"Black box" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see there is no magic in the little black box. It is nothing but a child's plaything for the fat, spectacled idiot." (This part of the oration Frank did not communicate to Billy.) "You see I have smashed it. Do I fear? Do I look now like a man in terror of the ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... It was a dark cordovan brown, made even darker by long usage, which had added oily stains to the well-used leather. But Thorn thought of it as the Black Suitcase simply because it was the perfect example of the proverbial Little Black Box—the box that Did Things. As a test question in an examination, the Little Black Box performs a useful function. The examiner draws a symbolic electronic circuit. Somewhere in the circuit, instead of drawing the component that is supposed to be there, ...
— With No Strings Attached • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA David Gordon)
... X-ray tube sent forth its wonderful invisible radiation and made the back of the fluoroscope glow with light. I could see the bones of my fingers as I held them up between the X-ray tube and the fluoroscope. But with the lead-glass bowl in position over the tube, the fluoroscope was simply a black box into which I looked and saw nothing. So very little of the radiation escaped from the bowl that it was negligible—except at one point where there was an opening in the bottom of the bowl to allow the rays to pass freely ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give you: I'll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole estate, and ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... shavings and looked inside. His official manner underwent a change; such a look of sudden human interest showed on his fat clammy face that I thought he must have found some quite new kind of sausage. But instead he drew out very gingerly a curious square black box with a sloping front, two round holes at one side, and a handle at the other. He put it down on the counter and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... I'll show you what a thing you are when you come in composition with an English justice, like me, who have more than once extinguished myself in the service of my country. As nothing else accrues, your purse, black box, and papers shall be sealed up before witnesses, and sent by express to one of his Majesty's secretaries of state; and, as for yourself, I will apply to the military at Canterbury, for a guard to conduct you ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... little numerals,—all the towns of Somersetshire and half the towns of Devonshire were full of pushing eager people, ready to swallow anything, or to make others swallow it. Whether they believed the folly about the black box, and all that stuff, is not for me to say; only one thing I know, they pretended to do so, and persuaded the ignorant rustics. Taunton, Bridgwater, Minehead, and Dulverton took the lead of the other towns in utterance of their discontent, and threats of what they meant to do if ever ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... saw something like a black box through the branches and went up. It must be something Stefan had left for him. He walked up the path in leisurely fashion. There was evidently no hurry. He was feeling a little disappointment, for he had become fond of Stefan during his long prospecting trip and would have been ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... first to arrive at the pier was a committee from the Stock Exchange, headed by R. H. Thomas, and composed of Charles Knoblauch, B. M. W. Baruch, Charles Holzderber and J. Carlisle. Mr. Thomas carried a long black box which contained $5000 in small bills, which was to be handed out to the needy steerage survivors of the Titanic ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... non-sincere, the cause shall be heard again upon the third day; but at the third hearing the question shall be put without the non-sincere. Upon the first of the three days in which the major vote comes in the white box, the party accused is absolved; and upon the first of them in which it comes in the black box, the party accused is condemned. The party accused being condemned, the tribunes (if the case be criminal) shall put with the white and the black box these questions, or such of them as, regard had to the case, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... covered with rime, and closed overhead by a mighty dome of ice. The steam was troublesome, and spoilt my view of the room. But what had become of Hassel? I could only see Bjaaland. Then suddenly the fog seemed to clear for an instant, and I caught sight of a bare leg disappearing into a big black box, and a moment later I saw Hassel's smiling face on the top of the box. A shudder passed through my frame — he looked as if he had been decapitated. On further consideration, his features were too smiling; the head could not be severed from the body yet. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... out with my camera. (Saturday you will note. I have learned already that to be seen on Sundays in this Sabbatarian spot, even walking about with that inconspicuous black box, is anathema.) A crowd of children in a disjointed procession had collected in front of the hospital, and the patients on the balconies were delightedly craning their necks. A biting blast was blowing, but the children, clad in white garments, looked oblivious to wind and ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... disproportionately extradition ob circumstantial occurrances dat ever transpositioned on my optical vasionariness!" he exclaimed as he laid his gun and the black box carefully down on the sand. "Ten thousand naked imps of darkness swarmin' ober de ship an' not a pusson to say what dey ought to do an' where dey ought t' go! It am ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... wire out of the back of the chest. It was a simple matter to lay the wire through some bins next the storeroom and then around to the passageway down to the subterranean den of Brixton. There Craig deposited a little black box about the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... man." Parker had located the switch and a musical purr came from the black box between the Martian's broad shoulders. "Now stand up and tell me what you're doing here. And what's the idea of the private ship? Come all the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... rumoured throughout the country, and even in circles which ought to have been well informed, that the King had made Lucy Walters his wife, and that, if every one had his right, her son would be Prince of Wales. Much was said of a certain black box which, according to the vulgar belief, contained the contract of marriage. When Monmouth had returned from the Low Countries with a high character for valour and conduct, and when the Duke of York was known to be a member ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... view of a seemingly boundless brickfield. Miss Nippett rented a top back room at number 19, where, on one Sunday afternoon, Mavis, being previously invited, went to tea. The little room was neat and clean; tea, a substantial meal, was served on the big black box which stood at the foot of Miss Nippett's bed. After tea, Miss Nippett showed, with much pride, her little treasures, which were chiefly pitiful odds and ends picked up upon infrequent excursions to Isle of Thanet watering-places. Her devotion ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... only because he was a trained hunter that he avoided death in that moment. Some instinct made him dodge even as he slipped through, and the hurtling black box did not strike true at the base of his brain but raked along his scalp, tearing the flesh and sending him tumbling unconscious into ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... He saw before his clouding eyes a black pit. A strong hand striking him in the middle of his back flung him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry of protest and all was over. Had time been permitted him he would have stretched out a hand towards the shabby black box that, true to all miserly convention, occupied the space beneath his bed. Time was not allowed him. He might take with him into the darkness neither money ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... then this room will be quite finished. There are only the hems and just the tops to do. We can have no difficulty in finishing them before Cyril comes home. The red tablecloth is at the top of the black box—if you will fetch it, Mollie—and I have arranged the flowers in that pretty ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... grey of morning, it rumbled loudly over a stretch of cobbled pave, and pulled up at an iron railing inside the City wall. Here the officers of the municipal customs came out. One of the first passengers visited was the bourgeois, and his dingy black box and sleepy ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... motor-launch that lay in a boat-house. It was the launch which should have carried Lollie Marsh and Selby on their river and sea journey. It was provisioned and ready for the trip. But first the colonel had to take from a locker in the stern of the boat a small black box and disconnect the wires from certain terminals before he stopped a little clock which ticked noisily. He had tuned his bomb to go off at four in the morning, by which time, he calculated, Lollie Marsh and her escort would be well out to sea. For the colonel regarded no ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... well. The first piece of equipment provided a tape recording of much that was said on the flight deck during a period of 30 minutes preceding the time of the collision with the ice slope. The second, often described as the "black box", provided conclusive information concerning course, altitude, and other data relating to the flight and functioning of the aircraft at the relevant period ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... undertaker to those who made inquiry that for good and sufficient reasons Mrs. Wybrant was not going anywhere at present. But she sent a great stiff set piece of flowers, an elaborate, inadequate thing with a wire back to it and a tin-foil footing, which sat alongside the black box during the service and afterwards was propped upright in the rank grass at the head of the grave. It was doubly conspicuous by reason of being the only example of what greenhouse men call floral offerings that graced the occasion. And she had written her mother ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... are as follows, copied from the folio manuscript paper book, in the file of the treasury office, No. 3700, being a black box of tin containing, under lock and key, both that ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... take for future use,' said my sister. And bidding me watch the creature carefully until she should return, she left the room, and, after none too short an absence, returned bearing a black box that was an apparatus for photography, and something more besides,—some newer, stranger kind of photography that she had learned. Then, on a strangely fashioned card, a transparent white card, composed of many layers of finest Oriental ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... of thirteen the fear of death entered F.'s life, the occasion being the death of an uncle. The mourning, the quick fleeting sight of the dead man in the black box, the interment of the once vigorous, joyous man in the earth struck terror into the heart of the boy. From that time much of his life was controlled by his struggles with the fear of death, and his history is his reaction to that fear. At fourteen he astonished his free-thinking ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... one corner of Caryl's drawer was a small black box; unfortunately, the lock was broken in childhood, and there had been no money to spare for repairs of anything of that sort, so she had tied it securely with the strongest of twine, and written on the cover in big schoolgirl ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... experience. They were so obviously a theatrical company—people apart from the world. Madame was darting her black eyes here and there, behind her spotted veil, and standing with the ostensible self-possession of her profession. Max was circling round with large strides, round a big black box on which the red words Natcha-Kee-Tawara showed mystic, and round the small bunch of stage fittings at the end of the platform. Louis was waiting to get the tickets, Gigi and Ciccio were bringing up the bicycles. They were a whole ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... his seat by the window, and, opening a portmanteau, brought a small black box to the bedside. His master passed his hand over it, and drew it underneath ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the gas jets may be made of paste board boxes about the size of a shoe box. Cut holes for eyes, nose and mouth in all four sides of the box and cover the holes with red or green tissue paper. A black box with the openings covered with red tissue paper or vice versa or white ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... and, since the shades were down, the outlines of the room's contents were uncomfortably dubious; for just where the table stood had been, five days ago, a big and oddly-shaped black box with beautiful silver handles; and Uncle George had lifted me so that I could see through the pane of glass, which was a part of this funny box, while an infinity of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... in a single loose garment of woven cloth which permitted free action for both limbs and wings. A small, flat black box with a mouthpiece into which he could speak, was strapped to his chest in such a position that it was almost concealed by the folds of his blouse. We were to find out presently the purpose of this instrument, but I did not examine it carefully then. As the creature ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... man, he'll recover the moment you open the door and window; get the box. Hold your nose with your fingers and keep your mouth shut. There it is, that black box in ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... to the outer door of the flat and locked it before continuing his search. If there was any clue to the mystery of the stolen revolver it would be found here, in this black box. A Chinaman keeps all his possessions "within six sides," as the saying goes, and certainly the box was very well secured. It was ten minutes before he managed to find a key to shift the two locks with ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... Olcott stared at the little black box. Finally, Olcott put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, as though he'd been too long without sleep. When he removed his hands, his eyes were ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... from the clutches of those who threaten to tear her into precious pieces. She sighs for Sister Slocum, for Mr. Hadger, for any one kind enough to raise a friendly voice in her behalf. Now one has got her black box, another her corpulent carpet-bag-a third exults in a victory over her band-box. Fain would she give up her mission in disgust, return to the more aristocratic atmosphere of Charleston, and leave the heathen to his fate. All this might have been avoided had ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... abruptly and, crossing to a large vault built in a far corner, returned with a heavy black box curiously bound with brass and inlaid with silver. Placing it on the table between us, he took from his watch chain a small antique key and pushing it, with a queer side-motion, into the lock, it opened with a sharp snap, and he threw ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott |
