"Spar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you fight for your lives," cried Seymour, who was everywhere in advance, darting the still burning end of the large spar into the faces of his antagonists, who recoiled with suffocation and pain. It was, indeed, a struggle for life; the rage of each had mounted to delirium. The English sailors, stimulated by the passions of the moment, felt neither ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... I should think, at least. It was a surprise." A spar had been fitted as a rudder, and the raft had now gained nearer the shore than it ever had done before. The men were in high spirits at the prospect, and every man was sitting on his own store of dollars, which, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... frigate been in greater peril, and it was more difficult than ever to keep her off the shoals. The long dark night was coming on, the masts were pounding away against the sides, having been cut adrift. An effort was made to rig a spar on the stump of the foremast, so as to keep steerage-way on the ship, the Captain having resolved to steer for the Scheldt, in which river he hoped to find safe anchorage. Owing to the way the ship was tumbling about, some hours passed, however, before the jury-mast could be rigged and sail set ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... in the blue ether. Brightly fell her golden beams on the tall, old forest trees, that pointed spar-like toward the starry heaven, and down, through their interlacing branches, upon gray, mossy rocks and uprooted trunks, over which wild vines wreathed in untrained exuberance; and dim, star-eyed flowers reared ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... lost sight of the land when a violent storm arose, and after several hours of beating about, the vessel was driven on to some rocks, on which it dashed itself to bits. The Prince was fortunate enough to be able to lay hold of a floating spar, and contrived to keep himself afloat; and, after a long struggle with the winds and waves, he was cast upon a strange island. But what was his surprise, on reaching the shore, to hear sounds of the most heartrending distress, mingled with the sweetest songs which had ever charmed him! ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... be required for any special purpose, a large pine is felled, and the tapered, pointed top is cut off to a convenient length, the great spar being rejected and left to decay upon the ground. I have never seen pit-saws used, but as a rule, should a beam or stout plank be required, a whole tree is adzed away to produce it, and great piles of chips are continually met with in the forests, where some large ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... broadside, double-shotted with round and grape; and without exaggeration, the echo of these guns startled the world. "In less than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the enemy," reported Hull, "she was left without a spar standing, and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it difficult to keep ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... total of killed and wounded was very evenly distributed throughout the fleet. Only the rear ship lost an important spar,—the main topmast. It was upon her, as already mentioned, and upon the two leading ships, the Exeter and Isis, that fell the heaviest fire, proportionately, of the French. From the position of the seven van ships of the ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... the other; but substantially the contest appears to have been maintained side to side. From the first discharge of the "Epervier" two round shot struck the "Peacock's" foreyard nearly in the same place, which so weakened the spar as to deprive the ship of the use of her foresail and foretopsail; that is, practically, of all sail on the foremast. Having thenceforth only the jibs for headsail, she had to be kept a little off ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... superintending the transfer of the rigging from the Saint-Ferdinand. He came up behind the brave General, seized him, dragged him to the side, and was about to fling him over with no more concern than if the man had been a broken spar. They were at the very edge when the General looked into the tawny eyes of the man who had stolen his ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... and the tattered remnant of his only white garment; and a few days afterward the fishermen on the bay were surprised to see what, on nearer approach, proved to be a rude imitation of the national flag floating from a spar ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Horrible! Till now all hearts were with you: I withdraw For one. Too horrible! But we mistake Your purpose, Pym: you cannot snatch away The last spar from the drowning man. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... is not any weed but hath its shower, There is not any pool but hath its star; And black and muddy though the waters are, We may not miss the glory of a flower, And winter moons will give them magic power To spin in cylinders of diamond spar; And everything hath beauty near and far, And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour. And I when I encounter on my road A human soul that looketh black and grim, Shall I more ceremonious be than God? Shall I refuse ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... I how May then minted treasuries Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white. Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort, And mandrake moons with which ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... of that blue spar, and I promised to get a lot. Must go down one of these days with Dummy Rugg: he says he knows of some fine ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... work was over, Rand strolled over to the shack where the Indians lived and found his erstwhile friend sitting on a stone, engaged in slowly carving with a sharp knife the soft wood of a sycamore spar that had been carefully cleared of its branches and smoothed to comparative symmetry. The worker had begun at the butt end of the pole and had worked his way carefully upward. The carvings were weird, goggle eyed, snouted and saw-toothed creatures, the like of which ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... Marines who may not be distributed to other divisions for action are to compose a Division of Marines, to be under the immediate command of the Senior Officer of Marines on board. He will form his division on such part or parts of the spar or upper deck as the Captain ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... bonbonniere, a Breakwater-marble ruler, several varieties of pincushions, a pen-wiper with a doll in the middle of it, a little dish of money-cowries, and another of Indian shot, the seed of the mahogany tree, some sea-eggs, a false book made of the wreck of the Royal George, and some pieces of spar and petrifactions which Helen had acquired on an expedition to Matlock with the Stauntons. The book-shelf, however, was to Anne the most attractive object in the room; and whilst Helen was untying the strings of her portfolio, she went ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of examining. It rested on three wheels, the two hind ones by far larger than that in front, which merely served to sustain the equilibrium of the body and to steer. The material was the silver-like metal of which most Martial vessels and furniture are formed, every spar, pole, and cross-piece being a hollow cylinder; a construction which, with the extreme lightness of the metal itself, made the carriage far lighter than any I had seen on Earth. The body consisted of a seat with sides, back, and footboard, wide enough to accommodate two ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... bring forward into light. If he can convince you or himself of the principle a priori, he generally leaves the facts to take care of themselves. He leads us into the laboratories of art or nature as a showman guides you through a caravan crusted with spar and stalactites, all cold, and dim, and motionless, till he lifts his torch aloft, and on a sudden you gaze in admiration on walls and roof of flaming crystals and stars of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... dismissed the men good-humouredly to the care of cook and steward: it was only the steerage passenger who required to be put under the doctor's care. It seemed that he had been hurt by the falling of a spar, and severely scorched in trying to save a child who was in imminent danger; and, though he had at first been the most cheery and hopeful of the party, his strength had soon failed, and he had lain half or wholly ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the elder and the higher, and the titular rights of the Dukedom of Athol were held by a cadet of the house. My father's elder brother, Adam Goudie Murray, professed to hold this belief stoutly, and he and the reigning duke of a century ago had a humorous spar with each other about it on occasion. "I presume your Grace is still living in my hoose," ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... spar with a private soldier led to remarks which I chose to consider insular, if not insolent, and I replied, supporting the principle of Yankee equality, until, losing my temper at something which one of the ensigns ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... pounders opened fire on the 10th, and by hot shot set fire that evening to the "Charon" frigate, making a sight of marvellous grandeur, for the ship became one mass of fire from the water's edge to her spintle-heads, all her ports belching flame and each spar and every rope ablaze at the same moment. The morning of the 11th found fifty-two pieces of artillery mounted and hurling a storm of projectiles into the British lines; and that evening, a second parallel was opened, bringing the guns of the besiegers less than three hundred ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... trackless way— A warrior scenting conflict from afar And fearing not defeat nor battle-scar Nor all the might of wind and dashing spray; Her foaming path to triumph none may stay For in the East, there shines her morning star; She feels her strength in every shining spar As one who grasps his sword and waits ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... the warrant officer, touching his cap again, as he had done when approaching the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck. "The spar, sir, is fitted all right for going up; but, sir, it's getting on ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Each canoe should also carry a small repair kit attached to one of the thwarts, containing cement, a piece of canvas same as cover of canoe, copper tacks, rivets, and some galvanized nails; a good hatchet and a hammer; a small can of canoe paint, spar varnish, and copper paint for worn places would be a protection against termites and torrential downpours. In concluding the subject of canoes I can state that the traveller in South America will find no difficulty in disposing of his craft at ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... rooms, 'hung with black, and lighted with a curious simplicity and grandeur.' Here, again, the coffin had to be lifted, and 'it was most striking to see the absolute silence with which the men moved the monstrous weight at a sign from the captain's hand.' The only sound was when a spar snapped in the hands of a 'giant of a fellow, who was lifting with it. There was a respectful delicacy in every motion of these men which combined beautifully with their immense, quiet, controlled strength, and impressed me very much. After a few ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... almost pond-like sea through which the Kammerboy steamed. Even the children were impressed by the beauty of the seascape. Far, far away against the rising moon appeared a fairylike ship sailing across its face, each spar and mast pricked out as black ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... by him instead—for one dance? ... As soon as two sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey, and the skipper had given the owner the course, all persons seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who were in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued, because Mr. Gilman had expressly ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... had their brethren car'd To keep them just and pure, Perchance their pitying God had spar'd, The pains they now endure. What if to fault of ours those pains be due, To ill example shown, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... devise as the most expeditious. The tide rose so considerably at night, new moon occurring within an hour of high water, that we were much afraid of our bergs floating: they remained firm, however, even though the ice came in with so much force as to break one of our hand-masts, a fir spar of twelve inches diameter. As the high tides and the lightening of the Fury now gave us sufficient depth of water for unshipping the rudders, we did so, and laid them upon the small berg astern of ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... like a Tom Brown or Swift, a most bantering and drolling Letter, under the sneering Title of a Letter of Thanks to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London, for his late Letter, &c. whom, one would think, he should not only have spar'd, but have applauded for his profound Gravity, and carrying on the Cause of Religion in a very remarkable manner, with the most consummate Solemnity. But so strong was the Temptation, so naturally productive of Mirth was the Bishop's Cause, and his grave Management ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... was this that lay at my feet? A woman, lashed to a spar, and apparently dead. When I picked her up, though, she opened her eyes and shut them again. Enough! this was no time to think of peculiar difficulties. I lugged her to the warm room in the light-house where I sat and lived. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... noble fellow's face As the big ship, with a bound, Clears the entry like a hound, Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide seas profound! 15 See, safe through shoal and rock, How they follow in a flock, Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, Not a spar that comes to grief! 20 The peril, see, is past, All are harbored to the last, And just as Herve Riel hollas "Anchor!"—sure as fate, Up ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... she let herself go with the current of destiny into which, by strange hazard, she had drifted. She had the humility which is the fiercest form of pride. Although she clung desperately to him, as to the spar that alone could save her from drowning, although the feminine within her was drawn to his kind and simple manliness, and although her heart was touched by his grief at the loss of the dog, yet never for a moment did she count upon the ordinary romantic denouement ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... face of a common danger gave them a sort of equality. But she was good to him, and her faithfulness was the one sure thing in his convulsed and rocking world. He clung to her as a drowning man clings to a floating spar, and his father's, "I wish to God, Christine, you'd get out and leave us alone," or, "I won't have you in my house. You're poisoning my son's mind against me," reiterated regularly at the climax of one of the hideous rows which devastated the household, was like a blow ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... have to pull right round this raffle, and come up on t'other side afore you'll be able to take me off. You can't get alongside of me from where you are; there's too much yard-arm and splintered spar stickin' out in that direction. And I daren't jump overboard and swim to you, for I've been blockaded all day by sharks— see, there's one of them now, close alongside ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... more dan five or six hundred; Aunt Jemimer can gib her spar time de next six weeks pickin' 'em out; she'll enj'y it, but dat shot ob mine scared off de mad dog, and yer oughter be tankful to me, uncle, all ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... mad as brute beasts, they seized me and, lifting me, hurled me into the raging waters, I did but utter one prayer to Isis and made ready for death. But it was fated that I should not die; for, when I rose to the surface of the water, I saw a spar of wood floating near me, to which I swam and clung. And a great wave came and swept me, riding, as it were, upon the spar, as when a boy I had learned to do in the waters of the Nile, past the bulwarks of the galley where the fierce-faced sailors clustered to see me drown. And ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... you talk, as in your latest letter, of the making of yourself. It seems so much more possible than that I could do the same. But I am a miserable groping creature, cast on a sea of doubt, rejecting one spar to grasp another, and crying all the time against the storm, for help. I do not know another man who has tortured himself so insistently with the problems that are unsolvable. You are firmer in your ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... firing, so as not to injure the boarding party, who made a desperate effort now to climb over the bamboo screen, little thinking that the missing midshipman had boldly climbed up, a little ahead of where they were, mounted to the great bamboo spar that held up the screen, and then with a miserably ineffective weapon, to wit, his pocket-knife, set to work as he sat astride it, and sawn away at the rattans that ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... they call them the 'Storm Shelters,' and christen my nightly processions 'The White-cross Army.' Even the Archdeacon has begun to tell the world how he 'took an interest' in me from the first and gave me my title. I met him again the other day at a rich woman's house, where we had only one little spar, and yesterday he wrote urging me to 'organize my great effort,' and have a public dinner in honour of its inauguration. I did not think God's work could be well done by people dining in herds and drinking bottles of champagne, but I showed no malice. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... as a reply. And this time the shot went home to its mark; for as the observers turned their glasses upon the chase, her mainmast was seen to totter and fall by the board, cut short off by the deck. Luckily the spar did not go over the side, but lay, fore-and-aft, inboard; otherwise the rigging might have fouled the propeller and brought the ship to a standstill. As it was, she continued her flight ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away? Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, .. yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... hier fig{ur}e be mor{e} pan e hier figur ou{er} hym, &e next fig{ur}e of two or of thre or of foure, or how mony {ere} be by cifers, how wold {o}u do. {o}u wost wel {o}u most nede borow, &{o}u mayst not borow of e cifers, for ai haue no[gh]t at ai may lene or spar{e}. Ergo[{4}] how woldest {o}u do. Certay[n] us most {o}u do, {o}u most borow on of e next figure significatyf in at rewe, for is case may not happe, but yf {ere} come figures significatyf ...
— The Earliest Arithmetics in English • Anonymous
... his fine hair cropped to the roots; his delicate features worn and sharpened with spare diet and want of sleep; above all, with those haggard eyes, always watching and waiting for something a long way off—almost, indeed, out of sight at present, but coming up, as a ship comes spar by spar above the horizon, taking shape and distinctness as it nears. There were nineteen years and three months still, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... and spar were fitted to each sledge. Immediately in front of the mast came the "cooker-box," containing in respective compartments the primus and a bottle of spirit for lighting it, as well as spare prickers, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the sea-fog wrapped a shroud Round spar and spire and tarn and tree, Her soul went up on that lifted cloud From this sad ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... does he veil his lamp? Why looks he with anxious eyes to yonder bright chambers in the cavern? What beings are those which appear in that chamber, and whose are those accents that fall on the eager ears of the lovers? I behold a couch formed of spar that glitters like icicles in the beams of the sun. It is covered with the softest grass that grows at the bottom of the torrent, and upon it is laid, panting with weariness and fright, a beautiful woman—it ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... as she knows," ses Alf; "but there was four of them saved, so why not five? Mightn't 'e have floated away on a spar or something and been picked up? Can't you dream it three nights running, and tell 'er that you feel certain ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... sandstone, calcareous tuff; and, more abundantly, of limestone of a peculiar aspect, presenting at first sight the appearance of porphyry, but consisting of a base of compact limestone, with disseminated portions of calcareous spar, principally due to fragments of crinoidea. At a lower part in the same rock, less compact, I found a beautiful chalcedonic cast, apparently of a terebra. The calcareous sandstone consisted of grains of quartz cemented by calcareous spar, and contained fragments ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... be forgiven for turning Chance into Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were upon the run—the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek, up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the valley of death. The Highlanders gave ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... superficial as compared with the intensity of our fears when we are terrified by calamity, or the presence, real or fancied, of the unknown, that in any moment of emergency, more especially if it be of a mental kind, we are apt to welcome our worst enemy as a drowning man welcomes a spar. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... expression, had at the time "knocked his figure-head all to smash." He had sailed many years in the whale fisheries, had at last been pressed, and served as quartermaster on board of a frigate for eight or nine years, when his ankle was broken by the rolling of a spar in a gale of wind. He was in consequence invalided for Greenwich. He walked stiff on this leg, and usually supported himself with a thick stick. Ben had noticed me from the time that my mother first came to Fisher's Alley. He was the friend of my early days, and I was very ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... and self-possessed, and he did not venture out upon the treacherous spar, and the entangling rigging, so that the wretch on the cap had no opportunity to give him a second bath in the dirty Scheldt. The learned gentleman was looking for the site of the Duke of Parma's Bridge, but he couldn't find ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... mother! My dear Lady Kicklebury! [To T., who has come forward.] They spar so every night they ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spar at each other in as knowing and English a way as we knew how—keeping a very respectful distance indeed, and trying to bear ourselves as scientifically as we could, with a keen ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... And to make any great change in the order of the rest, was more than the Printers importunity, and that, of my own avocations (and perhaps also considerabler solicitations) would permit. But though some few preambles of the particular Experiments might have (perchance) been spar'd, or shorten'd, if I had had all my Papers under my View at once; Yet in the most of those Introductory passages, the Reader will (I hope) find hints, or Advertisements, as well as Transitions. If I sometimes seem to insist long upon the circumstances of a Tryall, I hope I shall be easily ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... nearer and nearer, then of a sudden stopped, quivered, as though struck by a violent adverse wind. Her main topsail blew out suddenly and went streaming forth in the gale, a jib split to ribbons before their eyes, and spar after spar was carried away. She careened, as though before a hurricane, her foremast came down with a soundless smother of sail and wreckage. Further and further she tilted, and then suddenly she had vanished and there ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... would not, thinking her unsafe. He maintained his station on the mizen top-mast that lay among the wreck to leeward; the surf which was rushing round the bow and stern continually overwhelming him. I was myself close to him on the same spar, and in this situation we saw many of our shipmates meet an untimely end, being either dashed against the rocks or swept over by the breakers. The large cutter, full of officers and men, now cleared a passage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... pointing to a shallow part, close inshore, just after they had left the harbour, where a drain ran down, and the smooth black water-polished rock was veined with white spar. ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... said to have been explored for several miles, but I only passed in a few hundred yards. The stalactites here are very beautiful, assuming the structure of satin spar. A very clear stream of water issues out. West of the Gasconade, on Clifty Creek, is a remarkable Natural Bridge which I have elsewhere described in Geological Survey of Missouri, 1855-71, ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... he greatly alarmed his companions, and as long as we could see them, they shunned his society. At least eighty miles from land we had a dozen sparrows around us at once. A small hawk seized one of these birds and seated himself on a spar for the purpose of breakfasting. A fowling piece brought him to the deck, where we examined and pronounced him of the genus Falco, species NISUS, or in plain English, a sparrow hawk. During the day we saw three varieties of small birds, one of them resembling the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... terrific; and as soon as the pilot could contrive to scramble on board, we ran the vessel up the lesser channel of the Gron Fiord to escape the sea. The violence of the waves was more dangerous, as scarcely a breath of wind filled the sails; and we were apprehensive that a huge spar like the boom swinging to and fro, would carry away the mast by ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... breezes from the east, found he was kept busy until half-past three in the afternoon in getting nine kites aloft. He had paid out nearly two miles of cord, when the top kite, a little two-footer, stood straight over the spar buoy in Newark Bay. The lowest kite, a six-footer, was hovering some distance inland from the shore, on a line from the shore to Mr. Eddy's house (where the end of the line was anchored) measuring fifty-five hundred ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... shamefaced but laughing, back from the war within twenty-four hours! Clethera heard the broom-handle strike the floor as one hears the far-off fall of a spar on a ship in harbor. She put her palms together, without flying into his arms or even offering to ...
— The Mothers Of Honore - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... writes, "The first [the Loves, etc.] is all glitter and point like a piece of Derbyshire spar, and the other is dark and massy like a block of marble.... Moore writes with a crow-quill, ... Byron writes with an eagle's plume;" while Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh, likens Moore to "an aurora borealis" and Byron to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails 270 Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... occasion. But at night the spirit of the people showed beyond mistake. Not only were the streets arched and bordered with festoons of colored incandescent lights, not only were the battleships in the harbor strung with fiery beads to the topmost spar, but every window in every house in the city bore its light. Fine houses had candelabra behind the glass, and the poorest mere tapers, but everywhere the same fire of ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... flying on board the frigate several minutes, and yet no symptoms of any preparation for an answer could be discovered. At length the halyards moved, and then three fair, handsome flags rose to the end of le Feu-Follet's jigger yard, a spar that was always kept aloft in moderate weather. What the signal meant Raoul did not know, for though he was provided with signals by means of which to communicate with the vessels of war of his own nation, the Directory ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the slow carbonization of the anhydrous lime under the influence of the air; the external layers passing to the state of carbonate of lime or Iceland spar, which, as well known, has great influence on polarized light. This transformation, which takes place without disturbing the crystalline state, does not lead to any general modification of the form ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... v/ri/ttilabha/h/) springing up in the embryo.—Name and form is the rudimentary flake—or bubble-like condition of the embryo.—The abode of the six (sha/d/ayatana) is the further developed stage of the embryo in which the latter is the abode of the six senses.—Touch (spar/s/a) is the sensations of cold, warmth, &c. on the embryo's part.—Feeling (vedana) the sensations of pleasure and pain resulting therefrom.—Desire (t/ri/sh/n/a) is the wish to enjoy the pleasurable sensations and to shun the painful ones.—Activity ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... the poor creature, pale and trembling with excitement, seized my arm and clung to me as a shipwrecked sailor to a spar. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... I sailed away. With the dawn I descended the tower and looked for wreckage upon the rocks, but what I found was only this: a strange dead bird whose hue was as of the azure sky, and a single shattered spar, of a whiteness greater than that of the wave-tips or ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... holds some false way, undebarred By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him; and between The lightning bursts is seen Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguished face and flying hair Grasping the rudder hard, Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, impossible shore. And sterner comes the roar Of sea and wind, and through the deepening ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Talcott's old straw hat moving among the borders; and, in the midst of the emptiness, the sight was strength and hope. The whole world seemed to narrow to Mrs. Talcott. She was secure and real. She was a spar to be clung to. The nightmare would reveal itself as illusion if she kept near Mrs. Talcott. She ran down ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... resistance, the townspeople were forced to yield. Slowly abandoning the shattered fort, they retired behind the breastwork in its rear—their innermost and last defence. To this barrier they clung as to a spar in shipwreck, and here at last they stood at bay, prepared dearly to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ceased. For a time that seemed endless there was silence, save for a shout now and then, and a thud that might be caused by the work of replacing or repairing an injured spar. Suddenly the hatch above was lifted, raised, and when our eyes became accustomed to the light we saw men swarming down the ladder into the hold. A French seaman among them relit the lamp, and we recognized ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... happened except the towing torpedo of the boat in front of us in the line fouled a submerged spar, or a bit of wreckage, and exploded right under our bow. 'If we had been a few yards closer we would never have been ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... whirling like a kite that has broken its string, and then he shook his head. I disliked, too, the tremendous surges of the fore-sail, when it occasionally collapsed and as suddenly filled, menacing to start every bolt, and to part every rope connected with block or spar. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... lad, no saying at all. All I know is that your father, the captain, was washed ashore at the same time as I was. As you have heard me say, I owed my life to him. I was pretty nigh gone when I caught sight of him, holding on to a spar. Spent as I was, I managed to give a shout loud enough to catch his ear. He looked round. I waved my hand and shouted, 'Goodbye, Captain!' Then I sank lower and lower, and felt that it was all over, when, half in a dream, I heard your father's voice shout, ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk that was magnified By its ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... comes from the outside to an important position with a house he generally gets a breathing-space while the old men spar around taking his measure and seeing if he sizes up to his job. They give him the benefit of the doubt, and if he shows up strong and shifty on his feet they're apt to let him alone. But there isn't any doubt in your case; everybody's got you sized up, or thinks he has, and those ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... our guns had roared, yet (though she was now so close that I made out her very rope and spar) she made no sign. In a little our guns fell silent also, wherefore, looking about, I beheld Don Miguel standing beside the tiller yet with his impassive gaze ever bent upon the foe; and, as I watched, I read his deadly purpose, and a great fear for the English ship ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... am ashamed to write and talk, sometimes, when I see how those functions of the large-brained, thumb-opposing plantigrade are abused by my fellow-vertebrates,—perhaps by myself. How they spar for wind, instead of hitting from ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... what was even worse, I seemed to have utterly parted with all working ability. I was young, and up to within a few months life had stretched brightly before me, with the prospect of a brilliant career. And now what was I? A wretched invalid—a burden to myself and to others—a broken spar flung with other fragments of ship wrecked lives on the great ocean of Time, there to be whirled away and forgotten. But a rescue was approaching; a rescue sudden and marvellous, of which, in my wildest fancies, I had ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... torpedo, at the end of an ordinary boat's spar. Then came the special torpedo boat with its great speed, then the revolving cannon and rapid-fire gun to meet the torpedo boat. At present the possible rapidity of fire is much greater than can be utilized, on account of the smoke; hence the necessity of smokeless powder. Smokelessness ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... a heavenly quiet in the air in the early summer morning, only the creaking of a spar, the scream of a seagull now and then. How pale the lamps were growing on board the yachts. Paler still, yellow, and dim, and blurred yonder in the town. The eastward facing windows were golden with the rising sun. Yes, this was morning. The yachts were moving away yonder, majestical, swan-like, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... dem so lass dich treulich warnen, O Mensch, vor solcher Liebe Garnen, Und spar dein Lieb' bis in die Eh', Dann hab' Ein lieb' und keine meh. Diesselb' Lieb' ist mit Gott und Ehren, Die Welt damit fruchtbar zu mehren. Dazu giebt Gott selbst allewegen Sein' Gnad' Gedeihen und milden Segen. Dass stete Lieb' und Treu' ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... to a spar Or whammled wi' some bleezin' star, Cryin' to ken whaur deil ye are, Hame, France, or Flanders - Whang sindry like a railway car An' flie ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this was; and, Mr. Raven coinciding with the general opinion that she would be much safer if rigged as a schooner than as a sloop, for which she had been originally intended, the carpenters were directed to fit her accordingly; and that gentleman very obligingly supplied a spar, which he had procured for the Britannia at Dusky Bay, to make ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... looked sharply at the lad while he was telling his story. "You've got an honest face, my little man. I'll trust you. Bring aboard your baggage. People spar their way on the river every day in the year; you needn't be ashamed of it. Accidents will happen, you know." And the busy clerk ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... deepest part, and at six miles further another large one which might almost be termed a lake, being nearly 1000 links square. About these there were some lines of sandhills running about north-east and south-west; and in one of the flats between the sandhills I found several pieces of satin spar in lumps of the size of one's hand, partially buried in the ground, and all of them with the plane of cleavage nearly perpendicular with the surface ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... her daughter, "you'se my moder an' I ought ter be de fust one ter help ease you up. I just dun declar dat you'se got ter take Vilet ter help you up. I kin spar her, an' I will spar her. She's strong an' gwine on twelve, an' de babies is gitten so dat dey ain't aroun' under my feet all de time. Vilet's spry an' kin run here an' dar an' fill de orders. She'd ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... and the antagonists jumped up from their seconds' knees, and met again. Saurin had lost all his nervousness now; his superiority was evident, and he felt nothing but triumph and gratified malice. He did not stop to spar now, but directly he was within reach hit out with confidence. Crawley took the blow without flinching or attempting to parry it, and sent his right fist with all his strength into Saurin's ribs, just as Buller had directed him. Saurin recovered himself, and the round went on, Crawley ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... yet out of sight when a topmast on the Rosan broke off short in a sudden squall. Bijonah Tanner immediately laid her to and set all hands to work stepping his spare spar, as he would not think of returning to a shipyard. Nat Burns, when he noticed the accident, laid to in turn and announced his intention of standing by the Rosan until she was ready to ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... blue— And the curved arch of her foresail and the ocean gleaming through; I recalled the Cape Stiff weather, when your soul-case seemed to freeze, And the trampling, cursing watches and the pouring, pooping seas, And the ice on spar and jackstay, and the cracking, volleying sail, And the tatters of our voices blowing down the roaring gale ... I recalled the West Coast harbours just as plain as yesteryear— Nitrate ports, all dry and dusty, where ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... temples of this metropolis of ocean, guarded as were these last by the effigies of griffin and dragon, and winged elephant and lion, and stately mastodon and monstrous ichthyosaurus, all white as gleaming spar. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... shark shot forward in a similar manner; but glancing a little to one side, caught in its huge mouth the end of the dolphin-striker, grinding off a large piece of the spar as ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... weather-side of every rope, spar, and stay was coated with ice, while all the rigging was a harp, singing and shouting under the fierce hand of the wind. The schooner, hove to, lurched and floundered through the sea, rolling her scuppers under and perpetually flooding the deck with icy salt water. We of the ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... sun, to set fire to combustible substances. These lenses are cut with a saw and afterwards polished, the powder of crystal being used in both operations. To polish diamonds they make use of the powder of adamantine spar, or the corundum stone. In cutting different kinds of stone into groups of figures, houses, mountains, and sometimes into whole landscapes, they discover more of persevering labour, of a determination to subdue ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... things I can't explain," he said. "But I think God made you for a spar for drowning men ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... alone is accessible to us. But objectors of this class do not seem to reflect that it is also, in strictness, true that we know nothing about the composition of any body whatever, as it is. The statement that a crystal of calc-spar consists of carbonate of lime, is quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic acid over the very quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of lime ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I wish to have you know, I scorn to get a whore for any prince alive, and yet scorn will not help methinks: my Daughter might have been spar'd, there ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... from his face like a mask, and for an instant she saw the real man, old, ruined, lonely. Yes, that was it: he was lonely, desperately lonely, foundering in such deep seas of solitude that any presence out of the past was like a spar to which he clung. Whatever he knew or guessed of the part she had played in his disaster, it was not callousness that had made him greet her with such forgiving warmth, but the same sense of smallness, insignificance and isolation ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... of sailing on the Great Lakes, it was requisite to dress the yacht in her proper array, with her high tapering masts; the cords of her rigging stretching from spar to spar with the beautiful accuracy of a picture; and so equipped, as to give her the appearance of a majestic, white winged sea-bird resting ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... a ship of Rio Sailed out into the blue, And nine and ninety monkeys Were all her jovial crew. From bo'sun to the cabin boy, From quarter to caboose, There weren't a stitch of calico To breech 'em - tight or loose; From spar to deck, from deck to keel, From barnacle to shroud, There weren't one pair of reach-me-downs To all that jabbering crowd. But wasn't it a gladsome sight, When roared the deep sea gales, To see them reef her fore and aft A-swinging ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... very much uncertainty. Rather than live with the discomfort of not knowing why, they will create an explanation or find some answer, any answer, and then ever after, assert its rightness like a shipwrecked person clings to a floating spar in a storm. This is how I explain the genesis of many contemporary ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the 'top-hammer' came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... mast consists of a vertical sheath 10 ft. high, which is set into the center of the frame, and in the interior of which slides a wooden spar that exceeds it by 5 ft. at first, and is capable of being drawn out as many more feet for the final apotheosis. This part of the mast carries three footboards and a platform for the reception of "supers." It is actuated by a windlass placed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... Montemirto, you shall see also your protegee, of whom you ask for news. It has just missed being disastrous. Poor Dionea! I fear that early voyage tied to the spar did no good to her wits, poor little waif! There has been a fearful row; and it has required all my influence, and all the awfulness of your Excellency's name, and the Papacy, and the Holy Roman Empire, to prevent her expulsion ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... storms which he had weathered, gave him a consoling sense of British superiority. "These gentlemen," said he, "are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale: we have buffeted them for one-and-twenty months, and not carried away a spar." He, however, who had so often braved these gales, was now, though not mastered by them, vexatiously thwarted and impeded; and on February 27th he was compelled to anchor in Pula Bay in the Gulf of Cagliari. From the 21st of January the fleet had remained ready for battle, without ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the waist; and the topmast snapped like a carrot, a moment later. That was the worst dive we made. There is no doubt that getting rid of the leverage of the bowsprit, right up in her eyes, eased her a good bit; and as the topmast was a pretty heavy spar, too, that ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... huge spars, all clean and spick and span with green and white paint, the ubiquitous Calcutta crows perched in serried ranks on their yards. To my mind a full-rigged ship is the most beautiful object man has ever devised, and when the dusk was falling, with every spar and rope outlined in black against the vivid crimson of the short-lived Indian sunset, the long line of shipping made a glorious picture. Nineteen years later every sailing-ship had disappeared from the Hooghly, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... matey," said the other. "But I picked ye for that sort, hearin' you whistlin' as you came swingin' along. Light-hearted, I thinks, an' young, most likely; he'll help a stranded man. Give me the touch of yore arm, matey, an' I'll stow this spar of mine." ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... a more romantic situation. The garden lies extended beneath, gay with flowers, and glittering with compartments of spar, which, though in no great purity of taste, has an enchanted effect for the first time. Two large marble basins, with jet-d'eaux seventy feet in height, divide the parterres; from the extremity of which rises a rude cliff, shaded with firs and ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... brave man. He had his son with him, a little fellow only ten years old, as gallant, those we rescued told us, as his father. They were blown up together. We saw the two, the father holding on his son clinging to a spar. We pulled towards them, but just then a bit of the burning wreck must have struck them and carried them down, for when we got up to the spot they were nowhere to be seen. That's the worst of a battle; there are ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... critical moment a floating spar of an idea swept my way and I seized upon it as the last ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... a spar, with a lance handle as a topmast, and the flag was the jack used in the boat to show that a fish was fast. We took also some line, to serve as shrouds for the staff. We three set off, then, not without some difficulty in advancing; for the wind was still so strong, that ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the saint was preserved there for centuries. After the church fell into decay's early in the seventeenth century, the bell remained in the churchyard. The narrow-pointed spar of granite on which it rested still stands there. The bell, unfortunately, was wantonly removed, by Protestant strangers about thirty years ago, to the great indignation of the inhabitants of the glen, Protestant as well as Catholic; it has never ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... galaunt{es} with their{e} codwar{e}; at is a vngoodly gise;— Other tacches[64] as towchyng{e} / y spar{e} not to mysp{ra}ue aft{ur} myne avise,— whe he shall{e} s{er}ue his mastir, befor{e} hy[-m] o e table hit lyes; Eu{er}y sou{er}eyne of sadnes[65] all{e} suche sort ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... cut away the masts of the enemy's vessel, and, stripping her of everything except one old sail and a single spar, let her drift back to Tripoli, as a hint of how the new nation across the Atlantic was ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... the stump of the mast, threw their weight on the spar projecting over the side, straight as a lance towards a projection ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to make sail in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon it seemed to blow worse than ever, and you could see the staunch boat was pressed down under her canvas, and every spar was groaning and quivering, while the ship went bodily to leeward." And next, "how she seemed to come to herself, as it were, with a long staggering roll, and to spring to windward as if relieved of a dead weight; for the gale had broken, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... more. What follows is for no wife's eyes. O Camma, Rome has a glimpse of this conspiracy; Rome never yet hath spar'd conspirator. Horrible! flaying, ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... little boat glides amid the vertical rocks—walls of crystal spar—shutting in the river, touching as it seems the blue heavens, peak, parapet, ramparts taking multiform hues under the shifting clouds, now of rich amber, now dazzlingly white, now deep purple or roseate. And every one of these lofty shafts, so majestic of form, so varied of ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is found in thick nodular beds or "floors,'' in spheroidal masses known as "balls'' or "bowls.'' and in smaller lenticular masses termed "cakes.'' At Chellaston. where the alabaster is known as "Patrick,'' it has been worked into ornaments under the name of "Derbyshire spar''—-a term applied also to fluor-spar. The finer kinds of alabaster are largely employed as an ornamental stone, especially for ecclesiastical decoration, and for the srails of staircases and halls ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... baiting of me. I gave no sign, made no move, until I had located him and distanced him. Then, like a shot, without turning head or body, merely by my arm I fetched him an open, back-handed slap. My knuckles landed flat on his cheek and jaw. There was a crack like a spar parting in a gale. He was bowled clean over, landing in a heap on the floor ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... machine over, and you should have seen it. From top to bottom it was one mass of holes. One bullet passed through my combination and hit a can of tobacco. Another cut a main spar on one of my wings, and another hit my stabilizer, tearing it half in two. One other hit my gas tank and put a hole clear through it. Luckily my gas was low and it did not explode, but, believe me, ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... ran us a rare race with the main-royal yard, we getting the mizzen spar below but a second or two in advance ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... buoys (fig. 4), and like all other special buoys, such as bell buoys, gas buoys, and automatic sounding buoys, shall be placed to mark special positions either on the coast or in the approaches to harbours. (7) Buoys showing only a mast above water shall be called spar-buoys (fig. 5).[2] (8) Starboard-hand buoys shall always be painted in one colour only. (9) Port-hand buoys shall be painted of another characteristic colour, either single or parti-colour. (10) Spherical buoys (fig. 3) ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... avoid the conflict. Both vessels were under full sail; and the size of the schooner was beginning to tell, when, in jibing, she carried away her main boom. Nevertheless, she was so far ahead of the sloop that she was able to put into Holmes Bay, and take a spar out of a vessel lying there, before the sloop overtook her. But the delay incident upon changing the spars brought the sloop within range; and Capt. Moore, still anxious to avoid an encounter, cut away his boats, and stood out to sea. With plenty of sea room, and with a spanking ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... spray that caused the officers high up on the bridge to gasp for breath. They held on by main force, though protected by strong canvas sheets bound to the rails. The main deck was quite impassable. The promenade deck, even the lofty spar deck, was scourged with the broken crests of waves that tried with demoniac energy to smash in the starboard bow, for the Sirdar was cutting into the heart ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... the mate, and sprang forward, threw the down-haul over the windlass, and jumped between the knight-heads out upon the bowsprit. The crew stood abaft the windlass and hauled the jib down, while we got out upon the weather side of the jib-boom, our feet on the foot ropes, holding on by the spar, the great jib flying off to leeward and slatting so as almost to throw us off of the boom. For some time we could do nothing but hold on, and the vessel diving into two huge seas, one after the other, plunged us twice into the water ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... fast with the sudden impact of discovery. Laura, too, then! They were both just like people hanging on to a spar in a rough sea and hoping to be thrown on shore at last. That was what life was, even when you were going to be married to the man of your choice. But the expression of Laura's face—or was it that thought of a rough sea?—had ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... farming going to the deuce, don't be tossing head over tip at the tail of the tourist. If you've got the pumping engine inside of you, in plain English, if you've got the indomable character of the rael Manxman, do as I done—go foreign. Then watch your opportunity. What's Shake-spar saying?" Pete paused. "What's that he's saying, now?" Pete scratched his forehead. "Something about a flood, anyway." Pete stretched his hand out vigorously. "'Lay hould of it at the flood,' says he, 'that's the way ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... the other was rather the worse for wear. They set off down the descending road, which wound, unconfined, through the heather, where the raindrops sparkled like diamonds. Farther down, they ran in between rough limestone walls with gleaming spar in them, smothered here and there in trailing brambles and clumps of fern, while the streams that poured out from black gaps in the peat and flowed beside the road flashed with coppery gold in the evening light. It was growing brighter ahead of them, though inky clouds still ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss |
