"Flat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pointing. "This bundle of letters I took off him. Amongst them you'll find useful information. Read 'em now, superintendent. You'll find there's a flat in Bayswater, where two or three of his crowd in the illicit drug traffic are expecting him to-morrow morning. That's the important one—the ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... the windows looked out at no great distance on the high road. Signals were possible. They would lodge—imprison her at the back, and surely on the upper floor. But even that, on this side, had six windows, and he searched their flat glitter in vain for a peg ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... white beach, the brilliancy of the sun, the palm trees and the crescent city, in the main of cement or plaster buildings, with flat or beehive roofs, all white except an occasional red or green tiled one, merely emphasizing by contrast the uniformity of the building color; make ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... flora. For the first time dry land, and organized bodies at once bulky enough, and exhibited in a medium clear enough, to render them conspicuous objects in a distant prospect, appear in the Mosaic drama; and we still find at once evidence of the existence of extensive though apparently very flat lands, and the remains of a wonderfully gigantic and abundant vegetation, in what appear to be the rocks of this period. The vision of the fourth day, like that of the second, pertained not to the earth, but to the heavens; the sun, moon, and stars become visible, and form the sole subjects ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... to this kind of a place," he argued. "I'm not a cave-dweller. It's a lovely flat—for a murder—but it's no place to LIVE. And, besides, it doesn't look right for me to come to your house, when all the hotels are gasping for my patronage. I never heard of such a thing. Makes me feel like ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... encroaching upon the level of the lake, have, in course of time, given birth to ample promontories of sweeping outline that contrast boldly with the longitudinal base of the steeps on the opposite shore; while their flat or gently-sloping-surfaces never fail to introduce, into the midst of desolation and barrenness, the elements of fertility, even where the habitations of men may not have been raised. These alluvial promontories, however, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... They had proceeded about two miles along its edge, when they saw the stern of a boat projecting beyond the rushes that fringed the water's edge, and pushing more rapidly forward they came upon a beaten path through the reeds, and following this came upon a low flat boat, very ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... word the Count struck the Janissary fairly on the flat cap with his axe, bringing him to his knees. Almost simultaneously a heavy stone descended upon the dazed man from a higher part of the wall, and he rolled backward ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... the coach and started to climb the steps to the great door, we found the landlord and his retinue waiting to receive us. Frances was in the lead, and when we reached the broad, flat stone in front of the door, the head porter stepped before her, bowed, and ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... after an hour on the piazza with his aunt and uncle, followed the latter into the study and, taking the broad leather chair, faced Markham across the flat desk with candid, friendly eyes. Levi sat, as he always did when in that room, in his revolving chair; the leather one was reserved ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... you was getting on. I let him know you needed work, but I didn't tip my hand you was flat broke. He said something about ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... by the hand of man are found in great quantities in the bone beds of the Godavery. Some javelin heads in sandstone, basalt, and quartz, with scrapers and knives, most of them flat on one side and rounded on the other, appear to be even more ancient than the agate implements. Some of the celts resemble those of European type, others the flint weapons found in Egypt, and the clumsiest ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small flat London district of Soho. Swiss watchmakers, Swiss silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds, draw close together there. Swiss professors of music, painting, and languages; Swiss ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... its own devices. The town is pretty enough, with its palms and green headland, and little scrubby islands in the river's mouth. It has the usual half-Arab, half-Portugee look-white green-shuttered houses, flat roofs, sallow little men in duck, and every type of nigger from the Somali to the Shangaan. There are some good buildings, and Government House was the mansion of some old Portugee seigneur, and was built ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... you always to keep out of sight as much as you can. If you have to go to the top of the hill, because you wish to see the country, creep carefully up some ravine, and show yourself as little as possible. If you have to cross a wide flat, cover yourself with your robe, and stoop over, walking slowly, so that anyone far off may perhaps think it is a buffalo that he sees. In this respect the Indians are different from the white people; they are foolish, and when they travel they go on ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell
... grappling him again, held him down hard and fast against the drift. Unharmed, but unable to move, he lay there, hearing the multitudinous roar of the storm, but unable to distinguish one familiar sound in the savage medley. At last he managed to crawl flat on his face to the cabin, and refastening the door, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... or flat part on which the priest celebrates Mass, should be of stone; but if the altar is made of wood, then at least the part just in front of the tabernacle must be of stone and large enough to hold say two chalices—that is, about ten or twelve inches square. In this ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... interrupted Malcolm. "Let's omit the heart interest. This isn't a clinic. I say, Steve, how do you like the new flat? It ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... outlying conspirators also suffered a revival of hope. The Cincinnati Gazette came out flat foot for the withdrawal of Lincoln.(13) So did The Cincinnati Times, pressing hard for the new convention.(14) On the second of September, three New York editors, Greeley for The Tribune, Parke Godwin for The Post, and Tilton for The Independent, were busily concocting a circular letter ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... where the country is flat, and small tanks are extremely numerous, the natives in the hot season are accustomed to dig in the mud for fish. Mr. Whiting, the chief civil officer of the eastern province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was present accidentally when the villagers were so engaged, once at ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... regiment thus uncovered. This was too much for the veteran, already dubbed "the spoilt child of victory "; he rushed to its captain, bitterly upbraided him and the other officers, and finally showered blows on them with the flat of his sword. Then, riding at full speed to two tried regiments of his own division, he ordered them to check the foe; and these invincible heroes promptly drove back the assailants. Even so, however, the valour of the best French ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... attitude of the pack, drew himself painfully to a sitting posture on a large flat rock and from this vantage point glared at his followers who had hitherto been obedient to his will. And though he was old and wounded, the pack quailed for a time before his glance. His advantage could not last, however. The others soon grew restless, the circle of dark forms tightening ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... themselves before the door. It stood ajar. Inside sat a sergeant at a flat-top desk. He, too, was of the cavalry. There were also two privates in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... we may take the lower point of view, and see here a flat contradiction of the Preacher. He said, 'Men go, and the world abides.' 'No,' says John; 'your own psalmists might have taught you better: "As a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed."' The world, the earth, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the regeneration of bone is played by the osteoblasts in the adjacent marrow and in the deeper layer of the periosteum. The shaft of a long bone may be reproduced after having been destroyed by disease or removed by operation. The flat bones of the skull and the bones of the face, which are primarily developed in membrane, have little capacity of regeneration; hence, when bone has been lost or removed in these situations, there ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... briefly unfolded by "Boston," was to prevail upon Mr. Chubbuck to make his appearance in costume (already designed and prepared by the inventor) before a Sierra Flat audience, and recite an original poem at the Hall immediately on the conclusion of the "California Pet's" performance. At a given signal the audience were to rise and deliver a volley of unsavory articles (previously provided by the originator of the scheme); then a select few ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... distress, vowed to dedicate itself in some profound solitude to the love of Nature, and the study of her Great Laws. He bade an eternal farewell to cities at the dead of midnight, beside his mother's grave, scarcely distinguishable among the thousand flat stones, sunk, or sinking into the wide churchyard, along which a great thoroughfare of life roared like the sea. And now, for the first time, his sorrow flung from him like a useless garment, he found ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space. That bit of knowledge, I admit, is essential to the appreciation of many great works, since many of the most moving forms ever created are in three dimensions. To see a cube or a rhomboid as a flat pattern is to lower its significance, and a sense of three-dimensional space is essential to the full appreciation of most architectural forms. Pictures which would be insignificant if we saw them as flat ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... the previous evening, he always awoke early; not fresh, perhaps, that were too much to expect, but with his wits clear. Sitting up, he glanced round the room for signs of his master's return, and, seeing none, grunted again in wonder. A tankard was on the floor beside him, and he drank the flat remains from last night's measure with a wry face. Then he pushed open the door of his master's room and ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... Creek. Isaac Bledsoe and Gasper Mansker, agreeing to travel from here in opposite directions along a buffalo trace passing near the camp, each succeeded in discovering the famous salt-lick which bears his name—namely Bledsoe's Lick and Mansker's Lick. The flat surrounding the lick, about one hundred acres in extent, discovered by Bledsoe, according to his own statement "was principally Covered with buffelows in every direction—not hundreds but thousands." As he sat on ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... said the man, with a facetious gesture. "See? The fight came through these here woods, here. 'Taint been much over twenty-four hours, I reckon, since every one o' them-ah sort o' shut-up-fan-shape sort o' fish-traps had a gray-jacket in it layin' flat down an' firin' through the rails, sort o' random-like, only not much so." His manner of speech seemed a sort of harlequin patchwork from the bad English of many sections, the outcome of a humorous and eclectic ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... to Nicky. Once he was so small that his body covered hardly the palm of your hand; you could see his skin; it felt soft and weak through the thin fur, sleeked flat and wet where Jane had licked it. His eyes were buttoned up tight. Then they opened. He crawled feebly on the floor after Jane, or hung on to her little breasts, pressing out the milk with his clever paws. Then Jerry got older. Sometimes he went mad ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... again, almost daily, to feast my eyes on the bleak, flat, gray landscape. The desolation of winter sustains our frail hopes. Nature is kindest then; she does not taunt us with fruition. It is the luxury of summer which tantalizes—her long, brilliant, blossoming days, her ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... being told by rhetoricians that heights and falls, and a different cadency in pronunciation, is a great advantage to the setting off any thing that is spoken, they will sometimes as it were mutter their words inwardly, and then of a sudden hollo them out, and be sure at last, in such a flat, faltering tone as if their spirits were spent, and they had run themselves out of breath. Lastly, they have read that most systems of rhetoric treat of the art of exciting laughter; therefore for the effecting ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... after her children, which Betsy Hunt and the blacks are carrying through the orchard; then she calmly enters the burning house and comes out again with a big silver platter and a load of linen from the dining-room in her arms. And at that a trooper draws his sabre and strikes her with the flat o' the blade—God, what a blow!—so that the lady falls to her knees and the heavy silver platter rolls out on the grass and the fine linen is in the mud. I saw her blacks lift her and get her off through ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... remembered, as his Shadow spoke, that, as a matter of fact, he had observed the men who usually wore the red and white feather cloaks among the motley crowd of grovelling natives who lay flat on their faces in the mud of the cleared space the night before, and prayed hard for mercy. Only they were not wearing their robes of office at the moment, in accordance with a well-known savage custom; they had come naked and in disgrace, as befits all suppliants. They had left behind them the ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... with two high-backed chairs and my embroidery frame. Do, dear aunt; put by that book, and dance." It would be impossible to fancy a greater contrast than aunt and niece. Sarah Bond's erect and perfectly flat figure was surmounted by a long head and face, round which an abundance of gray hair was folded; for by no other term can I describe its peculiar dress; her cap plain, but white as snow; and a black silk gown, that had seen its best ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... boom. What it may have been in full phases of the stream, I know not; yet even now it was sufficiently magnificent to give pause to a dying soul eager to shake off the restless horror of the world. The flat of its broad blade divided the lofty black walls of a deep and savage ravine, on whose jagged shelves some starved clumps of rhododendron shook in the wind of the torrent. Far down the narrow gully we could ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... going, a city built in the middle of a large round cork; towards the right hand, and at a considerable distance, were many others, very large and high, on which we saw a prodigious large fire: fronting the prow of our ship, we had a view of one very broad and flat, and which seemed to be about five hundred stadia off; as we approached near to it, a sweet and odoriferous air came round us, such as Herodotus tells us blows from Arabia Felix; from the rose, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the lily, the violet, the myrtle, the laurel, and the vine. Refreshed ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... the band was located at dusk previous. The rest of the men followed Uncle Lance to complete the leeward side of the circle. The location of the manada, had been described as between a small hill covered with Spanish bayonet on one hand, and a zacahuiste flat nearly a mile distant on the other, both well-known landmarks. As we rode out and approached the location, we dropped a man every half mile until the hill and adjoining salt flat had been surrounded. We had divided what rifles ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... for Crabs Q and R to operate in the usual way. Their massive forceps, lying flat against the top of the cylinder, could not be twisted. The enormous chains they held could not be severed by the greatest pressure, and if both crabs backed at once they would probably do no more than tow the Llangaron stern foremost. There was, moreover, no ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... I spoke to him about the window. He said, "The first time I see the president of the road I'll tell him about it!" and left me flat. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... 4; the semicadence chord is the dominant harmony of E-flat major; it is skillfully disguised. Ex. 25, dominant harmony of A major. Ex. 26, last four measures; the semicadence is made upon the ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... walls a little chaff has been spilt, and has blown out and mingles with the dust of the road. Loose straws lie across the footpath, trodden flat by passing feet; straws have wandered across the road and lodged on the mound, and others have roamed still farther round the corner. Between the gatepost and the wall that encloses the rickyard more straws are jammed, and yet more are borne up ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... verified this. The country beyond the knoll was perfectly flat, and for over five hundred yards was bare of even the smallest bush. Whoever the mysterious shooter was, he had, apparently, ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... See Eckermann's "Gespraeche", under date of March 16, 1831. What Goethe there says, however, is in flat contradiction of the following passage contained in a letter of Schiller to Iffland, written April 14, 1804: "Auch Goethe ist mit mir ueberzeugt, dasz ohne jenen Monolog und ohne die persoenliche ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... principle upon which these letters are made. It is simply a convex surface, the reverse side being concave, and being fixed on to the glass or other material with a white lead preparation. When these letters were first made, the practice was to cut or stamp them out in flat copper, and then to round or mould them by a second operation. Recent improvements in the machinery, however, have dispensed with this dual process, and the stamping and moulding is done in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... trained to notice the smallest detail, quickly took in every feature of the richly appointed room, noting even the fantastic carving of the chair on which the emperor sat, and one of the rings he wore, a flat green emerald with a mystic letter carved upon it making the jewel, so he judged, a sort of talisman. He smiled in spite of himself as he remembered his own humble charm, the lucky stone. Perhaps the pebble's usefulness ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... a flat bottle of poteen, and pouring a portion for her own fair self, into a cup, said that this was a wicked world, and handed ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... of the heart in the dog is best examined behind the elbow on the left side. The hand, applied flat against the ribs, will give the number and character of the pulsations. The pericardium, or outer investing membrane of the heart, is frequently liable to inflammation, milked by a quickened and irregular respiration, and an action of the heart, bounding at an early period ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... might make his million, but then again he might not. Certainly there were no present signs of it and she had never seen him so depressed, not even during the panic of nineteen-seven. His eyes were as lifeless as slate, his voice was flat, although for that matter he was almost dumb. When at home he sat brooding heavily by the open western windows of the drawing-room, or moved restlessly about. To all her questions he replied shortly that ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... apple-pies and new lamps and husbands coming home at night are making people happy all the time! People are celebrating birthdays and moving into bigger houses, and having their married daughters home for visits, right straight along. But when you pass a dark lower flat on a dirty street, somehow it doesn't occur to you that the people who live in it are saving up for a ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... la Motte ran back into her room, impatient to examine her rouleau, but her foot struck against something, and stooping to pick it up, she saw a small flat gold box. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... at about thirteen inches from the top of the upright stick; and the same proportion should be observed for kites of other dimensions. At the point of crossing, the sticks should be slightly notched, and strongly bound together with twine tied in flat knots. Driving a nail or screw through the sticks, to bind them, weakens the frame at the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... granite cippus, or monumental pillar, of immemorial antiquity; and to this pillar a remarkable legend is attached. The pillar measures six feet by six, i. e. thirty-six square feet, on the flat tablet of its horizontal surface; and in height several riyanas, (which arc Ceylonese cubits of eighteen inches each,) but of these cubits, there are either eight or twelve; excuse me for having forgotten which. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... famous Lewis and Clark expedition, embarked with his party in July, 1806, in two cottonwood canoes bound together with buffalo thongs, on his return to the states. It was from that point also that some six hundred residents of Montana embarked for a trip to the states, in forty-two flat boats, in the autumn of 1865.[C] We learn from Mr. Boteler that there are some twenty-five lodges of Crow ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... contraction in the direction of the equator would cease entirely, and be confined to the polar regions, each particle dropping, not towards the sun, but towards the plane of the solar equator. Thus, we should have a constant flattening of the spheroidal atmosphere until it was reduced to a thin flat disk. This disk might then separate itself into rings, which would form planets in much the same way that Laplace supposed. But there would probably be no marked difference in the age of the planets." (Popular Astronomy, p. 512.) Now this conclusion assumes, like that of M. Babinet, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... retiring habits, and a small bird of such a disposition is apt to elude observation. In one respect the plains (let us give even the devil his due) are superior to the hills. The naturalist usually experiences little difficulty in observing birds in the sparsely-wooded flat country, but in the tree-covered mountains the feathered folk often require to be stalked. If you would see the Pekin-robin in a state of nature, go to some clearing in the Himalayan forest, where the cool breezes ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... south mostly mountains (Alps); along the eastern and northern margins mostly flat or ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... social note paper is used for a short business letter to a business man, open the sheet out flat, turn it so that the left side becomes the top of the sheet, and use as you would a single large sheet of commercial paper. This enables the reader to see the ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... was crying out in a most piteous and vociferous tone. The captain and chief mate jumped on deck, and found the crew had got the cook laid on the windlass, and were giving him a most severe cobbing with a flat piece of his own fire wood. As soon as the captain had reached forward, he was much exasperated with them for their precipitate conduct, in punishing without his knowledge and permission, and having prohibited such proceedings in future ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... a precipitous rock, stands Corellia, a knot of browned, sun-baked houses, flat-roofed, open-galleried, many-storied, nestling round a ruined castle, athwart whose rents the ardent sunshine darts. This ruined castle and the tower of an ancient Lombard church, heavily arched and galleried with stone, gleaming out upon ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... of our ignorance, which is possible only on a rational basis, is a science; the latter is merely a perception, and we cannot say how far the inferences drawn from it may extend. If I regard the earth, as it really appears to my senses, as a flat surface, I am ignorant how far this surface extends. But experience teaches me that, how far soever I go, I always see before me a space in which I can proceed farther; and thus I know the limits—merely visual—of my actual knowledge of the earth, although I am ignorant of the limits of the ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... Dick's roommate, Greg Holmes, had hurried his squad away to the flat-bottomed, square-ended pontoon boats, ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... one else but Mr. Craddock, such conduct might have been considered weak by the male population of Riggan, who not unfrequently settled their trifling domestic difficulties with the poker and tongues, chairs, or flat-irons, or indeed with any portable piece of household furniture. But Mr. Craddock's way of disposing of feminine antagonists was tolerated. It was pretty well known that Mrs. Craddock had a temper, and since ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... We were soon in bed, and at ten o'clock started for Emerald and Springsure. We should have been most comfortable but for the piercingly cold draughts. The moon shone brilliantly, and I could see from my cot the lightly wooded but flat pastures alternating with miles and miles of bush, with here and there a log hut or a tin house standing in its own little clearing, making an interesting picture as we flew ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the smoke-streamers trembled on the familiar floor, the shoes of fellow-passengers, distinctive now, and in some cases irritating, passed and repassed, accompanied, in the air so tremendously "open," that rendered all voices weak and most remarks rather flat, by fragments of opinion on the run of the ship. Vogelstein by this time had finished his little American story and now definitely judged that Pandora Day was not at all like the heroine. She was of quite another type; much more serious and ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... got to comparing the chests of the two men, and exciting their rivalry as to which had the larger lungs. When he had them fully primed he said he had means of testing the matter, and brought out the twin air mattresses. Eagerly then the guides lay flat on their stomachs, and at the word started to blow like two-horse power engines. The first test was declared a tie; and after that the guides could hardly wait for night to come to try out their lungs against ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... is vuissiers, and denotes a kind of vessel, flat-bottomed, with large ports, specially constructed for the transport of horses. T. Smith translates "palanders," but I don't know that " palander" conveys any very clear ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... couple of hours later, and slept through the heat of the day. The Kamboh plied Kim with ten thousand questions as to the lama's walk and work in life, and received some curious answers. Kim was content to be where he was, to look out upon the flat North-Western landscape, and to talk to the changing mob of fellow-passengers. Even today, tickets and ticket-clipping are dark oppression to Indian rustics. They do not understand why, when they have paid for a magic piece ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... A flat denial, and in the course of its expansion a sentence that brought the blood to Cicely's face and left her pale and terrified. "Why, only the other day," said the Squire, "one of the most talked of men in England dined here. I suppose you would call Ronald Mackenzie an interesting man, ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... stretch of red stuff, zigzagged with arrow-heads of white and orange and green, grew distinct, and under the thick sweep of the Navajo blanket, the impression of a long, still shape. The face on the flat pillow was also still, with closed eyes whose lashes lay dark upon the lucid brown of the cheek. A braid of black hair, shining like a rope of silk, hung over the Indian rug. Heavy it hung, in a lifeless fall, which told Jane that she was too late for any last ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... Now flat on his face the boy ventured to peep over the roof ridge down into the village street at no great distance below. Not an eye was directed upwards, so far as he could see, the men laughing and chattering gaily ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... down, and somewhere along in the night it came Cameron's turn to slide down on the floor and stretch out for a while; or perhaps his utter weariness made him drop there involuntarily, because he could no longer keep awake. For a few minutes the delicious ache of lying flat enveloped him and carried him away into unconsciousness with a lulling ecstasy. Then suddenly Wainwright seemed to loom over him and demand that he rise and let him lie down in his place. It seemed to Cameron that the lethargy that had stolen over him as he fell asleep was like heavy bags of sand ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... running from a tiger. Now then! Tell him this. Let him come the heavy fakir all he likes. Tell him to tell his gang that he's going to give an order. Let him tell them that when he says 'Hookum hai!' my men'll loose his neck straight away, and fall down flat. Only, first of all he's got to tell them that he needs us for the present. Let him say that he's got an extra-special awful death in store for us by and by, and that he's going to keep us by him until he's ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... cataracts, and other sublime natural objects, it has been permitted to keep the ancient name bestowed on it by the aborigines. It is all over of a blackish-brown colour, as broad as a man's thumb-nail, and flat as the blade of a table-knife—when fasting. By day it hides, bug-like, in holes and chinks, but no sooner are the candles put out, than forth it comes to seek whom it may devour; for, like the pestilence, it walks in darkness. It can fly, and in a dark room ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... hands and trotted to the end of the orchard; and there, beyond the hedge, ran a canal, and beyond the canal a wide flat country stretched away to the sea,—a land dotted with windmills and cattle and red-and-white houses with weathercocks,—a land, too, criss-crossed with canals, whereon dozens of boats, and even some large ships, threaded their way ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... probably all seen pictures of regular snowshoes, even if you have not seen real snowshoes, so you know how much like big lawn-tennis rackets they look. Snowshoes are broad and flat, and fasten on outside of one's regular shoes, so a person can walk on the soft snow, or on the hard crust, without sinking ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... flotation of companies; but she was quite aware that he had met with a serious reverse soon after he married her, since it had been necessary for them to give up their town house and install themselves temporarily in a London flat. Leslie had informed her that reverses were not uncommon in his profession, and he had appeared quite convinced of his ability to recover his losses in a new venture which had something to do with ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... The flat country on the north, extending between the Alps and the Apennines as far down as the Abruzzi, does not belong geographically, nor until a very late period even historically, to the southern land of mountain and hill, the Italy ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... meekest of mortals.... Mel, I know every rock along the river here. This is just above where at flood time the Sycamore cuts across that rocky flat below, and makes a bad rapid. There's a creek above and a big woods. I used to fish and ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... distant boom of a shell. Before we could realise what the sound was, and say "Hallo! they've begun," the missile had exploded among the stores on the beach. That was my baptism of fire. Without the least hesitation I copied Major Hardy and Monty, and went flat on my face behind some brushwood. Only Doe, too proud to take cover, remained standing, and then blushed self-consciously lest he had appeared ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... production of species. Employing a favorite metaphor, he said: "If an architect were to rear a noble and commodious edifice without the use of cut stone, by selecting from the fragments at the base of a precipice wedge-form stones for his arches, elongated stones for his lintels, and flat stones for his roof, we should admire his skill and regard him as the paramount power. Now, the fragments of stone, though indispensable to the architect, bear to the edifice built by him the same relation which the fluctuating variations of organic beings bear to the varied and admirable structures ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... a small conning, or observation tower, with auxiliary and steering and controlling apparatus there. This was to be used when the ship was moving along on the surface of the ocean, or merely with the deck awash. There was a small flat deck surrounding the conning tower and this was available when the ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... the south, the luxuriant valley of the stream. The streets were narrow, and wound with a total disregard of the points of the compass. Could a stranger have been placed blindfold in one of them, and then allowed to look about him, the flat roofs and light appearance of most of the houses would have forced him to declare that he had entered a tropical ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... gas, is heavier than ordinary air, and thus the lowest parts of a colliery become first filled with it, as they would with water. In all coal-mines there is a slight, sometimes a considerable, inclination, or "dip" as it is called, of the otherwise flat bed of coal. The shaft is almost always sunk at the lower end of the area owned by the proprietors of the mine, as by this means the whole pit naturally drains to the "sump," or well, at the bottom of the shaft, whence it is pumped up ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... that, when you say you want to lead your own life, it is always a "bad" life you want to lead. They seem to think that a girl leading her own life is a girl entertaining men friends, until goodness knows what hour of the night, alone in her bachelor flat, they picture a man leading his own life as a man whose memoirs would send shudders down a really nice woman's spine. They never realise that there is happiness in personal freedom and liberty—happiness which is happy merely in the independent feeling of self-respect which ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... have marched through it, with the Salzburgers, in peaceable times. A solid pleasant-enough little place (6,000 souls or so); lies leant against high ground (White Crags, or whatever it once was) on the eastern or right bank of the Saale; a Town in part flat, in part very steep; the streets of it, or main street and secondaries, running off level enough from the River and Bridge; rising by slow degrees, but at last rapidly against the high ground or ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... life consists in fuzy, fuzzy, fuzziest. He drinks glasses, five for the quarter, and twelve for the hour; he is a mahogany-faced old jackass who knew Burns: he ought to have been kicked for having spoken to him. He calls himself 'a curious old bitch', but he is a flat old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in jest—this may be because ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... erewhile had made. Where'er it falls parforce is every spell Annulled, or by its stronger virtue stayed. Hence so Rogero smote, it never fell Upon its edge or point, but still the blade Descended flat: he long this rule observes; Yet once he from ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... you are as much in awe of Mr. Hamar as ever," Lilian Rosenberg laughed. "I'm not! I've found him out—he's all talk. But do as you will—get your taxi and I'll walk on—we'll have tea in my new flat." ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Rutowski was not candid with the conditions; the conditions never known nor candidly looked at; and THEY are now replying to him with candor enough. From the first his Enterprise was a final flicker of false hope; going out, as here, by spasm, in the rigors of impossibility and flat despair. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... banks of the Volga (hence their name, Bulgarian Volgarian), they adopted the speech and religion of the Slavs. They have lived this new life for about a thousand years[184]; and in this time have been completely changed. Though their flat lips and noses bespeak an Asiatic origin, they are practically Slavs, save that their temperament is less nervous, and their persistence greater than that of their co-religionists[185]. Their determined ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... we've been thinking of it seriously enough, and—I say, missus, do try and do without flat-irons; they're very heavy kind o' traps for a man ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... that the whole world couldn't contain such a number. She had a sombre sense that mankind must be dull and mean. These cogitations took place in a cold hotel, in an eternal Swiss rain, and they had a flat echo in the transalpine valleys, as the lonely ladies went vaguely down to the Italian lakes and cities. Rose guided their course, at moments, with a kind of aimless ferocity; she moved abruptly, feeling vulgar and hating their life, though destitute of any definite vision of another ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... snapping and clicking noises meanwhile with its tongue and beak. The grass of the Green, seen between the black stems of the encircling trees, glittered with hoarfrost, while the houses on the opposite side of it looked flat and featureless owing to the interposing veil of bluish mist. Tradesmen's carts clattered by at a sharp trot, the defined sound of them breaking up the all-pervading murmur of London, and dying out into it again as they passed. At the street ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... what I did think of him before I went. He didn't quite throw me out of the door, although he was big enough for that; but he looked as if he wanted to. And maybe he would have, too, or tried it, only I said, "Mind I don't give you what Tommie Clancy threatened to give you once," and his nerve went flat. I couldn't have handled him as Clancy had any more than I could have hove a barrel of salt mackerel over my head, which was what the strong fishermen of the port were doing about that time to prove their strength; but the bluff went, and I couldn't ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... be very long lived; one died at Vienna that had lived in confinement more than one hundred years. Their cry consists of two notes, uttered in a loud sharp key. They make a flat nest, formed of loose sticks, on the top of some solitary rock where they are not likely to be disturbed, and lay two eggs. Whilst the young are not able to fly, they are carefully fed by the parent birds, who are then more ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... the other monks. With a cry of joy they came tumbling out of their cells and rushed toward the camels, which were now close to the camp. How the poor monks ran, to be sure, many of them tripping over the skirts of their long robes and falling flat in the sand from their weakness and excitement. They were like men on a sinking ship who had just caught sight of a rescuing sail. Some of them jumped up and down and clapped their hands like children, they were so glad. And tears stood in the ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... mists of Arashiyama. The boat of Hikoboshi, impelled by a single oar working upon a wooden peg, is not yet obsolete; and at many a country ferry you may still see the hiki-fun['e] in which Tanabata-tsum['e] prayed her husband to cross in a night of storm,—a flat broad barge pulled over the river by cables. And maids and wives still sit at their doors in country villages, on pleasant autumn days, to weave as Tanabata-tsum['e] wove for the sake of her lord ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... reverberation of the last stroke of every hour had died away, and just when expectation had been succeeded by the sense of silence, they rang it out by day and night—the bells—and the four winds of heaven by day and night spread it abroad over the great wicked city, and over the fair flat country, by many a tiny township and peaceful farmstead and scattered hamlet, on, on, it was said, to the sea—to the sea, which ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... river with sandy shores, my Mongol guide told me how the Mongolians came there during the summer to wash gold, in spite of the prohibitions of the Lamas. The manner of working the placer was very primitive but the results testified clearly to the richness of these sands. The Mongol lies flat on the ground, brushes the sand aside with a feather and keeps blowing into the little excavation so formed. From time to time he wets his finger and picks up on it a small bit of grain gold or a diminutive nugget and drops these into a little bag hanging under his chin. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... the weather having cleared up, and the wind shifted to the S.S.W. we steered along the short S.E. by E. four miles, and saw a low flat island full of high tufts of grass, resembling bushes, bearing south, at the distance of two or three leagues, the northernmost land at the same time bearing west, distant about six leagues: We had here thirty-eight ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... look upon you as belonging to the race of Mus?" I inquired, looking doubtingly at his large size, soft fur, and long flat tail. ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... perhaps your failure to write to me means continued displeasure; in that case I might be rejected at your door, which I shouldn't like, for I am troubled with a foolish sense of personal dignity. I have taken a flat, and mean to stay in London for at least half a year. Please let me know whether I may see you. Indeed I should like to. Nature meant us for good friends, but prejudice came between us. Just a line, either of welcome or "get thee behind me!" In spite of your ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... Bes, "the mighty prince your cousin lies flat yonder beneath the body of that lion's wife. She sprang upon him and killed him, and I sprang upon her and killed her with my spear. Here is her ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... was calculated by the French engineer Forfait to be in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat calm, but four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a quarter to one and a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the exhaustion of the rowers consequent on their arduous toil would not admit of a greater speed than this. The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... regiments and favored persons. While he disgusted the court in this way, he raised a storm of indignation in the army by his love of foreign innovations, and especially of one practice considered deeply degrading. This was the punishment of minor offenses by flogging with the flat of the sword; using a weapon especially made for that purpose. The arguments in favor of this punishment are obvious. It is expeditious; it is disagreeable to the sufferer, but does not rob the state of his services, nor subject him to the bad influences ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... word Felix let go with his old musket, into which he must have rammed a tremendous charge, for it made a report like unto the crash of thunder, and came very near sending the owner flat ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... with the dimpling of piano notes, and looking up one saw the bright sunlight fall on yellow stuccoed flats above the shops and the offices. There the pleasant north wind blew banners of muslin curtains out of wide windows, and little gardens of palms in pots showed behind the balustrades of the flat roofs whenever a story ran short. Everywhere was a subtle contagion of momentary well-being, a sense of lifted burden. The stucco streets were too slovenly to be purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in them, the pariahs blinked ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... what my friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means intend; for he would certainly think better of me, if under such a circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... up so as to lie flat on the top of the wall, leaning his head down when Donald came toward him, and raising it again as ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... to question raised by MUNDELLA of iniquities of Education Department in connection with School Supply of York and Salisbury. But could not keep the thing up. Even rousing eloquence of HART DYKE, on his defence, fell flat. Ever rose before Members the vision of the three Judges, daily expecting receipt of thanks which they read had been voted to them; too proud to complain of neglect; HANNEN taking on a sterner aspect; SMITH affecting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... of crisis reverts almost instantly to the primitive, despite so-called culture and civilization. Yes, religion as a perpetuation of ancient human conceptions, of materialistic traditions and opinions of 'the Fathers,' is a flat failure. By it the people of great nations have been molded into servile submission to church and ruler—have been persuaded that wretchedness and poverty are eternal—that heaven is a realm beyond the grave, to which admission is a function of outward oblation—and that surcease from ills ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... flanking the central door, and the bulging balconies of old Dutch style recalling the 16th century dwellings on the canal banks of distant Holland, but the crow-stepped gable here gives place to the flat roof. Every green garden contains a refuge of interwoven gaba-gaba stalks, as a retreat during earthquakes, when the overthrow of the flimsy arbour would entail no injury, though it serves as a shelter from the torrential rains which often accompany volcanic disturbances. A wayside stall ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... disperse them, and the Assyrians, entering the city with the fugitives, took possession of it on the same day. They made 16,490 prisoners, and seized horses, mules, asses, camels, and both sheep and oxen in large numbers. Eight of the chiefs of the neighbourhood, who ruled over the flat country between the Shurappu and the Uknu, begged for mercy as soon as they learned the result of the engagement. The name of Dur-Atkharas was changed to that of Dur-Nebo, the territory of the Gambulu was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... season—in flannels—with a huge white hat on his head. She could not help thinking him very handsome—and she took off the blue skirt she had intended to work in, and put on a dress of muslin all bespattered with coloured flowers, and she took in her hand a flat ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham |
