"Speck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... countenance serene, pure, and peaceful, with tears upon her face, gazing at the receding ship. Those around her beheld her steady herself against the post which had held the cable, standing there till the Queen Charlotte was but a white speck dotting the landscape in the lower harbor, then walking with faltering steps ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the air, thinking that the ram would get frightened and come down to the earth again; but the ram did not care how much noise they made or how many stones they threw up. On and on he flew, higher and higher, till at last he looked only like a little yellow speck in the blue sky; and then Ino and ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... churned her way onward. Every day and all day the same pale-blue sky and the unwinking sun bent over that moving speck. Every day and all day the same black-blue water-world, untouched by any known wind, smooth as a slab of syenite, colourful as an opal, stretched out and around and beyond and before and behind us, forever, illimitable, empty. Every day the smoke of our fires veiled the streaked ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... was a speck of invisible dirt on one of those nonpareil types. Well, the machine allowed for that by inserting of its own accord a space which was the 5-1,000 of an inch thinner than it would have used if the dirt had been absent. But when I send you the details you will see that ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... or look, she leaned gracefully to the oars, and pulling with a long, steady, resolute stroke, the little boat darted away as lightly and swiftly as a skimming swallow out on the shimmering water, he stood gazing after it till it became a distant speck sparkling like a diamond in the light of sky and wave, and when he could no more watch it with unassisted eyes, he took up his field glass and followed its course attentively. He saw it cutting ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... breaking sea, looking like a large, crouching, sea-gull. On, steadily, the mite of a craft held its way, sometimes heading directly for the reef, again swerving to the right to mount a rampant billow. Smaller, and smaller grew the little figure, till it became a mere white speck away in the driving mist. The fishermen still remained huddled together in the dock; and as one, with the telescope in his hand, announced that the girl was now within a cable's length of the reef, a great look of shame came into their faces, that not one had shown courage ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... cold, steady gaze amounting to a positive prohibition—no, the thing was impossible! I saw plainly that a good, old-fashioned squirt of tobacco-juice would ruin such a country as this, where every room in every house was inimical to the habit, and every speck of ground throughout the length and breadth of the land adapted to some useful or ornamental purpose. Why, sir, I assure you that in the little duchy of Nassau—where it is said the grand-duke is unable to exercise his soldiers at target-shooting ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... the hills far to the left we saw a little black speck moving rapidly in our direction. At the end of a minute we could make it out as the second rhinoceros. He had run heaven knows how many miles away, and now he was returning; whether with some idea of rejoining his companion ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... at something far beyond the lake. Bobolink, of course, being attracted by his scrutiny, also allowed his gaze to wander in that quarter; but all he saw was what he took to be a buzzard, almost out of sight—a dim speck in the heavens, and about to pass out of sight altogether where clouds hovered ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... 'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser the gold is, the sooner it appears. A practised digger can work off the last speck of gravel, without losing a 'colour', by just working the water round and off in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... He rose softly, but quickly, and went out to assure himself that his disturbed fancy had not misled him. No—there could be no doubt about it. Grey dawn was already breaking, and enabled him to see it distinctly—a dark moving speck on the sea far outside the reef. It could not be a gull or sea-bird, he felt persuaded; neither was it a ship, for his eye during the voyage had become a practised one in observing distant vessels. ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... boat flotilla that accompanied us during the last two days was made up mostly of American and British destroyers, though there were two French boats among them. They made a lively scene, and surely gave us great protection. If a speck would appear on the horizon, two boats would be off to investigate it, and would return later to join the fleet. We were also accompanied on the last day of the voyage by two airplanes as a further protection ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... her eyes with her hand and gazing eagerly out toward the speck that was growing larger every minute. "Oh, ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... like this, as she well knew, nothing moves unobserved. The native—man or woman—is able to perceive and name objects scarcely discernible to the eye of the alien. A minute speck is discovered on the hillside. "Hello, there's Jim Sanders on his roan," says one, or "Here comes Kit Jenkins with her flea-bit gray. I wonder who's on the bay alongside of her," remarks another, and each of these observations ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... summer houses, waiting for the spring-time when they could be wound up and rival their owners in animation; and the shining tiled roofs, mosaic courtyards, and polished house trimmings flashed up a silent homage to the sky, where never a speck of dust could dwell. ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... could not follow the Chameleon with his eyes; when he saw her again, the brigantine drew nearer and nearer to the horizon, appearing but a speck in space. Then, doubling the last point of the island, she disappeared all ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... at the foot of the sick woman's bed and mechanically laid the revolver beside him. But scarcely had he done so when he sprang up. Upon the sheet was a tiny red speck left by the muzzle of ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... colours presented by the horse, none is so rich, and, at the same time, so elegant and chaste, as a bright bay; provided the mane, tail, and lower parts of the legs, be black. A small white star on the forehead, and a white speck on one of the heels, are to be considered, rather, as beauties, than defects: but much white, either on the face or legs, whatever be the general hue, is quite the reverse of desirable. After bright bay, ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... started forward, and they whirled away down the wet, gray road. And before the miller had regained his mill, the carriage was a distant speck upon ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to blotting-paper, sir," said Elsworthy, eagerly. "With a bit o' blotting-paper I'd undertake to rub out ink-stains out o' the finest carpet—if you'll permit me. It aint but a small speck, and it'll be gone afore you could look round. It's twenty times better nor lemon-juice, or them poisonous salts as you're always nervous of leaving about. Look you here, sir, if it aint a-sopping up beautiful. There aint no harm done as your respected lady could be put out about; and I'll take ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... whilst he remained an untitled general of division; he and his officers, as one of them told me, then felt themselves little better circumstanced than myself—than prisoners in an almost forgotten speck of the globe, with their promotion suspended. Rumours of a premeditated attack at length reached the island, which it was said the captain-general heard with pleasure; and it was attributed to the prospect of making military levies on the inhabitants, and increasing ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... of its beautiful plumage, that it will not let a speck of dirt stay on it; but is continually examining its feathers to see that they are perfectly clean. When wild, it always flies and sits facing the wind, lest its elegant plumes ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown
... given yet not resisted—tells A tale of love that words are poor to tell. And when she goes how lonely seems her way Through groves, through fields, through busy haunts of men; And as he climbs the hill and often stops To watch her lessening train until at length Her elephant seems but a moving speck, Proud Kantaka, pawing and neighing, asks As plain as men could ever ask in, words: "What makes my master choose ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... shaggy hair, at once fixed his choice on him as 'likest his work.' That work was to defend the sheep from the wolves, and one mode of defence was by laying a strange trap for the enemy. The dog was remarkably like a sheep, his hair white without a dark speck, and he carried a great load of it, long and fleecy like wool. In the Hungarian steppes four or five of those dogs would lay themselves down on the grass in the evening, sleeping there like so many harmless lambs, with their faces inward for the heat of each ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... him. When she had gone upstairs he led the two gentlemen to the office entrance and began to complain: "Ah! doctor, if you only knew what trouble I have even to get those girls to wash their hands! We who are so clean! who put all our pride in keeping the house clean. If ever a speck of dust is seen anywhere it is ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... with the twins. And in a sad plight he was too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... dreary mass of long-winded ceremonial nothingnesses, and intricate Belleisle cobwebberies, we seize this one poor speck of human foolery in the native state, as almost the memorablest in that stupendous business. Stupendous indeed; with which all Germany has been in travail these sixteen months, on such terms! And in verity has got the thing called "German Kaiser" constituted, better or worse. Heavens, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... far as the crest of the hill with Marget, and watched her on the way to the post office till she was only a speck upon the road. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... dressing-table with their speckled mirrors. These had delighted her at first, but in her heart she preferred the battered, makeshift furniture of Cardigan Street. A few licks with the duster and her work was done; but here the least speck of dust showed on the polished surface. Jonah, too, had got into a nasty habit of writing insulting words on the dusty ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... horizon line, but simply because they have passed out of the range of my vision-? becoming smaller and smaller, until they seem no bigger than a tiny bird, so small that if I take my eyes off the speck in the sky I cannot find it again. It is awe-compelling to remember how these cars in the air change all military tactics. It will be almost impossible to make any big movement that may not be ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... down a step or two. Beyond was inky darkness. If only a speck of light were down below! Why did I shut the door? Go on I could not. I turned my face upward, where the friendly light, packing up its robes of every hue for the journey of a night, looked kindly in. And so I went back, and sat in my usual seat, and watched the going day, as, one by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon, I think it quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self. And who, if Mr. Casaubon had chosen to expound his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to watch Byron set out, and I felt that one of the family should give him God-speed; so alone, and frightened almost out of my wits, I climbed those dark steps to the battlements, and gazed after Byron till he was a mere speck on the horizon down toward Paris. I pray God there may be a great plenty of trouble grow out of the crossing of this 't'. Father is always saying that women were put on earth to make trouble, so I'll do what little I can to make true ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... travels across a cloudless sky, gleams on a sailless sea, disappears behind purple mountains gilding their outline, and the day is done. Not a single dust-speck has soiled sky or earth; not the faintest echo of noisy labours disturbed the silences; not an alien sight has intruded. What can there be in such a scene to exhilarate? Must not the inhabitants vegetate dully after the style of their own bananas? ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... up here, and let him graze, while I go over to that camp"—indicating a white speck between the trees—"and then I may inquire if any one has seen a girl like Tavia ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... crossed her track To bring us news, and she never came back. Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more Since that old ship went out of the bay With my great-hearted brother on her deck: I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... silent and wrapped in sleep. No light showed from within save that one tiny speck through the cracks of an ill-fitting shutter, in a ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... about a mile or more start of me. I hurried on, but failed to overtake him. At the end of an hour I rode to the top of a hill which commanded a view of the course he should have taken. Not a moving speck was to be seen. I knew then that he had gone ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... in the eruption on the body and face of a number of small dry pimples sometimes surrounded by a little redness, itching considerably, and when their top has been rubbed off by scratching having a little speck of dried blood at ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... a mineral collection that has a piece of coal in it. Some of the black must have rubbed off on me. That must have been it. I'm a very dirty boy. Every speck of dirt sticks to me. Mummy said so. She says I'm as dirty as a pig. Is a pig dirtier ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... has lost her wanton wiles— What secret care consumes her youth, And circumscribes her smiles? A speck on a ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... made to Cousin Charles rather than to us. I had never seen a table so well arranged, so fastidiously neat; it glittered with glass and French china. Cousin Charles sent away a glass and a plate, frowning at the girl who waited; there must have been a speck or a flaw in them. The viands were as pretty as the dishes, the lamb chops were fragile; the bread was delicious, but cut in transparent slices, and the butter pat was nearly stamped through with its bouquet of flowers. This was all the feast except sponge cake, which ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... or speckled trout of the United States, except that the specks of the former are of a deep black, while those of the latter are of a red or gold colour: they have long sharp teeth on the palate and tongue, and generally a small speck of red on each side behind the front ventral fins; the flesh is of a pale yellowish red, or when in good order of a ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... not stood there long before a black speck at the end of the avenue expanded into a motor that was presently throbbing at the entrance. Undine, at its approach, turned from the window, and as she moved down the gallery her glance rested on the great tapestries, with their ineffable minglings of blue and rose, as complacently ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Inchcape Bell was seen, A darker spot on the ocean green. Sir Ralph the Rover walked the deck, And he fix'd his eye on the darker speck. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... you say—you, behind those stars there, if you are a God. We Spurlocks take our medicine, standing. Pile it on! But if you can hear the voice of the mote, the speck, don't let her suffer for anything I've done. Be a sport, and pile it ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... it was better, after all, that the cards should be played upon the table. Subsequent meetings were quite as violent as the first, the country was agitated far and wide, the prospects of pacification dwindled to a speck in the remote horizon. Arguments at the Board of Conference, debates in the States-General, pamphlets by merchants and advocates—especially several emanating from the East India Company—handled the great topic from every point of view, and it became more and more evident that Spain ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... prudent as well as an adventurous man, and he was resolved to take all possible precautions against being surprised by the Indians. On Cuttyhunk there was a large pond, and in the pond there was an islet; and Gosnold, with his score of followers, fixed upon this speck of rocky earth as the most suitable spot in the western hemisphere wherein to plant the roots of English civilization. They built a hut and made a boat, and gathered together their stores of furs and sassafras; but these same stores proved their ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... shebang. I ain't done it a speck o' harm. Was just kiddin', anyway. Knowed Will was around, an' jest wanted to make him squeal," ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... own home and cooked and served their own meals. We used wooden trays and wooden spoons. Once a week all the cullud chillun went to the Big House to eat dinner. The table was out in de yard. My nickname was "Speck". I didn't like to eat bread and milk when I went up there and I'd just sit there. Finally they'd let me go in de house and my mother would feed me. She was the house woman and my Auntie was cook. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... trips to transfer us and our baggage. I supposed of course that this would include me, and stood leaning on the rail, watching the first boat with Mr. Shaw, Captain Magnus and the cook, fade to a dark speck on the water, when Mr. Vane appeared at ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... deed has been like a broken vase, whose perfume has exhaled for two thousand years, and shall go on diffusing sweetness to the end of time. Last of all, after the rich men of Alexandria had cast their rattling gold into the brazen treasury, a poor widow cast a speck of dust called two mites, and, lo! this humble deed gave her ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... their steps to the shore, and looked out to sea. They could still see the ship, but it was already becoming a speck in ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... great masses of something that science has called "matter." We see in operation a wonderful something called "force" or "energy" in its countless forms of manifestations. We see things that we call "forms of life," varying in manifestation from the tiny speck of slime that we call the Moneron, up to that form that we ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... has been half blind through prejudice either for or against; he either sees her magnified with adulation, or else the large end of the glass is placed against his eye and she is merely a speck in the distance. But let a woman step past that mysterious wall which separates the formal from the intimate—only one step—at once she is surrounded by the eyes of a man as if by a thousand spies. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... spears crackled up like straw; He was the first to turn and draw His sword, that had nor speck nor flaw; Hah! ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... himself away from the land where all remained that he coveted upon earth. And Katerina, she too felt as if her existence was a blank; and as the vessel sailed from the port, she breathed short; and when not even her white and lofty topgallant sail could be discovered as a speck, she threw herself on her couch and wept. And M'Clise as he sailed away, remained for hours leaning his cheek on his hand, thinking of, over and over again, every lineament and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Masther Robert, there's one thing I wanted to ax you,' said Andy, resting a moment from his chopping: 'it's goin' on four months now since we see a speck of green, an' will the snow ever be off the ground agin, at all, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... speck in the bright blue sky, Do you search for the secret of heaven's deep glow? Is not heaven within, when you carol so? Then why, dear bird, must ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... eyes of Heaven at least. Getting married seemed a very casual and brief matter. Susan wished that there was more form to it; pages, and heralds with horns, and processions. What an awful carpet this red one must be to sweep, showing every speck! She and Billy had painted their floors, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... a moving speck on the water caught his eye. For a few minutes he watched it in suspense, then ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... talks to me," even so flighty a little personage as Lillie Davis said one day, "I feel as if I could make any sacrifice quite as a matter of course, and without a speck of fuss ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... that blue star with its attendant speck of white, which but a little while ago shone with great brightness ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... mist obscured the horizon and floated in tangled wreaths upon the face of the sea. Only that line of sand seemed still clear-cut and distinct, and as she glanced along it her eyes were held by something approaching, something which seemed at first nothing but a black, moving speck, then gradually resolved itself into the semblance of a man on horseback, galloping furiously. She watched him as he drew nearer and nearer, the sand flying from his horse's hoofs, his figure motionless, his eyes apparently ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to interest a world the greater portion of whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, nor outside the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of a faint remote speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet cause any very great excitement. Scientific people, however, found the intelligence remarkable enough, even before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and brighter, that its motion was quite different from ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... must know the main rules of healthful living, her own height and weight, and their relation to the standard; some simple first-aid points such as stopping bleeding, removing speck from eye, and bandaging a sprained ankle. She must also have a variety of facts at her command that will keep her alert and interested when out of doors, such as an acquaintance with animals, birds, ...
— Educational Work of the Girl Scouts • Louise Stevens Bryant
... vouchsafed him a very affectionate farewell which Chunk remorselessly prolonged, having learned in his brief campaigning not to leave any of the goods the gods send to the uncertainties of the future. When at last he tore himself away, he muttered, "Speck she need a heap ob scarin' en she git all she wants. Ef dat ar gyurl doan light out wid me nex' time I ax her, den I eats a mule." And then Chunk apparently ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... accurate, and I see no just reason for supposing the contrary, they are more than sufficient to meet the expences of so apparently an enormous establishment. If, however, the King of Prussia, the Monarch of a small indistinguishable speck on the globe, when put in comparison with the empire of China, can keep up an army of one hundred and eighty or two hundred thousand men, I can perceive nothing either extravagant or extraordinary in supposing that a Sovereign whose dominions ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... night, looking out into the shapeless mass of London, she was forced to remember that there was one point and here another with which she had some connection. William Rodney, at this very moment, was seated in a minute speck of light somewhere to the east of her, and his mind was occupied, not with his book, but with her. She wished that no one in the whole world would think of her. However, there was no way of escaping from one's fellow-beings, she concluded, and shut the window with a sigh, and ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... visited the kitchen a little later there wasn't a speck of dirt on her coat. And her face was spotless. No one would have guessed that she had ever made her way ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Moon opened the door, and there was a long dark entry; at the far end was shining a little speck of light. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... along the pavement, dreading to speck his exquisite boots, and how artlessly he would carry one glove in his hand, in order to show oil his elegant ring. His umbrella was the size of an ordinary young lady's parasol, and as for his collars—of course it was impossible to turn his head one way or the other with those things sticking ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... whenever she fetched me to carry her things on these short expeditions, she would leave me in the hotel to mend her clothes; whereupon I became actually servile in my ministrations. I brushed a microscopic speck of dust off her gown; I pushed in a hairpin; I tucked up a flying end of veil; I straightened her toque, and made myself altogether indispensable; for the bare idea of being left behind was a box on the ear. I could not endure such a punishment—and the front ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... vault of day. Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds; And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear, Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere. 35 —Now less and less!—and now a speck is seen!— And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between!— With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brow To every shrine with mingled cries they vow.— "Save Him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside; 40 "Bear Him, ye Winds! ye Stars benignant! guide." —The ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... by them, with Mother's old sun-hat on her young head, and watched Peter Paul's figure over the flat pastures till it was an indistinguishable speck. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... There was a water-hole a little to the east of the way we had come, and toward that I tried to head. One of the mules gave out, and staggered and groaned, and tried to get up again. I remember hearing him squeal, once; it was horrible. He lay there, a little black speck on the desert. Whitney and I didn't speak to each other at all, but I thought of those two kegs of water he had upset. Have you ever been thirsty—mortally thirsty, until you feel your tongue black in your mouth? It's queer what it does to you. Do you remember that little place—Zorn's—at ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and gold plane of von Herzmann was now a rapidly diminishing speck against the cloud bank toward la Chapelle, streaking for the Fatherland. The others, lacking a leader, and facing unequal chances with the timely and unexpected appearance of the French Spads, were withdrawing from the action with all the speed they could get out of their wonderful motors. ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... above me, A tiny speck in the sky, Rained down from its bosom's fulness A shower of melody, Dropping through the golden sunlight, And sweetly ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... shape of a heart, which Maria had cut out and fixed for her, and when it was done the letters "SI" were to be marked on it with pins, and it was to be put on mother's dressing-table on Sunday-night. There was more than one small speck of blood on it, where Susan had pricked her hot little fingers in a too earnest effort to take very small stitches, which was a pity; perhaps, however, as it was pink silk they would not show much, ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... his way through the devious footways where the shadow was chill, and through the broad campos where the sun was tenderly warm, and the towers of the church rose against the speck-less azure of the vernal heaven. As he went along, he frowned in a helpless perplexity with the case of Don Ippolito, whom he had begun by doubting for a spy with some incomprehensible motive, and had ended by pitying with a certain degree of amusement and a deep sense of the futility ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... the air like a ball flew the dog, while the King, having hurt his toe by the kick, sat down on the door-step and nursed his foot while he watched the dog go farther and farther up, until it seemed like a tiny speck against ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... land or a vessel. The storm of the night before had subsided, except that the waves were still running high under a brightly shining sun. Harry put his hand to his eyes to shade them, and scanned the horizon in every direction, but there was not even a speck to be seen. ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... the southwest like mad: threatening still heavier weather. We followed the skiff with my father's glass—saw her beat bravely on, reeling through the seas, smothered in spray—until she was but a black speck on the vast, angry waste, and, at last, vanished altogether in the spume and thickening fog. Then we went back to my father's house, prayerfully wishing the doctor safe voyage to Wreck Cove; and all that day, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... kind we have obtained is another of those miracles which recall the wonders of Arabian fiction. On a slip of glass, three inches long by one broad, is a circle of thinner glass, as large as a ten-cent piece. In the centre of this is a speck, as if a fly had stepped there without scraping his foot before setting it down. On putting this under a microscope magnifying fifty diameters there come into view the Declaration of Independence in full, in a clear, bold type, every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the passenger trains, and in the vile vodka which the Jews drugged with thorn-apple. Sometimes there would be a glimpse of a woman's head at a carriage window, and one would stand like a statue without breathing and stare at it until the train turned into an almost invisible speck; or one would drink all one could of the loathsome vodka till one was stupefied and did not feel the passing of the long hours and days. Upon me, a native of the north, the steppe produced the effect of a deserted Tatar cemetery. In the summer the steppe with its solemn calm, the monotonous ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... worked it out," said Redell. "But I can give you a rough idea. The human eye can't resolve any object that subtends less than three minutes of arc. For instance, a plane with a hundred-foot wing span would only be a speck twenty miles away, if you saw it ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... speck became less ambiguous. George beheld a white stern heaving up and down. He ran forward as if to accelerate her return, crying out ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the first invention; it is the unit of life,—a speck of protoplasm with a nucleus. To educate this cell till it could combine with its fellows and form the higher animals seems to have been the aim of the creative energy. First the cell, then combinations of cells, then combinations of combinations, then more and more complex ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... after the rocket had become a tiny speck of light in the heavens, she stood holding her face in her hands and crying softly to herself. And then she felt the touch of a hand on ...
— Breakaway • Stanley Gimble
... for a moment or two, that I saw a black dot there, but it was only my fancy creating what I expected my sight to behold. Let us look again all around the horizon, where it touches the water, following it as we would a line. Ah, I think I see a dark speck, just a black mote at this distance, and I am still unable to separate fancy from fact, but it may be fact. What do ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... white speck appeared on the sea. A ray of sunlight had struck across the twilight and made it visible; then something larger and darker was seen behind ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... of the deep, that had it not been for the long swell already alluded to, we might have believed the surrounding universe to be a huge, blue, liquid ball, and our little ship the one solitary material speck in all creation, floating ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck— A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... of indecency, which, let the satirists say what they may, is not efficacious in England, but audacity in colour, audacity in design, and audacity in construction. She would ride in the park in a black and yellow habit, and appear at the opera in white velvet without a speck of colour. Though certainly turned thirty, and probably nearer to forty, she would wear her jet-black hair streaming down her back, and when June came would drive about London in a straw hat. But yet it was always admitted that she was well dressed. And then would arise that ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... what appeared to be little more than a speck on the northern horizon, but even at that distance it was moving fast. Lefever walked over to Kitchen's to order the fourth horse. Rejoining Laramie he found him still at the gate. And when Kate, fresh as the morning, appeared, the two men though talking of ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... have seen how England is flooded, and you will like to hear that this tiny speck has escaped. The Lodden is over the park, and turns the beautiful water meadows down to Strathfieldsaye into a no less beautiful lake, two or three times a week; but then it subsides as quickly as it rises, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Frank girl is false; Stamboul is a large, large, beautiful place; not a little black speck. I can see it from my lattice. White houses and mosques in the sun, and the blue Golden Horn, ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his thoughts, he quitted the near view, and let his eye run along the edge of the horizon, until it rested upon a small speck, which he knew to be the lofty spire of Saint Paul's Cathedral. If, as he supposed, the Fair Geraldine was in attendance upon Anne Boleyn, at the palace at Bridewell, she must be under the shadow of this very spire; and the supposition, whether ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and other signs of an advanced civilization; but outside nothing but the wild precipices of the coast, a surging sea that seemed almost to surround the place, the wild screaming of the sea-birds, and a single ship appearing like a mere speck on the northern horizon. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... rather than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it, and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach. The lawyer bent low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal homage paid than questions poured upon him from Grey, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini |
