"Comet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... learned leech in the whole land, the Egyptian guide assured him, than the famous Philip of Memphis. The situation here, outside the town, was very pleasant, and from the river's bank he might observe the comet which had been visible for some nights past—a portent of evil no doubt. The natives of the city had been paralysed with terror; that indeed was evident even here in Nesptah's caravansary, for usually ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... distances from any points of eruption. They vary in size from that of an apple to that of a man's body; they are either spherical or pear-shaped, or with the hinder part (corresponding to the tail of a comet) irregular, studded with projecting points, and even concave. Their surfaces are rough, and fissured with branching cracks; their internal structure is either irregularly scoriaceous and compact, or it presents a symmetrical and very ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... between a young man and a young woman; there must always be "something in it": either a mitten for him, or a disappointment for her, or wedding-cake for all—generally and preferably, of course, the wedding-cake;—and belonging to such friendship as lawfully as a tail belongs to a comet, was a great, wide-spreading area of gossip. It was only in the case of Phebe Lane that this universal and common-sense rule had its one particular and unreasonable exception; and it was acting upon a speedily acquired knowledge of this by-law, that Mr. Halloway boldly pursued his ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... soft natural Death, thou art joint-twin To sweetest Slumber! no rough-bearded comet Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse wolf Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, Whilst ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... clear sky over Jerusalem blazed a great comet, in appearance like a sword of fire. It was true that they had seen it before at Tyre, but never before had it shown so bright. Moreover, there it had not the appearance of a sword. This they thought to be an ill omen, all of them except Benoni, who said that the point of the sword stretched ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... the distant firmament. We have admired it. It is so far off. What can there be to make us shudder in a fixed star? Well, one day—one night, rather—it moves. We perceive a trembling gleam around it. The star which we imagined to be immovable is in motion. It is no longer a star, but a comet—the incendiary giant of the skies. The luminary moves on, grows bigger, shakes off a shower of sparks and fire, and becomes enormous. It advances towards us. Oh, horror, it is coming our way! The comet recognizes us, marks ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... in the night:—Most glorious night! Thou wer't not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy far and fierce delight,— A portion of the tempest and of me! How the lit lake shines a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comet dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black,—and now the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... thought these revolutions likely to come, and the comet of Jerome Lalande has sent ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... respect and admiration always. His admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some one said of his friend, "There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake," "Yes," Pope answered, "and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of these establishments we see and feel every day.—A native of America who cannot read and write, is as rare an appearance as a Jacobite, or a Roman Catholic, i. e. as rare as a comet or an earthquake.—It has been observed, that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians, and philosophers.—And I have good authorities to say, that all candid foreigners who have passed through this country, and conversed freely with all sorts of people here, will ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... origin from an excessive moisture in the air, accompanied by almost continual rains, and flooding the country to a considerable extent. One was supposed to be the consequence of long-continued drought and excessive heat; one was traced to the influence of an eclipse of the sun; another, to a comet; and a fourth, to a most unusually stormy winter. The reader will have the kindness to remember that we are here expressing the opinions of the writers of the day, and by no means, our own belief ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... amongst us like a comet," put in the ubiquitous Mr. Manners, "and, I fear, intends to disappear in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... examine the auriferous lodes of our Acadian neighbors. If gold does not really exist there, and in very remunerative quantities, it will be hard for us henceforth to believe in the calculations of even a spring-tide, a comet, or an eclipse. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... ran her red machine had many an unexpected turning,—now it led her into peculiar danger; now into contact with strange travelers; and again into experiences by fire and water. But, best of all, "The Comet" never failed ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... readers may remember a story which got abroad many years ago that a certain M. Babinet, a scientific Frenchman of note, had predicted a serious accident soon to occur to the planet on which we live by the collision with it of a great comet then approaching us, or some such occurrence. There is no doubt that this prediction produced anxiety and alarm in many timid persons. It became a very interesting question with them who this M. Babinet might be. Was he a sound observer, who had made other observations and predictions which had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is spread over countless ages. It is reasonable to suppose, that the latter is effected by means of a higher law, manifesting itself only at long intervals. Its infrequent manifestation is no argument against the regularity and necessity of its occurrence,—against its being a law at all. The comet that visits our system only once in five hundred years is controlled by the same inflexible principle which causes the return of another comet once in five years. The conditions requisite for a development ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... the pale and modest star, kindled by God in simple hearts, which men call conscience, illumines our path with truer light than the flaming comet of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... beaten by small forces tapping at his outworks; and Austria might reasonably complain that our neglect to attack the rear of the Grand Army in Flanders exposed her to the full force of its onset on the Danube. But though his genius pales before the fiery comet of Napoleon, it shines with a clear and steady radiance when viewed beside that of the Continental statesmen of his age. They flickered for a brief space and set. His was the rare virtue of dauntless courage and unswerving constancy. By the side of their wavering groups ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... exclaimed, facing the room, but still keeping close to the coffee-pot. "How you all can expect anything but terrible troubles and awful misfortunes is more than I can understand. The warning of that comet sent a-flying wild across the heavens is ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... like full-laden thunder-clouds, which reflect the rays of the descending sun. The noise of his breath was like the rushing of the tempest-blast. The earth groaned beneath his iron feet. The storm rustled in his hair, which waved round his head like the tail from the threatening comet. Faustus lay before him like a worm; for the horrible sight had deprived him of his senses and his strength. The Devil uttered a contemptuous laugh, which hissed over the surface of the earth; and seizing the trembling being, he tore ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... and then laid my soul before me so naked that the very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher said—that 'touch of God' business? 'Touch—'" he laughed, "not touch, but blow, I say—a blow that ground me into star-dust and flung me into space, my heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion, dying, care for the doe that crosses my path? The beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are. Do you understand ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... briefly stated, is as follows: A great many ages ago, when this globe of ours was still in the period of cataclysms, rolling through space around the sun, it came in contact with a portion of the end of the tail of some enormous comet, sweeping through the universe on its erratic course. This great boulder is a sample of the component parts of that fiery tail, which smote the exposed face of the earth so terribly with the drift deposit at that time of dire disaster. The age of fire and gravel, surely! ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... everything back to the soul-atom; expanding everything in God, entangling all activity, from summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating, who knows? Were it only by the identity of the law, the evolution of the comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, the prime motor of which is the gnat, and whose final wheel is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Brother Regimental, "it is quite a different thing. But do not send young Samuel to the dragon—the dragon might devour him. For the last five years Samuel is not in a state to show his innocence to monsters. In the year of the comet, the Devil in order to seduce him, put in his path a milkmaid, who was lifting up her petticoat to cross a ford. Samuel was tempted, but he overcame the temptation. The Devil, who never tires, sent him the image of that young girl in a dream. The shade did what the reality was unable to accomplish, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... along the High Street, comet-like, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard a wall-eyed young man connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... into his history by Frank Bracebridge. He was an old bachelor, of a small independent income, which by careful management was sufficient for all his wants. He revolved through the family system like a vagrant comet in its orbit, sometimes visiting one branch, and sometimes another quite remote, as is often the case with gentlemen of extensive connections and small fortunes in England. He had a chirping, buoyant disposition, always enjoying ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... just preceding the year 1676 were marked in Virginia by ominous signs of disaster. A great comet streamed through the sky "like a horsetail," and it was well known that that meant pestilence or war. Then came tens of thousands of pigeons, stretching across the sky as far as the eye could see. They were followed by vast swarms of what ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... another, often in enormous flocks, and usually with intervals of many years, so that in former times their appearance was regarded as sure forebodings of war and pestilence, their arrival being dreaded as much as that of a comet. Another interesting feature of its history is the fact that for a long time this familiar bird eluded the search of the zoologist. Its breeding habits, and even the place where it breeds, were unknown thirty years ago, until finally discovered ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... They were flying just over here, and a shrapnel burst quite close; and then one saw a thin stream of smoke come from the plane; then a little flicker. It seemed to fall so slowly. Then it burst into flames and came down like a great comet." ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... excitement for the community from within. The weather, for instance, was growing warmer, and the summer was apparently to be a sultry one: hence, before the season was ended we were to look for the most sweeping epidemics of disease; a comet had been sighted by one of our comet-hunters, and we were all to say later whether or not it would have been better if we'd never been born, and so on, and so on. His mind teemed with a prescience of the plans and plots of statesmen, of bureaucrats, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... along the haw-and-holly-lined roads of the wonderful southern counties. They would scuttle on ahead of us, weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover—meaning by that thickets such as you may find in the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... he had often looked out to sea on dark nights, over to where the great lighthouse stood up on the Jagger Rock ten miles away, seeing the light increase till it seemed like a comet, whose long, well-defined tail slowly swept round over the sea till it was hidden by the back of the lanthorn, and he waited till it flashed out again; but it had never given him pains in the body before, neither could he recall that it smelt so nasty, ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... astrology are therefore comparatively recent. Before that it was of course reckoned ominous if an eclipse took place, or a comet was seen, or a bright planet came near the moon, just as spilling salt or crossing knives may be reckoned ominous to-day. The omens had as little to do with observation, or with anything that could be called scientific, in the one case ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... grasshopper; shivering under the influence of the Jupiter Pluvius of England, the watery St. Swithin; peering at that scarce personage the sun, when he happens to make his appearance, as intently as astronomers look after a comet, or the common people stare at a balloon; exclaiming against the cold weather, just as we used to exclaim against the warm. 'What a change from last year!' is the first sentence you hear, go where you may. Everybody remarks ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... to that baleful visitor, the comet of 1066, which had turned night into day with its lurid and ghastly light, so that the very waves of the sea seemed molten in its beams, while the beasts of the field howled as if they scented the coming banquet of flesh afar off. Well might they stand aghast who gazed upon this awful portent, which ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... sun in mid career; Glorious th' assembled fires appear; Glorious the comet's train: Glorious the trumpet and alarm; Glorious the Almighty's stretched-out arm; ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... is very vexing. I shall rest the horses till Monday, and then, ill and dispirited, commence my homeward journey. I dare not venture into a new route, for, want of water, and the low condition of my horses, compel me to keep my former track. Last night about 10 o'clock, I observed the comet for the first time, above the west horizon; it set at 7 o'clock 20 degrees north of west. At sundown it has become overcast with heavy clouds, and my hopes are again raised; I trust we may get it now. Midnight: still ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... He sees the good temper of the frog, the unaccountable happiness of the hippopotamus. He sees a whole universe which is ridiculous, from the animalcule, with a head too big for its body, up to the comet, with a tail too big for its head. But when it comes to the delightful oddity of his own inside, his sense of humour rather ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... the Prophet had stationed a "lamp" in the sky, to watch them for him—and sure enough, a comet flamed in the horizon. To a Creek chief ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... twenty years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway, would you have the sublime gall to make passes at Warner Oil's heiress, with more millions in her own ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... with a marvellous turn of speed. For half-a-mile she was a wonder, a record breaker—so Nal thought. Presently he pulled a list of entries from his pocket and scanned it closely. Old man Bobo had a bay gelding in training for the half-mile race, Comet, out of Shooting Star, by Meteor. Nal had taken the measure of the other horses and feared none of them; but Comet, he admitted ruefully to be a dangerous colt. He was stabled at home, and the small boy that exercised him was both ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Neglect of Christ on your part will bring deeper woes on your head than the people of Capernaum pulled down upon theirs. The brighter the sunshine, the louder the thunder and the fiercer the lightning; the longer the summer day, the longer the winter night; the closer the comet comes to the sun, the further away it plunges, at the other extremity of its orbit, into space and darkness. So I beseech you, listen as if you had never heard it before, and listen as if your lives depended upon it (as indeed they do) to that merciful invitation, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to ascend; but a second glance would prove that our Indians had not acted rashly. In the centre of the impetuous current a large rock rose above the surface, and from its lower end a long eddy ran like the tail of a comet for about twenty yards down the river. It was just opposite this rock that we entered the rapid, and paddled for it with all our might. The current, however, as I said before, swept us down; and when we got to the middle of the stream, we just reached the extreme point ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... the slaves. "What good would a proclamation from me do, especially as we are now situated?" asked Mr. Lincoln by way of reply. "I do not want to issue a document that the whole world would see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet. Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... consciousness of guilt would have swelled within me to such a bulk as to have burst me into fragments, which would now be travelling around aimlessly in space, like the lost Pleiad, or like the dismembered and stray tail of a comet. So I called my next neighbor, Rush, out behind his barn, and, under oath of secrecy, revealed the good news to him, and then I did likewise by neighbor Tiltman, and so on, in seemly progression, by all the other neighbors, until at last my confidence had ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled — Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled — Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... true, for the Court also complained of my ignorant and worthless sex for "cutting and curling and laying out of the hair, especially among the younger sort." Increase Mather gave them this thrust in his sermon on the comet, in 1683: "Will not the haughty daughters of Zion refrain their pride in apparell? Will they lay out their hair, and wear their false locks, their borders, and towers like comets about their heads?" And they were called "Apes of Fancy, friziling ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... more attention to the construction of kites and windmills and waterwheels, all of which he made to work very well. He also used to tie paper lanterns to the tail of his kite, so as to make the country folk fancy they saw a comet, and in general to disport himself as a ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... fact that portents occurred on this occasion as great as were usually seen before the most tremendous disasters. Owls gathered in the capital and a bolt of lightning descended upon the house at Albanum, where the consuls reside during the sacrifices.[11] The star called comet stood for several days over the City and was finally dissolved into flashes of light. Many buildings in the City were destroyed by fire, among them the tent of Romulus, which was set ablaze by crows dropping upon it burning meat from some altar.—These were the matters of interest ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... star light. There is no natural object nearer than the moon that seems to have any strong attraction for him, and even to the moon he chiefly appeals for patronage, and "pays his court" to her.... He describes nothing so well as a comet, and is tempted to linger with fond detail over nothing more familiar than the day of judgment and an imaginary journey among the stars.... The adherence to abstractions, or to the personification of abstractions, is closely allied in Young to the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... until some time about the 1681 or 1682, that he died. It is said, that when, in his last sickness, he desired Mr. Shields and some other friends to carry him out to see a comet or blazing-star (that then appeared), and when he saw it, he blest the Lord that now was about to close his eyes, and was not to see the woful days that were coming on Britain and Ireland, but especially upon sinful Scotland. After which he died, and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... affair was that Cassius, after he had lost the battle of Philippi, killed himself with the same dagger which he had made use of against Caesar; and the most signal phenomenon in the heavens was that of a great comet, which shone very bright for seven nights after Caesar's death, and then disappeared; to which we may add the fading of the sun's lustre; for his orb looked pale all that year; he rose not with a sparkling radiance, nor had the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... a time I seemed to feel the vast immensity of the blackness before me. I think perhaps it may have been that path of light stretching out into the distance. As I looked it seemed like the reversed tail of a comet, or the dim glow of the Milky Way, and penetrating to ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Pete, with a merry laugh. "Poor old soul, though, she knows no better. Good-bye, sir. I shall see you again. I read your name in the paper the other day about finding a comet, and it made me laugh to think of the old days. Good-day, sir. I'm going to see Mr Maxted. I find he has been very good to the poor old granny since I've ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... known, which it is in some instances to the sixteenth generation, she is not one-sixteenth only but nearly nine-sixteenths of pure Favorite blood. This arises from 'Favorite' having been used repeatedly on cows descended from himself. In the pedigree of 'Charmer' we repeatedly meet with 'Comet'—'Comet' was by 'Favorite' and his dam 'Young Phoenix' was also by 'Favorite;' with 'George'—'George' was by 'Favorite' and his dam 'Lady Grace' was also by 'Favorite;' with 'Chilton'—'Chilton' was by 'Favorite' and his dam was also by 'Favorite;' with 'Minor'—'Minor' was ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... threatened to turn the continent into an unpeopled wilderness. For year after year there were signs in the sky, on the earth, in the air, all indicative, as men thought, of some terrible coming event. In 1337 a great comet appeared in the heavens, its far-extending tail sowing deep dread in the minds of the ignorant masses. During the three succeeding years the land was visited by enormous flying armies of locusts, which descended in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... bleed, And treason had a fine new name; When Thames was balderdash'd with Tweed, And pulpits did like beacons flame; When Jeroboam's calves were rear'd, And Laud was neither loved nor fear'd, This gospel-comet first appear'd. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... before she could get to the door, something flashed like a scarlet comet from across the street. It was the little girl whom Maida had seen twice before—the one who always wore ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... steady and strong, watching it as it strained and stiffened and grew out broader and broader over the conquered city till you believed the glory of it and the splendor and radiance of it must go flashing off there over those leagues of tumbling water till it blazed like a comet over Madrid itself. ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... mother, do but come and look!" she cried, with the air of coaxing assurance which bespoke a favoured child. "Such a strange star in the sky! Men in the streets are all looking and pointing; and some say that it is no star, but a comet, and that it predicts some dreadful thing which is coming upon this land. Do come and look at it! There is a clear sky tonight, and one can see it well. And I heard that it has been seen by some before this, when at night ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of opinion that the comet seen in 1680 is the same which appeared in Julius Caesar's time. This shows more than any other that comets are hard, opaque bodies; for it descended so near to the sun, as to come within a sixth part of the diameter of this planet from it, and consequently might ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... to the natives: of this I had a singular instance at Moorunde. In March, 1843, I had a little boy living with me by his father's permission, whilst the old man went up the river with the other natives to hunt and fish. On the evening of the 2nd of March a large comet was visible to the westward, and became brighter and more distinct every succeeding night. On the 5th I had a visit from the father of the little boy who was living with me, to demand his son; he had come down the river post haste for that purpose, as soon as he saw the comet, which he assured ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... plague devastating Venus. The country people have sent in word by the canals that rockets in clusters covering hundreds of square miles are arising from Scandor. The cause is unknown, cannot even be surmised, and last night Herschell and Gauss, at the big telescopes, detected a comet charging towards us with an incredible velocity. The Council believe I should at once start for Scandor to bring the month's report, and these new excitements, to the paper Dia, while they urge that you should recount to ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... South so poetically adores, yet which it would not willingly resurrect, and in the realization of a work resembling nothing so much as Kipling's conception of the artist in heaven, who paints on "a ten-league canvas, with brushes of comet's hair." ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... to incinerate all planetary life. But the excessive remoteness of the sun from the nearest fixed star suggests that the constitution of the stellar universe is such that an accident of this kind is extremely improbable. As for comets, the earth's atmosphere has already encountered a comet, even during the brief period of astronomical observation. This thick overcoat of ours protects us from the danger ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... on, but it all died away into silence without further casualties on our side. At night the column southward flashes another long signal on the clouded sky, and Boer search-lights try to obliterate it by throwing their feeble rays across the beam that shines like a comet athwart the darkness above ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... display of sky-fireworks. The rain came down like gun-barrels, the veld turned into a swamp, but we kept on after the Dutchman, who drove like gay old Hell. Presently comes a blue blaze and a splitting crack, as if a comet had come shouldering into the map of South Africa, and knocked its head in. We pushed on, smelling sulphur, burnt flesh, and hair. 'By gum!' said I; 'something's got it'; and I was to rights. The Cape cart stood on the veld, without a scratch on the paintwork. The four mules lay in their traces, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... that an engineer can make as to the behavior of a girder under a strain, or an astronomer as to the recurrence of a comet, more certain than the calculation that under such circumstances we shall be dismembered unnecessarily in all directions by surgeons who believe the operations to be necessary solely because they want to perform them. The process metaphorically called bleeding the rich man is performed ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... historian who sings of the arms and bravery of this great man—"our hero assumed the cognomen of Blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face, and frightened America more than any comet that appeared there in a long time. He was accustomed to twist it with ribbons into small tails, after the manner of our Ramillies wig, and turn them about his ears. In time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... visitor at her house constituted a claim, a genuine claim to intellect: at least this was the estimate set on her invitations. Her husband played the part of an obscure satellite. To be the husband of a comet is not an easy thing. This husband had, however, an original idea, that of creating a State within a State, of possessing a merit of his own, a merit of the second order, it is true; but he did, in fact, in this fashion, on the days when his wife held receptions, hold receptions also on ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... beginning of 1812 knew nothing of the confederation of the Rhine; all they knew of Bonaparte was that he had often beaten the Germans, and that on his account they had to pay more for sugar and coffee. To them the great comet of 1811 was the first announcement of coming great events. Let us see the reflections which the comet inspired in the abbess of the Devitchi convent and the nun Antonine, and this will give us an idea of the mental condition of the latter, one of the narrators. "One evening," ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... by letting him come by accident once or twice within full sight of the Model, safe from recognition. He had not wanted Mrs. May to find out prematurely that he was dogging her tire tracks in a car which might have shot past her like a comet. She had misunderstood him too often already, and he wished her to think him safe at Lucky Star Ranch; until the moment when she would rejoice to ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Everything's dreadful to you. If the Northern Lights shine in the heavens—you ought to admire and marvel at "the dawn breaking in the land of midnight!" But you are in terror, and imagine it means war or flood. If a comet comes—I can't take my eyes from it! a thing so beautiful! the stars we have looked upon to our hearts' content, they are always with us, but that is something new; well, one must gaze and admire! But you're ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... might find a friend in Stirling or Oliphant, but he could hardly have fancied Henry Adams rousing in him even an interest. Adams could no more interest Algernon Swinburne than he could interest Encke's comet. To Swinburne he could be no more than a worm. The quality of genius was an education almost ultimate, for one touched there the limits of the human mind on that side; but one could only receive; one had nothing to give — ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... electricity against gravitation. Nature, in fact, had done the same thing long before. Every astronomer knew it, but none had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. When a comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. It is in reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. But, while a comet approaches the sun ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after, a little before the great fire; the old women and the weak-minded portion of the other sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked—especially afterward, though not till both ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Christophe by no means opposed to it the short-sighted utilitarianism of art for morality's sake, that winged Pegasus harnessed to the plow. The highest art, the only art which is worthy of the name, is above all temporary laws: it is a comet sweeping through the infinite. It may be that its force is useful, it may be that it is apparently useless and dangerous in the existing order of the workaday world: but it is force, it is movement and fire: ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... top. In good company, when you're by yourself, as Dad used to say. Be back in Helion in a week or so, anyhow. Look up Dan and 'Chuck' and the rest of the crowd again, at Comet's place. What price a friendly boxing match with Mason, or an evening ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual, ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... regard to the economy of nature in their own times. In an early state of advancement, when a greater number of natural appearances are unintelligible, an eclipse, an earthquake, a flood, or the approach of a comet, with many other occurrences afterwards found to belong to the regular course of events, are regarded as prodigies. The same delusion prevails as to moral phenomena, and many of these are ascribed to the intervention ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... not outside the disc," responded Gazen, "else I should ascribe it to a small comet. It may be due to an aurora in Mars as a writer in Nature has suggested, or to a range of snowy Alps, or even to a bright cloud, reflecting the sunrise. Possibly the Martians have seen the forest fires in America, ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... wine and delicious cake was served. We were at the quarters of the colonel and post commander. That was the second post we had taken Mrs. Ord to, and she is suddenly enthusiastic over army people, forgetting that Omaha has a post of its own. But with us she has been in the tail of the comet—which made things more interesting. Army people are nice, though, particularly in their own little ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the industrial pursuits, religion, civilization, all owed a deep debt to man, and it could not be ignored. She was the last person in the world to wish to ignore it. Properly governed, disciplined and educated, his development might outrun hope, defy prophecy. Out of his place he was a comet without an orbit. Drawn hither and thither by sinister stars, he was an eccentricity beyond calculation and full of harm. For this reason the interests of humanity demanded that the place of man in the conduct of affairs should be well defined ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... this immeasurable ocean of ether the particles of matter are driven together and form bodies. These bodies swarm throughout space, like fish in the sea; travelling singly (the "shooting star"), or in great close shoals (the nucleus of a comet), or lying scattered in vast clouds. But the inexorable pressure urges them still, until billions of tons of material are gathered together. Then, either from the sheer heat of the compression, or from the formation of large and unstable atomic systems ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... married, and have been for upwards of twenty years, and I think I ought to know somethin' about it; and how can it be called a state of perfect rest, when some days I have to pass through as many changes as a comet, and each change a tegus one. I have to wabble round and be a little of ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... with the solemn roar Of dreadful thunder, points it where to fall, And in fierce lightning wraps the flying ball? Not he who trembles at the darted fires, Falls at the sound, and in the flash expires. Who drew the comet out to such a size, And pour'd his flaming train o'er half the skies? Did thy resentment hang him out? Does he Glare on the nations, and denounce, from thee? Who on low earth can moderate the rein, That ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... knowledge is a perception of those connections of an object which determine its applicability in a given situation. To take an extreme example; savages react to a flaming comet as they are accustomed to react to other events which threaten the security of their life. Since they try to frighten wild animals or their enemies by shrieks, beating of gongs, brandishing of weapons, etc., they use the same methods to scare ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... The comet, which we had first noticed on the 17th of the month, now appeared much higher and brighter than at first. Its tail had a slight curve, and it seemed to be rather approaching the ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... fixed Comet-blazing eyes, The damned Augurs of vntimely death, Shee ends her tale, whilst from her harts caue flyes A storme of winds, no gentle sighing breath, All which, like euill spirits in disguise, Enter Iberias eares, and to her sayth, That all the substance of this damned storie, Was zealous true, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... did admire his spunk in holding back. It seems that as an editor he took to telling falsehoods on his own account so often that the Syndicate is packing him off as Special Correspondent to a tailless comet. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... has ever been given; so it occurred to Hadley that a comet had come into collision with the earth and had altered the position of its axis of rotation, that is to say, of its poles; according to him, the North Pole, which used to be situated at Hudson's Bay, found itself carried farther east, and the land at the old ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... heard my father tell how in the heat of that year a great red comet burned in the sky, even as that we now see, my friend. God forbid that this portends blood. But in the coming spring the French conscripts filled our sacred land like a swarm of locusts, devouring as they went. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... lighted candles to find their way about the house. No one could see the time of day by the clocks, and white paper looked like black velvet. Many people were terrified and wondered what was coming. Some expected a great tornado; others said a comet was due and feared it portended some great calamity, perhaps a disaster to the armies in the field who were fighting England in the war of the Revolution. Still others, more ignorant and superstitious, were sure that the end of the world had come, that the ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... fulfilled, and they had shelled the town with the same battery. They had the range well, and every shot fell near the post headquarters. It was exciting to see the great Blakely shell, showing a light as it rose, and moving slowly towards us like a comet, then exploding and scattering its formidable fragments. Yet, strange to say, no serious harm was done to life or limb, and the most formidable casualty was that of a citizen who complained that a shell had passed through the wall of his bedroom, and carried off his ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Mercy, whom the whole country round about knew for the most righteous Desperiers of them all. The noble line was ending nobly in her pure and lofty and most gracious womanhood. She was the star of society, if the "sweet influences" might only be bound,—no comet, no fiery splendor of intellect or passion, but a pure light that would still shine through all paling, and enter with its own distinct ray into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... brought their complaint to the sun— "In ether a star quite unknown! If to-night this same comet shall shine Whose radiance extinguished our own, We must all, our old ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... were not for human utterance now, and we sat together, hand locked in hand for a time, waiting for the end, as men may wait in years to come, when the earth is gray with sin, for the coming of the fiery comet that they know is destined ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... a fascination of the earth, so is there a fascination of the heavens. Along the dim, empurpled highways that lead from star to star, from meteorite to comet, the imagination travels wakefully by night, and the heart leaps as it draws near to the silver bosses of the moon. Mrs. Merillia was soon obliged to permit the intrusion of a gigantic telescope into ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... his soliloquy when half-drunk; the 'Corsair' would have made a splendid episode in an epic—but the epic, where is it? and 'Cain,' his most creative work, though a distinct and new world, is a bright and terrible abortion—a comet, instead of a sun. So, too, are the leading works of poor Shelley, which resemble Southey in size, Byron in power of language, and himself only in spirit and imagination, in beauties and faults. Keats, like Shelley, was arrested ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... over England there rushed the bright stranger—a meteor, a comet, a fiery star! "such as no man before ever saw;" it appeared on the 8th, before the kalends of May; seven nights did it shine [235], and the faces of sleepless men were pale ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and all, Rinaldo far exceeds, Star of his sphere, the diamond of this ring, The nest where courage with sweet mercy breeds: A comet worthy each eye's wondering, His years are fewer than his noble deeds, His fruit is ripe soon as his blossoms spring, Armed, a Mars, might coyest Venus move, And if disarmed, then God himself ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... The Mudville center-fielder smiles and reaches forth in glee, He knows that fly's an easy out for such a man as he. Beware, oh rash and reckless youth, nor o'er your triumph gloat, For toward you like a comet flies O'Reilly's billy-goat. ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that the smith, blinded and suffocated by the smoke, his hair blazing like the tail of a comet, his hands bleeding, and his clothes torn, rolled upon the ground, roaring with pain, a stream of water, issuing from the engine, and directed by Toussaint Gilles, inundated him from head to foot, time enough to save a part of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... every reason to believe came Dr. Groschen. But if his ancestors came from Rhine or Jordan, that he received his education on the other side of the Atlantic I have no doubt. Why he came to Oxbridge I cannot say. He appeared quite suddenly, like a comet. He brought introductions from various parts of the world—from the British Embassy at Constantinople, from the British and German Schools of Archaeology at Athens, from certain French Egyptologists at Alexandria, and a holograph letter from Archbishop Sarpedon, Patriarch of Hermaphroditopolis, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... gold. And behind them shinin' towers wus shadowy mountain ranges of softest color, that melted up into the tender blue of the April sky. And right in the east a full moon wuz sailin', lookin' down tenderly on Josiah and me and the babe—and Jonesville and the world. And the comet sot there up in the sky like a ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... goeth against the fealty and homage due from him and his predecessors?" The answer was, that the lord ought in that case to take back the fief as his own property. "As my name is Louis," said the king, "the Comet of La Marche doth claim to hold land in such wise, land which hath been a fief of France since the days of the valiant King Clovis, who won all Aquitaine from King Alaric, a pagan without faith or creed, and all the country to the Pyrenean mount." And the barons promised ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Of a certain Comet that appeared in Germany, and how Dr. Faustus was desired by certain Friends of his to ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name— "Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer! Now, Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blixen! To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall! Now, dash away! Dash ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... that point just now," was Tom's rejoinder. "Right now, you'll please put your hands up over your head." Then as the outlaw obeyed, Tom added—"Way up with 'em. Pick me a star or two out of the sky. Keep 'em up there and watch a comet while one of my friends goes through you ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... With homely features round him every day, And so takes refuge in the loving eyes Which are their heaven, the dwelling-place of light), Must straightway lift his eyes unto the heavens, Like God's great palette, where His artist hand Never can strike the brush, but beauty wakes; Vast sweepy comet-curves, that net the soul In pleasure; endless sky-stairs; patient clouds, White till they blush at the sun's goodnight kiss; And filmy pallours, and great mountain crags. But beyond all, absorbing all the rest, Lies the great heaven, the expression of deep space, ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... cloak over her shoulders. But her arms peeped out of the loose sleeves, and at least a foot of skirt was visible. As she walked along the corridor and down the stairs, she seemed to smudge the place with colour, and, directly she entered the dining-hall, comet-like she drew all eyes upon her. Astonished titterings followed in her wake; even the teachers goggled her, afterwards to put their heads together. In the reception-room Marina remarked at once: "Hullo!—is THIS the new dress your mother wrote ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall! Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!" As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So, up to the house-top the coursers ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... and his men were received with every mark of joy. Only Atahuallpa looked on sadly, seeing the chances of regaining his freedom, or maintaining it if he did regain it, lessened by the increased number of his enemies, and to add to his dejection a comet just then made its appearance in the heavens. As one had been seen shortly before the death of the Inca's father, Huayna Capac, he looked upon it as a warning of evil to come, and a dread of the future took possession ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... can go through an assorted collection of brain stufferies, get so many college degrees that his name looks like Halley's Comet with an alphabet tail, and then teach college students for forty years without even taking one of them apart to find out what he is made of, beats my time! That's a college professor for you, right through. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... Catholic treatise, entitled "The Church of England truly represented," begins by informing us that "the ignis fatuus of reformation, which had grown to a comet by many acts of spoil and rapine, had been ushered into England, purified of the filth which it had contracted among the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Correspondent of The Times suggests that the new star may have been produced through a sun being struck by a comet. This raises the question as to whether suns ought not to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... beside my little girl this minute, and not be scared to either, Shelby. My dad used to say something about 'man being his own star,' I don't recollect it all, but I know it meant he could be one of the first magnet if he'd a mind to. I set out to be a comet, I reckon, all hot air tail, and there isn't much of me left worth ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... idiot, Betsy. I know that, but I wish you could understand how I feel. Power! I am the head-waters of Niagara! I could pluck down the stars and set them in different places! I could twist the tail from the comet! I could twirl the globe on my palm and topple mountains and wipe lakes from the surface! I am a live man, Betsy. Existence is over. So don't you go at any tricks or I might pull off your head. Betsy, if you see the tallest girl you ever saw, and she wears a dark diadem, and has big black eyes and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... he replied, "in Ireland." I slept, wonderful to say, through part of our journey here, in one of those most uncomfortable cars, but woke up as we approached the station. The night was splendid (we had seen the comet at Rochester), and the moon was so bright as to make it almost as light as day; you may imagine our excitement when we saw, in the distance, rising above the trees, a light cloud of mist ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... the beauteous rustic maid, And to a place of strength the prize conveyed: You took her thence; to Court this virgin brought, Dressed her with gems, new-weaved her hard-spun thought, And softest language sweetest manners taught; Till from a comet she a star did rise, Not to affright, but please, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... dashed with glory, infinite shades, And misty minglings of the sea and sky. If only fields—the humble man of heart Will revel in the grass beneath his foot, And from the lea lift his glad eye to heaven, God's palette, where his careless painter-hand Sweeps comet-clouds that net the gazing soul; Streaks endless stairs, and blots half-sculptured blocks; Curves filmy pallors; heaps huge mountain-crags; Nor touches where it leaves not beauty's mark. To them the sun and air are feast enough, As through field-paths and lanes they slowly ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... and then one darted out into the full sunshine in chase of butterfly or beetle, its loose tail-feathers spreading out comet-like and waving in ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... those stories which fix a type of loving. It is the love of a man of the most brilliant genius, the most relentless, mocking intellect, for a simple, pretty woman, who could no more understand him than a cow can understand a comet. Many men of genius have loved just such women, and the world, of course, has wondered. How is it that men of genius prefer some little Mathilde, when the presidents of so many women's clubs are theirs for the asking? Perhaps the problem is not so difficult as, at first sight, ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne
... and hauling, trampling, shrieking, and at last strangulation. Surely the Devil will reward such a Five of his Elect?—But we detain Herr Busching: it is still only Friday morning, 9th of the month; and the Czarina's Hackney Coach, in the manner of a comet and tail, has just gone into ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... bright fantasies in mid-air more lasting than the kingdoms of the world! Blind and unhappy Zabastes! ... he is ignorant as a stone, and for him the mysteries of Nature are forever veiled. The triumphal hero-march of the stars,—the brief, bright rhyme of the flashing comet,—the canticle of the rose as she bears her crimson heart to the smile of the sun,—the chorus of green leaves chanting orisons to the wind—the never completed epic of heaven's lofty solitudes where the white moon paces, wandering like a maiden in ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the work was, as yet, only half done. The fire was still roaring and raging, every puff of wind that blew through the black firmament, driving the red sparks high into the air, where they died away like the tail of a comet, or the train of a skyrocket; the joisting crazing, cracking, and tumbling down; and now and then the bursting cans playing flee in a hundred flinders from the chimney-heads. One would have naturally enough thought that our engine could have drowned ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... me as a comet, with a very long tail. The superstitious thought my appearance to be significant of some coming misfortune. Some draughtsmen took my figure, as far as they could descry it, so that when I landed I found paintings of myself, and engravings taken ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg |
