"Spar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was by no means undeserving of the remark, being devoid of any kind of vegetation, except some straggling heath and a few patches of stunted gorse, which here and there sprung up amidst the rugged spar-stones that, intermixed with rude crags of granite, were thickly scattered over this wide waste, which, throughout its vast extent, afforded as perfect a picture of sterility as can be well conceived. With this brief outline of the scenery, we must next attempt to describe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar. And bound her ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... eternity: Awhile he 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... disappeared. A cry was heard, uttered by the sailing-master, whose arm could be seen wildly waving amid the whiteness of the foam. The sailors rushed to the side and flung out one a rope, another a cask, a third a spar—in short, any object of which Martin Holt might lay hold. At the moment when I struggled up to my feet I caught sight of a massive substance which cleft the air and vanished in ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... powerful enemy who thus strove to 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, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... masts removed and moored to the shore. Of the four that kept them in three had their masts wounded in the fight, proving the advantage of this precaution. Thus prepared, and stripped of every spare spar, rope, and boat, in the lightest fighting trim, the ships stood ready for ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... me that a vessel laden with oil could not have sunk—but reflection came too late, and benumbed with the coldness of the waters, I could have struggled but a few seconds more, when I suddenly came in contact with a spar somewhat bigger than a boat's mast. I seized it to support myself, and was surprised at finding it jerked from me occasionally; as if there was somebody else who had hold of it, and who wished to force me to let it go; but it was quite dark, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ilex, and ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... is strong in every heart, and when he found himself breathing the air again he threw out his arms wildly and grasped a spar. ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... costly incense was heavy and sweet, the smoke from a brazier arising in a thin, motionless blue spar which, when it had climbed up through the air for a distance of about four feet, broke into a sort of turquoise fan and this drifted on up to the ceiling in heavy wisps. The incense pot was very old, of black lacquer and brass, greened ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... dined with us, and, as usual, I read Divine Service. On the following morning I went aboard the schooner and examined the log-book and charts. We painted the Red and Black Beacons, and Mr. Adams having trimmed up a spar, we erected a flagstaff thirty-four feet high. I occupied myself the next day with preparing a report to be sent to the Colonial Secretary. My brother went off to the boat and brought ashore the things we required. We were busy on ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... 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 ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... as a mack'rel gull on a spar-buoy, "what's the outlook for to-morrer? The Gov'ment sharp says there's a big storm on the way up from Florida. Is he right, or only ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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 there ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... their thoughts, Hermanric and Antonina remained silent in their little retreat, until the reveries of both were suddenly interrupted by the snapping asunder of the bar of wood which secured the door of the room, the stress of which, as it bent under the repeated shocks of the wind, the rotten spar was too weak to sustain any longer. There was something inexpressibly desolate in the flood of rain, wind, and darkness that seemed instantly to pour into the chamber through the open door, as it flew back violently on its frail hinges. Antonina changed colour, and shuddered involuntarily, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... very much pleased. He liked above all things to see a woman stand up to him defiantly; indeed, if they were worth "setting to with," he always tried to get them to spar as soon as possible, to find out if they had any idea of hitting straight. He did not betray his satisfaction, though, as he answered quite calmly, "Pardon me, I could not be so impertinent as to attempt ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... to bear except the gun on the forecastle. Fortunately it continued smooth, and we were no longer troubled with smoke. Shot after shot went hissing through the air after her; a number tore through the sails or rigging, but not a spar was touched nor an important rope cut. We could see some of her crew aloft reeving and stopping braces and ready to repair any damage done, working as coolly under fire as old man-of-war's men. But while we were looking, down came the gaff of her mainsail, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... yard, the corners stretching out before the wind and cracking like musket shots. To set it again was impossible; the orders came, "Down yard—haul out reef tackle;" then half a dozen men laid out on the spar and began furling. Scarcely was this terrible job well under way when a whack of the slatting sail struck a Kanaka boy from his hold, and he was carried to leeward by the gale as if he had been a bag of old clothes, dropping forty feet from the side ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... 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 ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... mind its power, A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast, That I for poor Auld Scotland's sake Some usefu' plan or beuk could make, Or sing a sang at least. The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide Amang the bearded bear, I turn'd the weeder-clips aside, An' spar'd the symbol dear. ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... to a sparkling guitar, With silver chords stretch'd over Derbyshire spar, And she smiled on the Knight, Who, amazed at the sight, Soon found his astonishment merged in delight; But the stream by degrees Now rose up to her knees, Till at length it invaded her very chemise, While the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... sail on board which we could use in the way of storm canvas, and the sails of the boat were too small to be of any use. Nor was there a spar which we could use as mast, save the yard itself. It must be that or nothing, ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... Demerara to Panama, from Mexico to the Bahamas. So that day was to the crew a day of hard hot work—of lifting and sorting goods on the main-deck, in readiness for the arrival at St. Thomas's, and of moving forwards two huge empty boilers which had graced our spar-deck, filled with barrels of onions and potatoes, all the way from Southampton. But in the soft hot evening hours, time was found for the usual dance on the quarter-deck, with the band under the awning, and lamps throwing fantastic shadows, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Tropic 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 they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... 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 turned ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... his right hand, drawing nigh, Welcom'd Ulysses, whom he thus bespake. Hail venerable guest! and be thy lot Prosp'rous at least hereafter, who art held At present in the bonds of num'rous ills. Thou, Jupiter, of all the Gods, art most Severe, and spar'st not to inflict distress Even on creatures from thyself derived.[92] 240 I had no sooner mark'd thee, than my eyes Swam, and the sweat gush'd from me at the thought Of dear Ulysses; for if yet he ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Under spar-enchased bowers, Bending on their twisted stems, Glow the myriad ocean-flowers, Fadeless—rich as orient gems. Hung with seaweed's tasselled fringes, Dyed with all the rainbow's tinges, Rise the Triton's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Silenus (si le' nus). The foster-father of Bacchus. Sleipnir (slap' ner). The swift eight-legged horse of Odin. Sonmus (som' nus). The king of sleep. Sparta (spar' ta). ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 grasp, and when you get something you cling to it and push your ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... beat 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 in some ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... our fire, paid us a visit from the shore, and were the only living things seen during our stay. The rock constituting the cliffs along the shore where we were encamped, is a talcous rock, or steatite, with brown spar. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... passed. The crowd was being constantly increased by new arrivals from both shores, sailboats, rowboats, racing shells, rafts, were loaded with gayly dressed people, and here and there some adventurous man or boy might be seen as a merry sailor on a single plank or spar, apparently as deep in enjoyment as were any on the water. It seemed as if all the town were coming to the river, renouncing the cares and toils of the day, determined to take the evening breeze into their pulses, and be cool and tranquil ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... heights, in depths, are working. Oh ye rude and clumsy mortals! Shut up proudly in your houses, You are groaning with hard labour. In the hot-house of your noddles Are some plants called art and science, And you even brag of such weeds. By the lime-spar and rock-crystal! You have much to learn, I tell you, Ere the truth you will ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... Lawrenceburg to bring Harvey home. Instead of taking the cars as instructed, Paul induced his charge to go with him to the river. The little boy was very timid and refused to embark on a steering oar that Paul found near the shore. A steering oar consists of a plank securely pinned into a spar about thirty feet long and used on stern and bow of a raft to guide it. Paul at last half forcibly seated him on a block of wood on the steering oar and procuring a pole they started on their voyage. All went well until they had passed under the old Aqueduct Bridge. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Friday, but I have gone to sea on a Friday, and nothing has happened; and twice before that we have been thirteen, because one of the hands didn't turn up at the last minute, and nothing ever happened either—nothing worse than the loss of a light spar or two, or a little canvas. Whenever I have been wrecked, we had sailed as cheerily as you please—no thirteens, no Fridays, no dead men in the hold. I believe ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... name. He was a 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 so many young boys on board who often get as ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... only by the efforts of all on board did she reach the Congo alive. There was no one, from the butcher to the captain, including the passengers, who had not shielded Fanny from the cold, and later from the sun, fed her, bathed her, forced medicine down her throat, and raced her up and down the spar deck. Consequently we all knew Fanny, and it was a great shock when from the custom-house I saw her running around the blazing parade ground, her eyes filled with fear and "lost dog" written all over her, from her drooping tongue to her drooping tail. Captain Burton and ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... been a godsend to her, and everybody else. She still talked revolution, and she was always ready to spar with Lord Buntingford, or other people. But all the same Lucy Friend was often aware of a much more tractable temper, a kind of hesitancy—and appeasement—which, even if it passed away, made her beauty, for the moment, ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had been gilding everything from masthead to floating spar gathered in its forces, and for one moment seemed to rest upon Liberty's torch, throwing the statue into clear relief, and then dropped rapidly behind the river's night-cloud bank, and presently lights began to ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... wide, not unlike scows drifted ashore and moored on the beach for houses. The little windows had gay curtains fluttering in the breeze, and the room within looked clean and cheery; the rough walls were adorned with the spoils of the fresh-water seas, shells, green stones, agates, spar, and curiously shaped pebbles; occasionally there was a stuffed water-bird, or a bright-colored print, and always a violin. Black-eyed children played in the water which bordered their narrow beach-gardens; and slender women, with shining black hair, stood ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... out and Hope, dazed and dumb, followed the others. They found the little room, where they had passed so many homelike hours, sadly demoralized. One of the great windows was shivered to splinters, and through it projected a heavy spar, now safely wedged from further harm, and as they gazed out through the other great panes, it was upon a scene of intense desolation. The deck was quite empty, all the crew being busy below, but it was one mass of ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... past ten next morning, and looked around. We hadn't budged a peg! At first I could not understand it; then it occurred to me that the old thing must be aground. So I cut down some trees and rigged a spar on the starboard and another on the port side, and fooled away upward of three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use. She was half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long, and there was no telling just whereabouts she WAS aground. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wrecked raft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Spar. s. The pointed sticks, doubled and twisted in the middle, and used for fixing the thatch of a roof, are called spars: they are commonly made ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... Kerry, on Whit-Monday, a Union Jack was hoisted, not as a political banner, but as an ornament, and the only banner available for the purpose. It was left flying when the cricketers went home, but in the morning it lay prone and dishonoured. The forty-foot spar had been sawn through, and in falling had smashed the palings. Let a chorus of musical Gladstonians march through Ireland bearing the Union Jack and singing "God save the Queen," let them do it, with or without police protection, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the same time books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was not 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 ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... be so:—And you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spar'd, Shall wait ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... with gun-cotton, the development of which owes so much to Sir Frederick Abel, while for purposes of attack the same material, not yet in practical use for shells, is taken as the charge for torpedoes, which are either affixed to a spar or are carried in the head of a submerged cigar-shaped body. By a compressed air or by a direct steam impulse arrangement these weapons are started on their course and are directed, and then the running is taken up ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... almost intact, her armor proving a sufficient defence against the broadsides, even when delivered at close range. The eight-inch shells of the Hartford buried themselves about half their diameter in our armor, and crumbled into fragments. All of our casualties occurred on the spar deck; our gallant commander being mortally wounded there; and many of the mechanics, who were quartered on board the tenders alongside of us, were killed or wounded. The McRae and the Manassas were in the stream in time to take ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... sinews; her glory had, in a great degree, departed. The foremast alone remained, and of this even the head was gone, a circumstance of which Captain Truck complained more than of any other, as, to use his own expressions, "it destroyed the symmetry of the spar, which had proved itself to be a good stick." What, however, was of more real importance, it rendered it difficult, if not impossible, to get up a spare topmast forward. As both the main and mizzen-mast had ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... We don't even build or use small torpedo-boats. These fast "destroyers" are no good for this work—too long and unmanageable, and most of them too deep. What you want is something strong and simple, of light draught, and with only a spar-torpedo, if it came to that. Tugs, launches, small yachts—anything would do at a pinch, for success would depend on intelligence, not on brute force or complicated mechanism. They'd get wiped out often, but what matter? There'd be no lack of the right sort of ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... John Wilkes said, "and was as smart a sailor as any on board till he had his foot smashed by being jammed by a spare spar that got adrift in a gale, so that the doctors had to cut off the leg under the knee, and leave him to stump about on a timber toe for the rest of his life. I tell you what, Master Cyril: we might make the thing safer still if I spin ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... ushered in by another storm, more terrific even than the last. A heavy sea struck the vessel, sweeping overboard the captain and three seamen; and the poor doctor's leg was broken at the same time, by a loose spar. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... 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 own reflection in ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... nights, be they summer or winter, Hurricane nights like these, When spar and topsail are rag and splinter Hurled o'er the ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... sound. English boats were plying busily about, picking up those who had leapt overboard in time. Some were dragged in through the lower portholes of the English ships, and about seventy were saved altogether. For one moment a boat's crew had a sight of a helpless figure bound to a spar, and guided by a little childish swimmer, who must have gone overboard with his precious freight just before the explosion. They rowed after the brave little fellow, earnestly desiring to save him; but ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she dwelt, 'twould seem, Yet stream nor breeze could bar Her little boat, that to a nook, Dark with the pine-tree's spar, Each evening Ronald saw shoot up As ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... washin' about, nigh out of sight of land, clingin' on to half the foreyard, without a sign either of my mates or of wreckage. I wasn't so cold, for it was early fall, and I could get three parts of my body on to the spar, but I was hungry and thirsty and bruised, so I just took in two holes of my waist-belt, and put up a hymn, and had a look round for what I could see. Well, I saw more than I cared for. Within five paces of me there was a great fish, as long pretty ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... another top-mast very dangerous; and that, therefore, he must rig something lighter in its place. He also informed me, that he had lost his main-top-gallant-yard, and that he neither had another, nor a spar to make one, on board. The Resolution's sprit-sail top-sail yard which I sent him, supplied this want. The next day, he got up a jury top-mast, on which he set a mizen-top-sail, and this enabled him to keep way with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the desert was staked for miles. From the chimneys of old houses, long abandoned to the rats, rose the smokes of many fires and the rush and whine of passing automobiles told of races to distant grounds. All the old mines in the district, and of neighboring districts where the precious "heavy spar" occurred, were re-located—or jumped, as the case might be—and held to await future developments. The first thing was to stake. They could prospect the ground later. Tungsten now was king. Men who had never heard the name, or pronounced ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... little streams, like a perpetual shower of rain! The never-abating action of the water has worn the rock into many fantastic shapes; and, crusting round the moss and fibres of the roots of trees, has given to it almost the appearance of a spar cavern. In several places the water has worn little reservoirs for itself, which are always full. It is cool, clear, and pleasant to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... cliff lighted on a spar of rock and made herself an interpreter between the two. "Shaggy beast of the Island," said the seal, "friend and follower of men, tell me about their ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... 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 ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... spar-loft the sail-loft had been set aside and fashioned most elegantly for refreshment. An immense table crossed it, behind which servants stood, and behind the servants the wall had been lined with shelves covered with ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... I 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 ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... excited tones as they made their way forward. If the object sticking above the gully's edge proved actually to be a mast it was in all probability a spar of the ship they sought. The thought put new life into every one and they hurried forward over the hard snow at ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Saucie! Companion! tis the Guise, but yet those termes might have beene spar'd of the guiserd. Companion! He's jealous, by this light. Are you blind of that side, Duke? Ile to her againe for that. Forth, princely mistresse, 125 for the honour of ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... 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 Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... almost instantly and by merely throwing a couple of turns around a post, two half-hitches may be formed instantly. This knot will hold forever without loosening, and even on a smooth, round stick or spar it will stand an enormous strain without slipping. A more secure knot for this same purpose is the "Clove Hitch" (Fig. 36), sometimes known as the "Builders' Hitch." To make this, pass the end of rope around the spar or timber, then over itself; over ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... 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, I ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... and of happy relief were vivid as they passed, but I made the steamer stop, and on climbing the mast, I found not even the slightest crack or injury there. Henceforth we shall trust the goodly spar in any gale, with the confidence only to be had by a crucial ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... not sail without a captain. Wearily they went below and left a sentinel on watch. He was a young man who had eaten heavily and drunk to even more excess. For a time he paced the deck conscientiously. Then he sat down, leaned against a spar and smoked. After a while the pipe fell ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... the high hedge, until he reached the machine. His attitude was that of an evil-doer. From his pocket he produced a small bolt of wood painted to resemble steel. He advanced to the left wing-spar of the monoplane and, apparently possessing expert knowledge of the point where it was the most vulnerable, he swiftly drew out a split pin, removed a small steel bolt at the end of the main-stay cable, and replaced it ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... seeming to hesitate in mid-air, exploded, or fell on town or ship or in the stream between. As we looked, awe-struck, hot shot set fire to the "Charon," a forty-four-gun ship, nigh to Gloucester, and soon a red rush of fire twining about mast and spar rose in air, lighting the sublime spectacle, amid the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, and multitudinous inexplicable noises, through which we heard now and then the wild howl of a dog from some ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Noah?" asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper. "That her off back of the spar buoy? Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain't what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t'other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he'd try out, fust look. Takes practice to keep your eyesight so's you can see round a curve ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... weather, and giving her far more comfortable accommodation below. By these alterations and by the strong sheathing added to her bottom she was brought up to 242 tons burthen. It is a proof of the splendid seamanship of Captain Fitz-Roy and his officers that she returned without having carried away a spar, and that in only one of the heavy storms that she encountered was she in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, 5 Now a dart of blue; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: 10 They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... absolute height of the wave above the mean level of the sea. The length and velocity were found by noting the time taken by the wave to traverse the measured distance (100 yards) between the ship and the spar towing astern. In column 3, the number 4 denotes a moderate breeze, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... grampus. Right at the crown of the hill, most fortunately for the wayfarer, there was a thick coppice of stunted trees, which afforded refuge from the gale and shelter from the rain. He was quite blown by the time he reached it, and he clutched at the nearest sapling as a drowning man clutches at a spar. He stood there perforce for a full minute, panting hard. Then he shook his head doggedly, and muttered a ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... would have been sure to result in an ignominious disaster. The doughty old farmer, who was not less than six feet three in his stockinged feet, held on to him as a drowning man clings to a floating spar. It was not possible to get away without resorting to violence; and if he offered any resistance to what, just then, looked like manifest destiny, the rebel soldier would become an ally of the farmer, and the women could call in ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... would have been wealth to him—lay within his reach, but he thrust it aside; he disdained luxury as he disdained idleness, and made no compromise with convention. When a man cuts himself absolutely adrift from custom, what an astonishingly light spar floats him! How few his wants are, after all! Lear was of a cheerful disposition, and seems to have been wholly inoffensive—at a distance. He fabricated his own clothes, and subsisted chiefly on milk and potatoes, the ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... alone. You shall make diamonds of yourselves, and rubies of yourselves, and emeralds; and Irish diamonds; two of those—with Lily in the middle of one, which will be very orderly, of course; and Kathleen in the middle of the other, for which we will hope the best; and you shall make Derbyshire spar of yourselves, and Iceland spar, and gold, and silver, and—Quicksilver there's enough of ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... seven thousand feet, I observed on a bare slope some snow-white projecting columns. These were petrified trees, eleven being silicified, and from thirty to forty converted into coarsely-crystallized white calcareous spar. They were abruptly broken off, the upright stumps projecting a few feet above the ground. The trunks measured from three to five feet each in circumference. They stood a little way apart from each other, but the whole formed one group. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... I pointed it out to my patron. Presently it was hauled down, and a series of signals was made at the yard—arm of a spar, that had been slung across it. Who can they be telegraphing to? thought I, while I could notice my host assume a most anxious and startled look, while he peered down into the hollow. But he could see nothing, as the fog bank still filled the whole of the space ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... purpose in doing this. I had no intention of going to sleep. By taking note of a certain star which had appeared just to the right of a cross-spar, and by noticing its change of position, I was enabled to guess with some exactitude the course we ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... vertue, of a private man got to be Duke of Millan; and that which with much pains he had gaind, he kept with small ado. On the other side Caeesar Borgia (commonly termed Duke Valentine) got his state by his Fathers fortune, and with the same lost it; however that for his own part no pains was spar'd, nor any thing omitted, which by a discreet and valorus man ought to have been done, to fasten his roots in those Estates, which others armes or fortune had bestowed on him; for (as it was formerly said) he that lays not the ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... accident to which I have referred was this:—We had sighted a little full-rigged ship very close under our board in a haze; she sailed near as well as we did—I should be nearer truth if I said, near as ill; and we cleared the bow-chaser to see if we could bring a spar or two about their ears. The swell was exceedingly great; the motion of the ship beyond description; it was little wonder if our gunners should fire thrice and be still quite broad of what they aimed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no trouble to him to keep his balance, and when up like that he would twist his legs about, open them wide, put them forwards and backwards, and end by insulting me with his feet, so it seemed to me, for he would spar at me with them and ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... bellowed, "studden sails set an' drawing, tho' obleeged to haul my wind, d'ye see, on account o' this here spar o' mine a-running foul o' the furrers." Having said the which, he advanced again with a heave to port and a lurch to starboard very like a ship in a heavy sea; this peculiarity of gait was explained as he hove into full view, for then Barnabas saw that his ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... a buoy is an index of its character. Thus, one with black and red stripes indicates danger; one with black and white vertical stripes is a channel-marker. Temporary channels are frequently marked by pieces of spar floating upright. In some cases it is customary to set untrimmed tree-tops on the port, and trimmed sticks on ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... soon as the frost and snow were gone, Quinbey employed laborers to flatten the ground near his house to the extent of a hundred feet by ten; then, with stakes, he laid out the plan of a ship's deck. Next he contracted with spar makers, ship carpenters, and ship chandlers for material and labor; and before June three masts were erected, each with topmast, top-gallant, and royal mast, the standing rigging of which was set up to strong posts driven into the ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... was then cool 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 it, and presently retired. He ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... Brussels, and by the king's orders was courteously received by the Spanish authorities in the Netherlands. In the midst of the tempest now rapidly destroying all rational hopes, Philip still clung to Mayenne as to a spar in the shipwreck. For the king ever possessed the virtue, if it be one, of continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible, when he had been defeated in every quarter, and when his calculations had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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
... sooner perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut, or divide ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... the side of the steamer. Others had discovered this road to safety and he had to fight for his foothold amid the waves that now washed over his feet. The men on the stranger vessel were sawing off the broken spar which was entangled under the steamer's upper deck, lest their craft should be dragged down by the sinking boat. He urged Ninitta forward, swinging her by main force up ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the bags, bundles and dispatch boxes, he disappeared in the surrounding gloom and did not reappear at all. Dick Lynch, a man of about his own size, shape and coloring,—one of the six who had taken cover on the hillside—the firelight in his stead, carrying a fragment of broken spar. The change was not noticed by the men from ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... gave me a wavering glance, dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran back, surprised to her knee. But the two, standing before each other in sunlight with clasped hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and no one. Three feet away from them in the shade a seaman sat on a spar, very busy splicing a strop, and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if utterly unaware of ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... were it to the world's end. I believed he would, too, for he had threatened to be the last man in Maida's world; the Countess was now the last woman in his, and he would hold on to her and her money as a drowning man grasps at a substantial spar. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... answer, and though the flood of light that dyed the water blood-red struck out every rope and spar distinct and clear, his straining eyes could see no living soul aboard. As they came nearer, they could distinguish the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... go his hold of the rope altogether. As there seemed, however, no alternative, I did not hesitate, notwithstanding my comparative inexperience and awkwardness in such a situation, to throw my legs across the perilous spar; and with a heart extremely grateful that such means of deliverance, dangerous as they appeared, were still extended to me; and more grateful still that I had been enabled, in common with others, to discharge my honest ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... affected him deeply, and the clouds settled thicker and thicker upon his soul. In the year before his death, he published that painfully touching poem, The Castaway, which gives an epitome of his own sufferings in the similitude of a wretch clinging to a spar in a stormy night ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Rawlings, "but not quite probable, considering the time that elapsed after our saving him to meeting with the water-logged vessel, and the distance we traversed in the interval. Besides, the boy was lashed to the spar that supported him in the water, and he couldn't have done that, with the wound he had received, by himself; so that gets rid of the theory of his being half-murdered and pitched overboard. Altogether, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... talent. On Sheen's next visit he was introduced to a burly youth of his own age, very taciturn, and apparently ferocious. He, it seemed, was the knife and boot boy at the "Blue Boar", "did a bit" with the gloves, and was willing to spar with Sheen provided Mr Bevan made it all right with the guv'nor; saw, that is so say, that he did not get into trouble for passing in unprofessional frivolity moments which should have been sacred to knives and boots. These terms having been agreed ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... in sailed the "Southern Cross" with not a spar carried away or sail lost, perfectly sound, and in a fit state to be off again at once. She left England on the same day that we did, and arrived just a fortnight after us, and this is attributable to her having kept ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feel cocky instead, I laugh and say, 'Well, I am bound to break something down'—and suddenly see. 'Oho, there's the place; get weight on there, and the belt won't slip.' With much labour, on go the belts again. 'Now then, a spar thro' there and six men's weight on; mind you're not carried away.' 'Ay, ay, sir.' But evidently no one believes in the plan. 'Hurrah, round she goes—stick to your spar. All right, shut off steam.' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Litton crept up the dormitory steps and asked the overjoyed maid for Professor Binley. When she appeared he caught her in his arms as if she were a spar and he a drowning sailor. They made up like young lovers and swore oaths that they would never quarrel again—oaths which, fortunately for the variety of their future existence, they found capable of ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... several times as the fiery ashes had been drifted upon the road, our horses had no choice but to step into them. On that eminence I picked up specimens of Geodes which abound there, being lumps resembling fruits outside, but when broken found to be a crust of bright spar, and hollow in the centre; some of these were remarkably large. The hills were fragrant with wild herbs, and the views from ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... superiority he possesses. So it was with Harry and me, when he put on his glove. I use the singular number, because he has but one hand whereon to place a glove withal. Come, said he, it shall only be a little innocent spar. I also put on a glove, for it would not be fair to attack a one-armed man with two, and no one ought to take the odds in combat. To it we went, and I shewed first blood, for he tapped the claret in ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain), He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, 'How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Death, had'st thou but spar'd his life, Whom we this day lament, We freely wad exchanged the wife, And a' been ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... notwithstanding it high state the water remains nearly transparent, and it's temperature appeas to be quite as cold as that of our best springs. we meet with a beautifull little bird in this neighbourhood about the size and somewhat the shape of the large spar-row. it is reather longer in proportion to it's bulk than the sparrow. it measures 7 inches from the extremity of the beek to that of the tail, the latter occupying 21/2 inches. the beak is reather more ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... 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 thereof, ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... 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 her ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... advanced a few paces into the cave, and a sight of the most indescribable sublimity burst upon us. The appearance was that of a huge Gothic cathedral, having its roof supported upon pillars of spar, moulded into the most regular shapes, and fluted and carved after the most exact models of architecture. The roof itself was indeed too lofty to be discerned, nor could the eye penetrate to anything like an extremity, all ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... the truth. . . . You may speak what is true to you,— but it becomes an error when received into his mind. . . . If his mind is a refracting and polarising medium—if the crystalline lens of his soul's eye has been changed into tourmaline or Labrador spar- -the only way to give him a true image of the fact, is to present it to him already properly altered in form, and adapted to suit the obliquity of his vision; in order that the very refractive power of his faculties may, instead of distorting ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... remarkable naval retreats ever recorded, in which skillful seamanship won the race. There was almost a dead calm. Down went the boats of the Constitution, with long lines attached to them, and strong sweeps were used with desperate energy in towing her. A long cannon was placed at the stern on her spar-deck, and two others were pointed ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... carbonate crystallizes in the form of rhomb-shaped crystals which belong to the hexagonal system. When very pure and transparent the substance is called Iceland spar. Calcite is a similar form, but somewhat opaque or clouded. Mexican onyx is a massive variety, streaked or banded with colors due to impurities. Marble when pure is made up of minute calcite crystals. Stalactites and stalagmites are icicle-like ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... 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
... thing might have been concealed; and every one who came at any time from the St Fermin was strictly searched by some of our people appointed for the purpose, that they might not appropriate any thing of value. Our carpenter also was employed in making a slight spar-deck over the Mercury, as she might be of great use while cruizing along the coast. On the 30th December a boat came off to us with a flag of truce from the governor of Conception, and an officer, who acquainted us that two of our people, taken in the late skirmish, were still ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the wheel, steering steadily. He carried the "Benson" past the gunboat's bow, some seventy yards away. A cheer went up from the sailors crowding forward on the gunboat's spar deck. The cheer would have sounded, no matter which submarine ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... flap once or twice, and then suddenly collapse, I knew what was coming, and shouting at the top of my voice, "Look out Heck! She'll jibe!" I instinctively threw myself into the bottom of the boat to escape the boom. With a quick, sudden rush, ending in a great crash, the long heavy spar swept across the boat from starboard to port, knocking Bowsher overboard and carrying away the mast. The sloop swung around into the trough of the sea, in a tangle of sails, sheets, halyards, and standing rigging; and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan |
