips. There was no one else in the room, but his eyes ran swiftly to the visiphone. With careful precision Roger Strang brought the heat-pistol to eye level, and pulled the trigger. Farrel Strang crumpled slowly from the knees, a black hole scorched ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... blue lights on them all, and at the word illuminated all together, there was redoubled bedlam in that abode of Hecate, and the eternal calm of the Boodh became awful. For what deeds of outer darkness, done long ago in that black hole of superstition, so many damned souls shrieked from their night-fowl transmigrations, 'twere vain to question there were no disclosures in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... at the corner of the highroad," he replied, and then they were all silent, with their eyes fixed on the door of the cow house, which formed a sort of black hole in the wall of the building. Nothing could be seen inside, but they heard a vague noise, movements and footsteps and the sound of hoofs, which were deadened by the straw on the floor, and soon the man reappeared in the door, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... ladies on the perfume bottles in the window. Back of the telephone was a long mirror that reflected their pretty smartness and Felicia's impossible dowdiness. But Felicia did not see anything at all save the round black hole through which she was to speak to Dudley Hamilt. She was awed by it as she had been surprised by everything in this amazing day. She watched closely the way the man held the receiver; not for worlds would she have admitted her ignorance. ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... anything—any musical thing—that would delight me so much as to meet him in a snug quartett party, and hear his manner of playing his own music. If you can bring about such a thing while I am in town, either at Chelsea, or at Mr. Burney's, or at Mr. Salomon's, or I care not where—if it were even in the Black Hole at Calcutta (if it is a good hole for music)—I say, if by hook or crook you could manage such a thing, you should be my Magnus Apollo for the rest of your life. I mention Salomon because we are a little acquainted. ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... and salt, and I'll mourn out-doors. I hain't a-goin' to wind myself up in crape, and shet myself up in a black hole no more, mourn or ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening the padre sat at his Erard playing "Trovatore." Later, in his sleepless bed he lay, saying now a then: "To die at home! Surely I may granted at least this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not speaking any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and he lay watching its gray grow warm into color, us suddenly he sprang from his bed and looked the sea. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... The notorious "Black Hole," in which the Rajah Suraja Dowla cast 150 of the principal prisoners when he obtained possession of Calcutta in 1756, is at present changed into a warehouse. At the entrance stands an obelisk fifty feet high, and on it are inscribed ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Wherever he moved, he was followed by a host of the fair and fashionable. The showy equipages of the nobility were in perpetual motion. The parks were a whirlwind of horsemen and horsewomen. The streets were a levy en masse of the peerage. The opera-house was a gilded "black hole of Calcutta." The front of Buckingham palace was a scene of loyalty, dangerous to life and limb; men, careful of either, gave their shillings for a glimpse through a telescope; and shortsighted ladies fainted, that they might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... spoken of the upper deck of these dhows. Beneath this there was a temporary bamboo deck, with just space sufficient to admit of men being seated in the position above referred to. This was also crowded, but it was not the "Black Hole" of the vessel. That was lower still. Seated on the stone ballast beneath the bamboo deck there was yet another layer of humanity, whose condition can neither be described nor conceived. Without air, without light, without room to move, without hope; with insufferable stench, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... and I then endeavored to raise the stone by pulling on the cravat. I could only move it slightly, and it was with the aid of one of the constables that I succeeded at last in carrying it to one side. A black hole yawned beneath into which we all peered, while Musgrave, kneeling at the side, pushed down ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... eyes when he saw by his bedside the wounded soldier—young, fair-faced, blond-haired, with just the first faint shadow of a mustache. His forehead was pale, his lips were livid, his blue eyes were dim, and in his left temple there was a round black hole made by the bullet from his—Napoleonder's—pistol. And the ghastly figure seemed to ask again, ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... it's all right, Hugh!" she murmured, patting my arm as if I had been some child that had just started awake from a bad dream. "There's no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this black hole of a place!—I've had food and drink and a light, as you see—they promised me I should have no harm when they locked me in. But oh, it's seemed like it was ages ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... long-robed, ermined judges, laying their wigs together and shaking hands, their wigs' many-curled tails shaking on their backs. And the wigs jointly and severally looked like so many vast white and gray birds'-nests from Brobdingnag, with a black hole at the top of each, for the birds to creep out or in. More and more scarlet-ermined dignitaries and nobles swarmed into the hall, and then, in at the scarlet door, came, with white ribbon shoulder-knots ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Priestesses). Thy way? poor worm, crawl down thine own black hole To the lowest Hell. Antonius, is he there? I meant thee to have follow'd—better thus. Nay, if my people must be thralls of Rome, He is gentle, tho' a Roman. [Sinks back into the ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... A black hole appeared at the base of the bushes and from it emerged the head and shoulders of a man. Taylor drew his pistol. The man's head turned, searching the shadows to see if he was observed. He failed to detect the figures of Taylor and Masters, ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... the growing power of the English, and encouraged by the French, the Nabob attacked and captured the English post at Calcutta. His one hundred and forty-six prisoners he crowded into a close dungeon, called the Black Hole. In the course of a sultry night the larger part of the unfortunate ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... We gave a cry of terror as we saw Cyprien disappear. As the house crumbled we could distinguish nothing but a tempest, a swirling of waves beneath the debris of the roof. Then calm was restored, the surface became smooth; and out of the black hole of the engulfed house projected the skeleton of its framework. There was a mass of entangled beams, and, amongst them, I seemed to see a body moving, something living ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... fried fish upon them, barrows with second-hand-looking vegetables and others piled with more than second-hand-looking garments. Trade was not driving, but near one or two of them dirty, ill-used looking women, a man or so, and a few children stood. At a corner which led into a black hole of a court, a coffee-stand was stationed, in charge of a ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... black hole of a great pipe, a hollow shard of steel. Prison-like it looked, again some contrivance of the tyrant Man. They would fain have overleapt it, but it was too late. Countless other waters were behind them, forcing them forward ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... cried hastily. "Please, PLEASE don't do that. It's bad enough to choke slowly, like this, in the gloom. But to die in the dark—that would be ten times more terrible. Why, it's a perfect Black Hole of Calcutta, even now. If you were to turn out the lights ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... not lie in the system itself, but in its application. It is a humane idea carried out inhumanely, so inhumanely that when the Black Hole of Calcutta is forgotten Englishmen will still hang their heads for shame at ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... the servants of the Dutch Company, was treated with indulgence. Meanwhile the Nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor and the commandant fled; the town and citadel were taken, and most of the English prisoners perished in the Black Hole. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Belfast, are shamefully over-crowded. Classes are held on the stairs, in the cloak-room, the hall, or the yard. For the more fortunate, class-rooms are provided with an air-space per individual only slightly less than that available in the Black Hole of Calcutta. All over the country, children go to school breakfastless and stupid with hunger, and the local authorities have no power to feed them as in England, and in most European countries. Then again, even where the physical conditions are reasonable, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle |
