"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life, and he never had any more; I never remember seeing him smile after that time. What gave him the best comfort was trying to keep things pretty and bright, as she liked to see them. He was neat as a woman, and he never allowed a speck of dust on the chairs, or a withered leaf on the geraniums. He never would let me touch her flowers, but I was set to polish the pewter and copper,—indeed, my mother had taught me that,—and he watched jealously lest any dimness come ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... greeted with honied words, And his cheeks have been fondled to win a smile By the Privy Council Lords. Will he trust the "charmer" in after years, And deem he is more than man? Or will he feel that he's but a speck In creation's mighty plan? Let us hope the best, and rattle our bell, And shout and laugh, and sing as well— Roo-too-tooit! Shallabella! Life ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... is far too precious to risk by trying anew; he knows that if a bottle be so much as turned in its couch it must sleep again for years before it is really fit to drink; he knows how difficult it is to get the wine out of the bottle clear as ruby or yellow diamond; he knows that if so much as a speck of sediment gets into the decanter, to precisely the extent of the ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... had longed to see the sun set behind a mountain with snow upon it, and to see a cowboy with dust on his shoulders, like the cowboys of the western drama, come riding out of the glow, a speck at first, and on, and on, until he arrived where she waited and flung himself from his panting horse, neckerchief awry, spurs tinkling, and swept off his broad hat in salute. Beyond that point she had not dared to go since marrying the miller, who had dust enough on his shoulders—unromantic ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... elevation at which he was placed, Roswell, aided by the glass, had no difficulty in making her out, and in recognising her rig, form, and character. Stimson also examined her, and knew her to be the schooner. On that vast and desolate sea, she resembled a speck, but the art of man had enabled those she held to guide her safely through the tempest, and bring her up to her goal, in a time that really seemed miraculous ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... floating through the blue sky that silhouetted the trees in the garden. She made a pretence of alighting upon the balcony railing, sheered off, coquetted among the treetops, came back again, retreated so far that she was merely a white speck against the blue vault, and then, true to her sex, having proved her liberty only to tire of it, with a flight so swift that the eye could scarcely follow her, she came back again and rested upon the farther end of the balcony, where she immediately began to preen herself and to affect ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... within the poor little room. Not a speck of dust or a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high bureau, unless you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with something written on it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying propensities for the landlady ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... high Jebel Orbata, 1170 metres, now covered with snow, coming forward to meet you on the other side of the wide valley. From this point it is easy to realize, as did the commander of that French expedition, the significance of this speck of culture, its strategic value: Gafsa is a veritable key to the Sahara. I daresay the abundant water-supply of the town is due to these two chains of hills which almost touch each other and so force the water to rise ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the distance a moving speck on the water caught his eye. For a few minutes he watched it in suspense, then gave ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... case. 'Sir Francis Bacon (who was always for moderate counsels), when one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church of England, as would in effect make it no church, said thus to him:—'Sir, the subject we talk of is the eye of England, and if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off; but he were a strange oculist who would pull out the eye.' [And here is another writer who seems to be taking, on this point and others, very much the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... faithless, which, for women ambitious in love, is the worst of infidelities. After a little conversation, the plotting lady suspected that poor Bertha was a maiden in matters of love, when she saw her eyes full of limpid water, no marks on the temples, no little black speck on the point of her little nose, white as snow, where usually the marks of the amusement are visible, no wrinkle on her brow; in short, no habit of pleasure apparent on her face—clear as the face of an innocent maiden. Then this traitress put certain women's questions to her, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... white of one egg, and measure just as much cold water; mix the two well, and stir stiff with confectioners' sugar; add a little flavoring, vanilla, or almond, or pistache, and, for some candies, color with a tiny speck of fruit paste. This is the beginning of all ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton
... "I speck I better be gittin' 'long. Nex' time I see Lucindy, I'm gwine tell 'er w'at Miss Becky say 'bout de queen er spades—dat I is. Ef dat don't tickle 'er, dey ain't no nigger ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... feint of dashing onward in a fury, yet dies away with a meek murmur and does but kiss the strand; now, after many such abortive efforts, it rears itself up in an unbroken line, heightening as it advances, without a speck of foam on its green crest. With how fierce a roar it flings itself forward and rushes ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... over. At some little distance from the land a small aperture had been made for the purpose of procuring water, and at this hole a pig was drinking. While looking toward the horizon, the lieutenant saw a mere speck or ball, as it were, rapidly moving along the ice: presently this took the form of a large wolf, which was making for the pig at top speed. Lieutenant Oldenburg now seized his gun, and ran to the assistance of the pig; but before ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... we chaps? And what's all this here? Nothing at all. All we can see is only a speck. When one speaks of the whole war, it's as if you said nothing at all—the words are strangled. We're here, and we look at ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... between him and his surroundings, is not far to seek. The primitive man, unable to understand his being, much less the unity of all life, felt himself absolutely dependent on blind, hidden forces ever ready to mock and taunt him. Out of that attitude grew the religious concepts of man as a mere speck of dust dependent on superior powers on high, who can only be appeased by complete surrender. All the early sagas rest on that idea, which continues to be the LEIT-MOTIF of the biblical tales dealing with the relation of man to God, to the State, to society. Again and ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... gwine to keep Honest Moses fum de debil. Dat nigger's not got no religion to his name—not a speck. Didn't I tell Missus when she thought she cotched me and Ransom sellin' watermillions and sweet 'tatoes to de boys from Marietta, dat it ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the front there was a tiny patch close under her window, and there was a long strip at the back, but only a very few things had the courage to grow there, for the wind caught it, and the salt sea-spray came up over it, and blighted every speck of green that had the courage to put its head out. Lucy's garden and Lucy's kitchen both delighted her. She said the kitchen was more cheerful than hers, but it was really Lucy's presence that made it so. Lucy was always so pleased to see her, so ready to listen ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... moment or two, that I saw a black dot there, but it was only my fancy creating what I expected my sight to behold. Let us look again all around the horizon, where it touches the water, following it as we would a line. Ah, I think I see a dark speck, just a black mote at this distance, and I am still unable to separate fancy from fact, but it may be fact. What do you ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... discontent had been shown as excuse; but, in this case, no cause was guessed for Holleben's disgrace except the Kaiser's wish to have a personal representative at Washington. Breaking down all precedent, he sent Speck von Sternburg ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... boughs, revealing by its transparent light the green buds of spring, which variegated and cheered the scathed bark. It broke loose from their embrace—hovered irresolutely above them—then swept rapidly before the wind, rising till it became as a speck in ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... handling the Word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God' (2 Cor 4:2). All these sentences are chiefly to be applied to doctrine, and so are, as it were, an offer to any, if they can, to find a speck, or a spot, or a wrinkle, or any such thing in this river of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the spirit of envy and jealousy and uncharitableness. Unawed, however, by censure or menace, she continues in her course, upward and onward, to the accomplishment of her high destinies. She is but a speck, a mere patch on the surface of America, hardly more than one four-hundredth part of the territory of the Republic, with a rugged soil and still more rugged clime. But on that little spot of the globe is a Common wealth where common consent is recognized ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... most providential wave suddenly struck and lifted up the stern, so as to enable the seamen to disengage the tackle. The boat being thus dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen after a while from the poop, battling with the billows,—now raised, in its progress to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several seconds, as if engulfed "in the ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... of your behavior that morning, aren't you?" she continued. "Not a bit ashamed; not one speck regretful!" ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... follow the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our ashes," laughed Evelyn. "Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our shoulders. 'Me no speck Ang-lish.'" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... his pocket-book and was about to resume his beat when he was joined by his inspector. The latter agreed that the conclusion arrived at by the constable was probably the right one and they were about to pass on when the inspector noticed a small speck of light shining through the lower part of the painted window, where a small piece of the paint had either been scratched or had shelled off the glass. He knelt down and found that it was possible to get a view of the interior of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... blot, one heart in which are no envy, no failings—one obedience which never varied. He says of Himself, 'I do always those things which please Him,' and we, thinking of all the noblest examples of virtue that the world has ever seen, and seeing in them all some speck, turn to this whole and perfect chrysolite and say, Yes! 'a greater ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... hill, then strikes off toward a farmhouse half a mile away where I know bees are kept. Then we try another and another, and the third bee, much to our satisfaction, goes straight toward the woods. We can see the brown speck against the darker background for many yards. The regular bee-hunter professes to be able to tell a wild bee from a tame one by the color, the former, he says, being lighter. But there is no difference; they are alike ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... one sea of lit cloud, foamy ridge upon ridge over all the heavens, and each wave was brimming with its own whiteness, seeming unborrowed of the moon. Through one peep-hole, and only one, shone a distant star, a faint white speck far away, dimmed by the nearer splendours of the sky. Sometimes the thinning edge of a cloud brightened in spume, and round the brightness came a circle of umber, making a window of fantastic glory for Dian the queen; there her white vision peeped for a moment on the world, and the next she was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... know," James replied, carelessly flicking a speck from his overcoat sleeve. "The city supplied them for the committee what went to Moriarty's ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... you something about it. He has a dingy, fourth-story back room; small, I fancy, from the way in which he spoke of it, and not a speck of fire over! In such weather as this, how can a young man read his Bible, or ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... having smoothed the nap of his hat and flicked a speck of dust from his coat-sleeve, walked to the door of the inner room ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... as I gazed about seeking for a clue, a speck on the north-west horizon caught my eye and my hopes went down. It looked like a distant ship; it might well have been the 'Aurora'. Well, what matter! the long journey was at an end-a terrible chapter of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... take a little turn. Has the man brushed it? Did you see the man brush it yourself? What do you mean by saying he has brushed it, when you didn't see him? Let me look at the tails. If there's a speck of dust on the tails, I'll turn the man ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... caught a momentary glimpse of his real significance. "I am only a gnat, a speck in the sun, a youth facing the millions of great and wise and wealthy!" He leaped up in a frenzy. "Oh, I mustn't stay here! I must get back to my studies. Life is slipping by me, and I am doing nothing, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... reached such a tremendous height that the city looked like a speck on the desert beneath them. Knowing he must act quickly, Rob seized the dangling left arm of the unconscious Turk and raised it until he could reach the dial of the traveling machine. He feared to unclasp the machine just then, for two ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... liberality with which he responded to the calls upon his generosity or benevolence. A year later he wrote in the same strain: "I have closed the war without a fortune; but I trust, and, from the attention that has been paid to me, believe, that there is not a speck in my character. True honour, I hope, predominates in ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... concludes thus: "You may as well look for chastity and mercy in the Empress of Russia, honour and consistency from the King of Prussia, wisdom and plain dealing from the Emperor of Germany, as a single speck of virtue from ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... beat out into mid-stream, where the sail of the low-lying craft would be but a speck when viewed from the shore, and with a beam wind laid her on a course which she kept almost dead straight, with a tack at long intervals only. In the shade of the awning the boys slept the dreamless sleep of the healthy, and he let them sleep on ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... danced upon the rippling water; the border of grand old trees that fringed the bank of the stream was reflected with exaggerated beauty far down among the waters; the glittering stars stole in and out among their branches, and shone in the clear crystal mirror. Now a fleecy speck of cloud floated over the face of the Queen of Night, from behind which she would soon emerge, with increased brilliancy, to dart her long arrowy beams away down to the pebbly bottom of the flowing river, kissing the ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... his observance has been half blind through prejudice either for or against; he either sees her magnified with adulation, or else the large end of the glass is placed against his eye and she is merely a speck in the distance. But let a woman step past that mysterious wall which separates the formal from the intimate—only one step—at once she is surrounded by the eyes of a man as if by a thousand spies. So ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... hostility to human life which sobers indeed those who are intelligent enough to perceive it. It is only the fool or the brute or the sentimentalist who is unterrified by nature. The man of reflection and imagination sees his race crawling ant-like over its tiny speck of slowly cooling earth and surrounded by titanic and ruthless forces which threaten at any moment to engulf it. The religious man knows that he is infinitely greater than the beasts of the field or the clods of the highway. Yet Vesuvius belches forth its liquid fire and in ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... upright in pitch darkness, hearing faint moaning sounds of pent-up winds, when we are silent, and long reverberations of our own voices, when we speak. Then, as we turn and crawl out again, we soon see before us one bright speck of light that may be fancied miles and miles away—a star shining in the earth—a diamond sparkling in the bosom of the rock. This guides us out again pleasantly; and, on gaining the open air, we find that while we have been groping in the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... one thing that Ben was skilled at,—holding true. He raised the weapon to his shoulder, drawing down finely on that little speck of brown across the gulch. Few times in his life had he been more anxious to make a successful shot. Yet he would never have admitted the true explanation: that he simply desired to make good in the ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... to act upon things as they are and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take place. A steady, perhaps a quickened, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson
... along at a rate of quite eight miles the hour. The shore grew dim behind us, but for a long while above the clinging mists I could see the flag that we had planted on the mound. By degrees it dwindled till it became a mere speck and vanished. As it grew smaller my spirits sank, and when it was quite gone, I felt very ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... even the fact that he had yet to get a job riding for the Concho outfit, in the eager joy of choosing a saddle, bridle, blanket, spurs, boots and chaps, to say nothing of a new Stetson and rope. The sum total of these unpaid-for purchases rather staggered him. His eighteen-odd dollars was as a fly-speck on the credit side of the ledger. He had chosen the best of everything that Roth had in stock. A little figuring convinced him that he would have to work several months before his outfit was paid for. "If I git a job ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... mind, as unreasonable as he who insists that everything has been divinely revealed to us. I know nothing more unbearable than the complacent type of scientist who knows very exactly all that he does know, but has not imagination enough to understand what a speck his little accumulation of doubtful erudition is when compared with the immensity of our ignorance. He is the person who thinks that the universe can be explained by laws, as if a law did not require construction ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... now gone over the ridge to the north. I saw him moor the boat, and begin to climb; and I watched his dark figure on the white snow, higher and higher, till it was a speck, and I could not make ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... these would-be murderers to know how their trick failed. That's the reason I didn't pound the brute to a jelly on the bed, for it would have made such a mess on the sheet. Now there isn't a speck on it. I'll take the vase with me into my room and finish the cobra off. In the morning I'll get rid of its body somehow. When these devils find tomorrow that you're not dead, they'll be very puzzled. Now, the question is, what ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... dollars per week. The light, airy bakery is always kept spotless. Adjacent to it is a commodious room with lockers for each man and two shower baths make it easy to keep clean. Down on the first floor the retail bakery is so immaculately clean that you would be willing to defy anyone to find one speck of dust in the place. Every article of food is under shining glass. The floor is white tiled. But the food is what attracts one. The pies swell out as if about to burst. To look at the bread and rolls makes one hungry ...
— Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State • The Consumers' League of New York
... floating upwards till they reached the level of the table and became visible to Dr. Speer. They were expressly made at my side, instead of, as usual, at my back, so that I might see them. They seemed to develop from a very bright speck, about the size of a pea, until they attained the size of a soda-water tumbler, and showed a soft luminosity like pale moonlight. They seemed to be covered with drapery and to be held by a hand. ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... speaking suddenly. And Alice, following his gaze, made out far to the north-eastward a moving speck. The Texan crouched and motioned the others into the shelter of a rock. "Wish I had a pair of glasses," he muttered, with his ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... waiting for the spring-time when they could be wound up and rival their owners in animation; and the shining tiled roofs, mosaic courtyards, and polished house trimmings flashed up a silent homage to the sky, where never a speck of dust could dwell. ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... by those who object to that term, foliated— granite, being formed of the same materials as granite, namely, feldspar, quartz, and mica. In the specimen in Figure 622, the white layers consist almost exclusively of granular feldspar, with here and there a speck of mica and grain of quartz. The dark layers are composed of grey quartz and black mica, with occasionally a grain of feldspar intermixed. The rock splits most easily in the plane of these darker layers, and the surface thus exposed is almost entirely covered with shining spangles of mica. ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... mount was scattering the pebbles of the river-bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her overnight that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... way of the Wady Sadr has become the main commercial route connecting El-Muwaylah with Tabuk.[EN151] During the evening we walked up the Wady Surr, finding, in its precipitous walls, immense veins of serpentine and porphyritic greenstone, but not a speck of gold. The upper part of the Fiumara also showed abundant scatters of water-rolled stones, serpentines, and hard felspars, whose dove-coloured surface was streaked with fibrils and at times with regular veins of silvery lustre, as if ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... astonished people, sprang upon the magic string, balanced himself for a moment on the steep incline, and then ran as nimbly up as a sailor would have mounted a rope ladder. Higher and higher he climbed till he seemed no bigger than a lark ascending into the blue sky, and then, like some tiny speck, far, far ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... a foreign substance, rub the other eye, in order to make both eyes water. If the speck can be seen, it can generally be taken out by twisting a small piece of gauze or cloth around a toothpick and drawing it over the speck, or by twisting up a piece of paper like a lamp lighter and, after wetting ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... crackled up like straw; He was the first to turn and draw His sword, that had nor speck nor flaw; Hah! hah! la ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... among poplars, and that ribbon is the boundary between Empire and Republic. On such a clear day as this the view from the hill is extraordinarily interesting. From its grassy top a little aeroplane cannon stares to heaven, watching the east for the danger speck; and the circumference of the hill is furrowed by a deep trench—a "bowel," rather—winding invisibly from one subterranean observation post to another. In each of these earthly warrens (ingeniously wattled, roofed and iron-sheeted) ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Venning, and the boy noticed that the pupils of the eyes had a white speck, which gave to them ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... that the three took counsel together and halted, and the scouts who were watching them report that they remained absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight, and apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had finished, for his cowl was then seen above the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... forced to perform the thousand tyrannies that are directed against the child during the day by cruel and thoughtless parents, the lunatic asylum would soon be our place of refuge. Such trivial things as a spot on the shoe, a speck of dirt upon the clothes, a mere tip of the hat, a slight turn of the scarf often give rise to such violent reprimand, and very often brutal punishment, that the savageness of barbarians is mild compared to such ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... Turk. "Wilt thou be beaten then, and by an Israelite? Shall this lovely maid be given to a perverter of the Scriptures, to an inheritor of the fire, to one of a race that would not bestow on their fellow-men so much as the speck out of a date-stone? It were a ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... boat, during the latter part of the afternoon, but none came; until toward sundown, when I saw a speck on the water, and as it drew near I found it was the gig, with the captain. The hides, then, were not to go off. The captain came up the hill, with a man, bringing my monkey jacket and a blanket. He looked pretty black, but inquired whether I had enough to eat; ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... there's one thing I wanted to ax you,' said Andy, resting a moment from his chopping: 'it's goin' on four months now since we see a speck of green, an' will the snow ever be off the ground agin, at all, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... sound. Something silvery and glistening rose swiftly toward the sky. It dwindled to a speck. There were more roarings. Three more silvery, glistening objects flung themselves heavenward, leaving massive trails of seemingly solid smoke behind them. Then there were bellowings. Larger ships rose up. As ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Smith and Stuart Mill; with the naturalists, to sound the depths of the argument as to the origin of species and the genesis of man; with the astronomers, to leave the narrow bounds of earth, and explore the illimitable spaces of the universe, in which our solar system is but a speck; with the mathematicians, to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and assumption, and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact science:—to come back anon to lighter themes, and to revel in the grotesque humor ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... You'll have to come with me, Nan, into this enchanted land. Your estate is large only if you don't lift up your head and look farther. You own a hundred thousand acres in the mountains, and yet, after all, it's but a tiny speck on the horizon of one little corner of a state. Beyond is the great world with its beautiful rivers, its valleys, its shining shores and emerald seas. This big world is mine—the Alps and the Mountains of the Moon and your little blue ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... settled in the red-painted house. When he entered, the hum sounded like the distant roar of a family of lions. He knocked in amazement. No one answered. When he had opened the door he stood still on the threshold, for at first he could see nothing but a dense smoke, through which a yellow speck of light appeared, with a great halo round it. Gradually he discovered in this smoke a few rotund forms, placed around the candle like so many planets around the sun, and at times something was seen to move, possibly a man's arm, but not unlike an ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... her:" in allusion, doubtless, to the presence of this vessel. We were all very anxious as the night approached as to the state of the weather; and lo! for the first time in five or six days, we had a beautiful star-light night, without a speck of cloud anywhere to be seen. The enemy continued plain in sight, and our black smoke, as it issued from the stack, would have betrayed us at a distance of five miles. We were therefore reluctantly compelled to ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... still extremely obscure), from 1700 to 300,000 electrons revolve at a speed that reaches as high as 100,000 miles a second. Instead of being crowded together, however, in their minute system, each of them has, in proportion to its size, as ample a space to move in as a single speck of dust would have in a moderate-sized room (Thomson). This theory not only meets all the facts that have been discovered in an industrious decade of research, not only offers a splendid prospect of introducing unity into the eighty-one different elements of the chemist, but it opens out a still ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... he promised to bring Idun back to Asgard if the goddess Freyja would lend him her falcon guise. No sooner said than done; and with eager gaze the gods watched him as he flew away, becoming at last only a dark moving speck against the sky. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... of his position was quickly forced upon him. A dead calm now prevailed. Henry gazed eagerly, wistfully round the horizon. It was an unbroken line; not a speck that resembled a sail was to be seen. Remembering for the first time that his low raft would be quite invisible at a very short distance, he set about erecting a flag. This was easily done. Part of his red shirt was torn off and fastened to a light spar, the end of which he stuck between ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... orchards that flourish, rank and wild, no longer cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from Palermo one sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun, indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery or ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... mountain island of Scarba overlooking the fierce, far-famed whirlpool, that we could see from the deck, breaking in long lines of foam, and sending out its waves in wide rings on every side, when not a speck of white was visible elsewhere in the expanse of sea around us. And then came an opener space, studded with smaller islands,—mere hill-tops rising out of the sea, with here and there insulated groups of pointed rocks, the skeletons of perished hills, amid which the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... it; the pin-point of a man at the right had left his two companions and was turning in at the first of the row of cottages. Another photograph was produced. It showed the second man entering the gate of the fourth cottage. And the final picture of the series showed the remaining speck plodding on alone toward his home in ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... scarce a speck Was on the child from heel to neck, Though she was sorely mired; Nor gave she sign of grief's unrest, Till, hid upon her mother's breast, She wept till ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... woods not very far away, and presently he came down to the edge of the pond, rolling a heavy birch cutting before him. He noticed at once that the water was falling, and he started straight for the dam to see what was the matter. The amateur naturalist saw him coming, a dark speck moving swiftly down the pond, with a long V-shaped ripple spreading out behind him like the flanks of a flock of wild geese. But the beaver was doing some thinking while he swam. He had never before known the water to fall so suddenly and rapidly; ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... a fact." He turned his crested head upward, trying to think of a way, and saw a black speck moving across the sky. ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... what she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.l5. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked out in pink letters the ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Something I said however, gave him knowledge that I was a seaman, and he paused a moment more civilly before resuming his watch, even pointing out what resembled the gleam of a distant sail far away on our starboard quarter. This was such a dim speck against the darkening horizon that I stood up to see better, shadowing my eyes, and forgetful of all else in aroused interest. Undoubtedly it was a sail, although appearing no larger than a gull's wing, and my imagination took me in spirit across the leagues of water. I was ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... thoughts, he quitted the near view, and let his eye run along the edge of the horizon, until it rested upon a small speck, which he knew to be the lofty spire of Saint Paul's Cathedral. If, as he supposed, the Fair Geraldine was in attendance upon Anne Boleyn, at the palace at Bridewell, she must be under the shadow of this very spire; and the supposition, whether correct or not, produced such quick ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and buffeted for about forty minutes before we arrived at the little speck of an island that is Quarantine. Long before we were there we sighted the great La Montaigne near the group of buildings on the island, where she had been waiting since early morning for the tide and the customs officials. The tug steamed alongside, and quickly up ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... as so often, a picture arises before our eyes most significant and full of interest. Mary upon her horse, perhaps pausing now and then to glance afar into the wide space, where her hawk hung suspended a dark speck in the blue, or whirled and circled downward to strike its prey, while the preacher on his hackney paused reluctant, often essaying to take his leave, retained always by a new subject. Suddenly she broached another and more private matter, turning aside from the attendants ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... "Only speck of consciousness and motionless in the void," the whisper began again. "Terribly alive, terribly alone. Seem outside space yet—still in body. Can't see, hear, feel—short-circuited from every sense—but in some strange way realize ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... vast the increase of knowledge and of power which the future may have in store for man, he can scarcely hope to stay the sweep of those great forces which seem to be making silently but relentlessly for the destruction of all this starry universe in which our earth swims as a speck or mote. In the ages to come man may be able to predict, perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the winds and clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have strength to speed afresh our slackening planet ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... down to the saddle pack without taking his eyes off the moving speck and took out the radiophone. He held it to his ear and thumbed ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... cabbage fields to where he could, by crossing a meadow, get into a wood. For an hour he sat on a log at the wood's edge and looked south. Away in the distance, over the roofs of the houses of the town, he could see a white speck against a background of green—the Butterworth farm house. Almost at once he decided that the thing he had seen in Clara's eyes and that was sister to something he had seen in Rose McCoy's eyes had nothing to do with him. The mantle of vanity he had been wearing dropped off ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... the southward, in the direction of the mountain spurs, and on the very boundary of her vision, a black speck seems to be quivering and flickering, so indistinct, so impalpable, that none but the experienced eye can ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... was gifted with good sight; and though the figure appeared but as a tiny speck, it was unmistakably that of a man bearing a burden upon his back and ascending steadily toward the highest point of all. In a word it was a steeplejack. As the name passed through the King's mind it evoked ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... the baby walked with him down to the turn in the road. There they stood and watched him through their tears, as he followed the path up through the pines on the mountain side. At last, no larger than a speck, he disappeared behind the hills. Then they went home to await ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "I done 'speck, seh, yo go roun' to de back," said the negro, as Croyden put his foot on the step. "Ole Mose 'im live dyar. I'll bring 'im heah, ef ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... &c., till twenty, which is erua ahuru, this is two tens; twenty-one consists of the terms for two tens and one. In this manner they count to ten tens, which is rau. Ten raus is one mano, or thousand; ten manos one million, and so on. How exactly the Algonquin method, but not a speck of analogy in words. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... breathing deep of earth's plain fragrance; he looked up into the great array of heaven, and was quieted. His little turgid life dwindled to its true proportions; and he saw himself (that great flame-hearted martyr!) stand like a speck under the cool cupola of the night. Thus he felt his careless injuries already soothed; the live air of out-of-doors, the quiet of the world, as if by their silent music, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... already turned blue; and as she pressed it slightly, a whitish froth issued from the mouth. From between his lashes she brushed away some speck, very carefully, as though fearful ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... crystal may be, when reduced even to small size it will be found that the crystals are still of the same shape. If this process is taken still further, and the substance is ground to the finest impalpable powder, as fine as floating dust, when placed under the microscope each speck, though perhaps invisible to the naked eye, will be seen a perfect crystal, of the identical shape as that from which it came, one so large maybe that its planes and angles might have been measured and defined ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... it concluded, Lennox flicked at a speck. "I am grateful to Paliser for that, but for the manner in which he treated her, I shall have a ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... right: do you know those nasty creatures have gone and left every speck of the supper dishes unwashed? I've got half a mind to give them ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... came we here in all the noon-day light With only darting swallows over us To make a speck of darkness on the sun? Let us go down where walls will shut us round. Your castle has a hundred quiet halls, A hundred chambers, where the shadows lie On things put by, forgotten long ago. Forgotten lutes with strings that Time has slackened, We two shall draw them close ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... looked the sky suddenly brightened in a tiny spot out to sea. A long pencil of light shot up from the water, and a cloud was tinged with a speck of dull white light. ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... sighted them, just a little speck near the sky-line, an' we bore down on them for all we was worth. Half an hour later they was alongside, an' of all the chilly, miserable-looking men I ever ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... sah," and Private Massay of "B" Troop, who was the commanding officer's orderly for the day, spoke up, "Ef de Cap'n could git in through de little doah in de stoah-room, and go through de kitchen, I speck he could git in widout ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... not stay long in that hot place, and I did not take a pick and happen to strike upon a nugget, as it is said the Duke of Edinburgh did, though I saw a small dish of the dirt washed when we reached the top, and it yielded a speck or two. We saw "the colour," as the expression is. I felt quite relieved at last to find myself at the top of the shaft, and in the coolness and freshness of the open air. Here the dirt raised from the mine is put into the iron puddling-machine, and worked round and round with ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity. There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiours in science. He also ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... had so recently sailed on, looking to be as quiet and peaceful as if there were no such things as hurricanes and angry waves, and dotted here and there by the glistening sails of inward bound vessels. Far away to the westward a long black wreath of smoke, following in the wake of a small speck on the water, announced the approach of the Havana steam packet; and close in, hugging the shore, glided a solitary American barque, apparently bound to Havana to finish her freight, her white sails gleaming in the sun. The ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... speck, speckle, mark, blot, discoloration, fleck, dapple, blotch, smutch; stain, reproach, blemish, flaw; place, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... you when you assured us that all was well because you had taken in the Almighty as a sleeping-partner in the business of governing a State. That fault in all conscience is big enough, but it becomes a mere speck when it is measured ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... wrongs The bears aveng'd, at its departure saw Elijah's chariot, when the steeds erect Rais'd their steep flight for heav'n; his eyes meanwhile, Straining pursu'd them, till the flame alone Upsoaring like a misty speck he kenn'd; E'en thus along the gulf moves every flame, A sinner so enfolded close in each, That none ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... theory of evolution have to believe that God allowed the sun to form out of the nebula, and the earth to form from the sun, that He allowed Man to develop slowly from the speck of protoplasm in the sea. That at some period of Man's gradual evolution from the brute, God found Man guilty of some sin, and cursed him. That some thousands of years later God sent His only Son down upon the earth to save Man ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... wife, sitting down before the blaze, pointed proudly to this heap of ashes, and the doctor said, "I brought Alice to this house a year ago, on the day of our wedding, and we kindled a fire here, on the bare hearth. Since then not a speck of ashes has been removed, except little bits from the front when the carpet was invaded. That pile of ashes is the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... where all remained that he coveted upon earth. And Katerina, she too felt as if her existence was a blank; and as the vessel sailed from the port, she breathed short; and when not even her white and lofty topgallant sail could be discovered as a speck, she threw herself on her couch and wept. And M'Clise as he sailed away, remained for hours leaning his cheek on his hand, thinking of, over and over again, every lineament and feature of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... handkerchief carefully, wiped the last speck of Dry Lake dust from his shiny toes. "Yuh won't crawfish on me, if I tell yuh?" he inquired anxiously, standing up and ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... Eufaula, and I should think that the improvement in some of the cabins was not very much in advance of what it was in Slavery. The cabins are made with doors, but not, to my recollection, a single window pane or speck of plastering; and yet even in some of those lowly homes I met with hospitality. A room to myself is a luxury that I do not always enjoy. Still I live through it, and find life rather interesting. The people have much to learn. The condition of the women is not very enviable ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... 65 That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing 70 (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still, Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm[181:1] For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom 75 No sound is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... really an invalid, or had sunk into invalid habits, and made no effort to rally. If his father urged him to go out—nay, once or twice he gulped down his pride, and asked Osborne to accompany him—Osborne would go to the window and find out some flaw or speck in the wind or weather, and make that an excuse for stopping in the house over his books. He would saunter out on the sunny side of the house in a manner that the squire considered as both indolent and unmanly. Yet if there was a prospect ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that story to impress me," the doctor whispered. "Not a speck of foreign matter in it. Moreover, the wound is almost on top of his head. Now, if he had been thrown from a horse and had struck on top of his head on a rock with sufficient force to lacerate his scalp and produce a minor fracture, he would, undoubtedly, have crushed his ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... hand. A sumptuous desk, and luxurious leather-covered armchairs furnished the room; a beautiful little Parian copy of a famous Cupid and Psyche decorated the mantelpiece, and betrayed the touch of pagan in the Presbyterian. A bright fire burned in the grate, and there was not a speck of dust anywhere. ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... year that you'll get tired of me," she laughed, as she got into the car. Mrs. Baird waved until they turned the bend in the road. Polly looked back in a last farewell, until the buildings on the hill were a tiny speck. Then she turned to her uncle. "Uncle Roddy," she said, seriously, "do you remember what you said to me the first night I was home, ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... slightly, and still the evidence he looked for did not come. Nothing seemed to change but those dark fringes; only now some wave of the branches as the wind began to rise, let in the moonlight for a moment upon a small white speck across the road. He thought so: something whiter than a wet stone or a bleached stick,—or it might be fancy. Noiselessly and almost invisibly, for Dane could move like an Indian, and with such quickness, ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... pressed upon him like an illimitable and deserted ocean. The sun was a tiny white disk on his right, hanging between rosy coronal wings; his native Earth, a bright greenish point suspended in the dark gulf below it; Mars, nearer, smaller, a little ocher speck above the shrunken sun. Above him, below him, in all directions was vastness, blackness, emptiness. Ebon infinity, sprinkled with ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... rather how little, of our composition it is, and how exquisitely fine that little is, that creates in us this consciousness of existence; and all beyond that is like the pulp of a peach, distinct and separate from the vegetative speck in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... because of its ten just men, than for society, if society were to depend on ten who were not snobs. All this arose from the keenness of his vision into that which was really mean. But that keenness became so aggravated by the intenseness of his search that the slightest speck of dust became to his eyes as a foul stain. Public[o]la, as we saw, damned one poor man to a wretched immortality, and another was called pitilessly over the coals, because he had mixed a grain of flattery ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... myself I CAN get through about as much work in a day as anybody!" Her eye wandered round her rooms with a modest air of placid self-approval which was almost comic. Everything in them was as well-kept and as well-polished as good servants, thoroughly drilled, could make it. Not a stain or a speck anywhere. A miracle of neatness. Indeed, when I carelessly drew the Norwegian dagger from its scabbard, as we waited for lunch, and found that it stuck in the sheath, I almost started to discover that rust could intrude ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... o' my business? Whose business is it den, I'd like to know? Wuz I his mother tell he was fifteen years old, or wusn't I?—you answer me dat. En you speck I could see him turned out po' and ornery on de worl' en never care noth'n' 'bout it? I reckon if you'd ever be'n a mother yo'self, Valet de Chambers, you wouldn't talk ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... She had her hair tied back from her face with a pink ribbon in a bow on top of her head. She loosened this ribbon, and shook her hair quite loose. She peeped out of the golden radiance of it at herself, then she shook it back. She was charming either way. She was undeveloped, but as yet not a speck of the mildew of earth had touched her. She was flawless, irreproachable, except for the knowledge of her beauty, through heredity, in her heart, which was older than ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Willy was amazed. How could she guess that while riding on Gid's back he had been a little glad to think he could not help it? He had hardly known himself that he was glad, it was such a wee speck of a feeling, and so covered up with ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... stick frayed by many deep cuts with a knife, and waved them repeatedly from left to right, at the same time pouring out a rapid flood of words. They had caught sight of a hawk high up and far away from them, and they were trying to persuade it to fly towards the right. Presently the hawk, a tiny speck in the sky, sailed slowly out of sight behind a hill on the right, and the men settled themselves to watch for a second hawk which must fly towards the left, and a third which must circle round and round. In the course of about ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... the doctor again bid her good-bye and started on his way, while Heidi remained looking after him and waving her hand as long as a speck of him could be seen. As the doctor turned for the last time and looked back at the waving Heidi and the sunny mountain, he said to himself, "It is good to be up there, good for body and soul, and a man might learn how ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... from Cape Town. We used to ride morning and evening on the flat country which surrounds Mafeking, where no tree or hill obscures the view for miles; and one then realized what a tiny place the seat of government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate really was, a mere speck of corrugated iron roofs on the brown expanse of the burnt-up veldt, far away from everywhere. I think it was this very isolation that created the interest in the siege at home, and one of the reasons why the Boers were so anxious to reduce it was that this town was practically ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... not to the northeast whence the banks of cloud had risen, but to the southwest, and it seemed as though a little speck was there against the hurrying film of cloud. We were drawing near the forest line, where a little creek made an indentation. I listened, and from afar came a sound like the strumming of low notes on a guitar, and sad. The terrified scream of a panther broke ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... walls whence they looked down into the water; at the fragrance of the evergreens that surrounded the beautiful palace with its balustrades, dedicated to all the worst passions of the human race; with the sharp rocky outline of Turbia; with an almost invisible speck on the horizon which they said was Corsica; with everything, which, whether mirage or reality, lifted her out of herself, and plunged her into that state of excited happiness and indescribable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... perchance deem sleep, Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, Which, by the toil of gathering energies, Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences, Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green Into a pleasant island in the seas, Where, mid fall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour, Hearing the leaves and loving ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... daybreak a speck was seen in the horizon; now it is visible above the hollow wave, now curtained from our sight by the swelling billow: we approach nearer; the speck divides, and two spots appear; they ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo |
