"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an Indian whom I was to know during many years, was one of our neighbors. He frequently passed our cabin with his canoe and people. He was a great hunter, a crack shot, and an all-round Indian of good parts. Many is the saddle of venison that he brought me in the course of years. Other pioneers likewise had special friends among ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... Peking branch of the Tract Society is bankrupt just now—and get them out, you shall have specimens. Probably they won't look well, being first attempts, but you need not be ashamed of the Mongol of them, as they have been written under my direction by a "crack" native scholar, and carefully revised by Schereschewsky, who is a general linguist of good ability, and has paid so much attention to Mongolian that he revised the Gospel by Matthew in conjunction with Mr. Edkins, and is at present at work ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... and an almost indispensable element in such a work as mine. Had it consisted solely of exhortations to industry and rules of economy, it would have been dismissed with an "Ou ay, it's braw for him to crack that way: but if he were whaur we are, 'deed he wad just hae to do as we do." But by mixing up the science with politics, and giving it an occasional political impetus, a different result may be reasonably expected. In these days no man can be considered a patriot ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... were on excellent terms with each other. His father, though a very grave, pious man, whose delight was to go to the Old South Church with his large family, allowed little Ben to crack his jokes on him. ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... rest were praying and shrieking he had cut the lashings of the ship's long-boat and stayed there all the time, having put on board the nautical instruments, two or three fish-hooks, a gross of lucifer matches, and a sauce-pan. At last the storm struck the ship, as I have stated, and at the first crack away went the vessel to the bottom, leaving my grandfather floating alone on the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... unwearied diligence supplied every defect; was an insatiable and universal reader; meant for the Church, took to poetry and philosophy, became an author, putting forth the strangest books with the strangest titles; considered for a time a strange, crack-brained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon; was recognised at last as a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration; his writings procured him friends and fame, and at length a wife and a settled pension; settled in Baireuth, where he lived thenceforth diligent and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... had looked forward to taking students, but they were all to have been Portias, every woman Jane of them; and before her own learning was fairly dry (which I think an eminently proper adjective to describe legal learning) there appeared to her an obviously crack-brained old party in an india-rubber cloak, who kept a candy-store and wanted her daughter to become a lawyer. No wonder Mrs. Tarbell was embarrassed. Was she to say to the crack-brained one, "Madam, pay me one hundred dollars per annum and I will take your daughter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... beside her and grabs her and picks her up, and about as quick as she knew anything, she was gagged and bound and being bore along through the air. I reckon it was a terrible moment for her. Now there is a crevice in the top of the mountain that nobody don't never explore, because it's just a crack in the rock that ain't to be climbed out of without a ladder. So the Injun carries her there, and lets her down with a rope that it seems he must of had handy somewheres, and he puts out; and there she is, in a holler in the mountain, not able to move or cry out no more than if she'd ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... our eyes; then bumped our heads together with a crack in our eagerness to lean over and see where we ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... went up, and crack! crack! crack! in quick succession, three or four or five reports—I don't know how many. At the first shots the Sheriff fell forward on his face. Williams started to run along the side-walk; the groups ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... extraordinary military feat of their victory over the Gurkhas of Nepal, when a force of seventy thousand men of the Middle Kingdom crossed the whole width of the most inaccessible country in the world, and, fighting at a distance of two thousand miles from their base, defeated the crack warriors ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly, Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai, Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back, And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... slander, my lady," he cried, pointing at Sir John, who stood like a man who wakes from long sleep and is bewildered by the thoughts which rush through his brain. "I laughed till I was like to crack my sides." Then to Sir John, "Thou hadst but just left Clo Wildairs and I rode with thee to Essex. Lord, how I laughed to watch thee groping to find a place safe enough to put it in. 'I'm drunk,' says thou, 'and I would have it safe till I am sober. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Crack! At the report of the pistol the hares bounded forward. In barely more than a minute afterwards they were ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and showed, by their frightful ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the good ladies of the Ursulines, to present, with the compliments of the season, the usual New Year's gifts, was he driven in a cariole, and in the summer season in a caleche? Here, again, is a nut to crack ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... crash seemed to rend the very heavens above them: a crack as of the thunder that follows close upon the bolt,—a rending and crashing as of a forest snapped through all its stems, torn, twisted, splintered, dragged with all its ragged boughs into one chaotic ruin. The ground trembled under them as in an ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... out all time. The step was a big limestone rock. She opened the door and put the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move. The moon come up. I couldn't get her ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... crystals hung from the ceiling or formed rows of pillars, even the copper which made the walls of the cave had a coating of green. Wayland broke off a huge projecting lump and left the cave, which instantly closed up so that not a crack remained to tell where the opening ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms, All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, though the dark Scowls above me where I go. You can hear me; you can mingle ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... retorted Wright, kicking the bar with his foot, "nine feet of it, by Master Percy's computation, and, I warrant, as many years will be required to see the further side. Try it, good Catesby, 'tis a nut a giant could scarce crack, though he ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... into his brother's by determining to get on the scene early enough to have first crack at the treasure. He meant to get away with that, leave his brother to deal with Alwa's men, circle round, and then attack his ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... ice was perfect; the utter stillness of the air at the time when the final congelation of the waters had taken place had resulted in the formation of a surface that for smoothness would rival a skating-rink; without a crack or flaw it extended far beyond ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... the name that forest bears, Where rude old Winter raves and tears. Now splits a beech with such a crack That all the valleys echo it back. —My goodness! when these sounds I hear I'm glad a pious stove's so near, Which warms you so the long hours through That night seems fraught with blessings too. —Just now I well might feel afraid, When thieves and murderers ply their trade; 'Tis ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... there was a faint rasping sound, then a sharp crack, and the rustle of two half-nutshells through the leaves. One of them struck the side of the hazel-stump and bounded off like an elastic ball. Before the dormouse had collected his wits, a fine kernel was thrust through the nest and the squirrel had ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... help of some people I found in the bar-room, I took him into the public house. Bedad, it was a hard crack you guv him," added the hackman, in a low tone. "If you pay me the tin dollars, I ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... principle till he had thrown it into a paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less an apostle, he liked to stir people's minds by what startled them, waking them up, or giving them "nuts to crack." An almost solemn gravity with amusement twinkling behind it—not invisible—and ready to burst forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out, was a very frequent ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... He was mad clean through when he made that crack to Moraga. I tell you there's no use being a ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Again Hinkson's good aim brought another wolf to the ground, but a few of the pack, mad with the taste of blood, kept on in hot pursuit. Hinkson brought down a third and dodged a fourth that sprang at the horse's flanks. Again the wolf jumped and would have crippled horse and rider had not the crack of another gun sounded upon the frosty air. It belonged to Thomas Keats, then on his way home from town meeting. The wolves, frightened by the double-attack and weakened in numbers, slunk away into ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... efforts to crack down on career criminals, organized crime, drugpushers, and to enforce tougher sentences and paroles are having effect. In 1982 the crime rate dropped by 4.3 percent, the biggest decline since 1972. Protecting ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... through the air. A smart crack followed and up into the blue leaped the ball, defying the pursuit of ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... neither the height nor the weight, being a flimsy creature alongside a man like me, and, besides, I was blazing to that height of wrath that I could have bit into a chisel. I gave him first the one and then the other, so that I could hear his head rattle and crack, ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... upon a group of men who were standing in an open door way packing a dead body into a coffin too small for it. There was something truly revolting in the way they doubled up the arms and legs and squeezed in the shoulders of the deceased man—one could hear the bones crack. I watched the brutal proceedings for a minute or so, and then ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... slapping his open palm down on his knee. "Greenfield's the hardest nut we've got to crack in the whole business. He's the sort of man you can't talk to on a square business basis. You've got to mince things damned fine with him, and he's chairman of the Railroad Committee, you know. He'd have a tremendous amount ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... could be, except that its throat moved (the window and lizard, are reduced to about one-fifth of life size), and its eye meditated evil. I ventured to put the end of my stick near it, and it went off with such alarming speed that I hastily withdrew my stick. It had vanished into a crack, I'd never have dreamed a small crevice in a window sash could hold such an extraordinary creature! I must look him up in "E. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... You are not so small as I, And not half as spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut." ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... such employment, and therefore left him to roam about with his rifle. This was a glorious country for the youth; wild woods were all around him, and the game, having not yet learned to fear the crack of the rifle wandered fearlessly through them. This he thought was, of all places, the home for him. I hope you will not think that he was the idle and useless boy of the family, for it was not so. While the ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... Nay, though the treach'rous tapster,[2] Thomas, Hangs a new Angel two doors from us, As fine as daubers' hands can make it, In hopes that strangers may mistake it, We[3] think it both a shame and sin To quit the true old Angel Inn. Now this is Stella's case in fact, An angel's face a little crack'd. (Could poets or could painters fix How angels look at thirty-six:) This drew us in at first to find In such a form an angel's mind; And every virtue now supplies The fainting rays of Stella's eyes. See, at her levee crowding swains, Whom Stella freely entertains With breeding, humour, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... "There's intelligence upon both sides. But for my private part I have no particular desire to harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very well for me across the water. I'm a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books and my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at e'en. Where do ye come in with your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well enough that unostentatious immodesty is no part of your partner's programme. Of course, you will find yourself by-and-bye in a sort of perpetual parade with your crack-brained visionary— ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... on deck!" brought the sleeping watch from the bunks below, and the carpenter, steward, and sailmaker from the steerage. The foresail ripped from its bolt ropes with a deafening crack, and tore to ribbons in the gale. As the ship lay into the wind, I could hear the captain's voice louder than the very storm, "Meet her!—Meet her!—Ease her off!" But the reply of the man at the wheel was lost in the rush of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... She did—with a crack that shook the rigging and caused it to rattle like buckshot in a pan. A terrible cry—such a cry, indeed, as might burst from the lips of a mother seeing her only child run down by the Limited—burst from poor Captain Scraggs. "My ship! my ship!" ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... red at the unexpected compliment, but before she had time to enjoy it, or to reply, there came a sudden knock at the dining-room door, and Janey's black face peered in at the crack. ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the W.N.W.—as we still sank in grey ashes—were two conical hillocks. In the distance, to the west, two small flat-topped plateaux rose above the sky-line, and also two hills shaped not unlike the backs of two whales. On our left we had an immense crack or fissure extending from north-east to south-west between the hill-range on which we travelled and another on the south—both showing huge domes of eruptive rock, apparently extensive flows of red lava subsequently blackened on the surface by weathering. On the opposite side to ours the rock was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... friend's hand, then went on, very cautiously this time, for a little way, until he heard the crack of the Express, followed by the Hunter's bull voice calling on the men to "stand ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and growled and barked like mad. Bimeby he got tired, and come back lookin' kind o' skeered, and says I: 'Ye're a purty dog, ain't ye?' Jest then I hearn the thing nigher, and I begun to hear the brush crack. I knowed I'd got to meet some new sort of a creetur, and I jest stepped back and took my rifle. When I stood in the door agin, I seen somethin' comin'. It was a walkin' on two legs like a man, and it was a man, or somethin' that looked like one. He come toward the cabin, and stopped about three ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... stiff, and stretched his limbs to such an extent that we could hear the bones crack. His back became arched, and then he expired with horrible convulsions, which held his limbs stiffened and extended to their utmost limits—truly, the most awful and agonising of deaths, and a torture in the last moments ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... by no means improbable that oxidation may have rendered a portion of the oil insoluble. The decorticated kernels gave a perfectly sweet, inodorous, and almost colorless oil, which rapidly thickens to an almost colorless, transparent, and perfectly elastic skin or film, which does not darken or crack easily by age. These are properties which, for fine art painting, might be of great value in preserving the tinctorial purity and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... not the language of a common woman, but the language of a lady of rank.(2) Then he determined at all hazards to get one glimpse of her face; and he crept round the house, backwards and forwards, peering through every crack and chink. And at last he was able to see;—but therewith an icy trembling seized him; and the hair of ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... had abandoned. However, a strong guard was posted at once; those Bedouin who had taken up their abode on the premises were evicted; and preparations were made to face a somewhat stormy night. All that night through the crack of rifles resounded. Although the bag next morning proved to be small, yet, for days afterwards, Bedouin kept dropping in at our hospitals with bullet wounds to be dressed, as to the cause of which they could ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... long-ago people manage? Their walls were not sheeted, and they did not know the use of building-paper. Our old wide siding had been laid directly on the bare timbers, the studding; every crevice under the windows, every crack in the plaster, was a short circuit with zero. We decided to take off the antique siding, cut out the bad places, and relay it flat, as sheeting. Over it we would lay building-paper, and on top of this, good ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... artist-red hair—was very much taken with their plan. "To turn an honest penny in these hard times, and not be wronging any one, would just suit the likes of her. And there was the store standing empty,—but it might stand till the crack o' doom afore she'd have a drop of rum sold in it. There never was a better man than Den when he was sober, and sure she'd had sorrow enough along wid drinking. And there was Barney growin' up, and the two smaller ones, and she'd never, never ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... nature of the ground so completely favoured our approach, that they did not become aware of it until we were within a few yards of them, and had ascended a little ridge, which, as we afterwards discovered, ended in an abrupt precipice upon the river, not more than thirty yards to our right. The crack of the drayman's whip was the first thing that aroused their attention. They gazed upon us for a moment, and then started up and assumed an attitude of horror and amazement; their terror apparently increasing upon them. We stood perfectly ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... and through a crack of the door obtained Miss Florrie's permission to keep the cloak and skirt for the morning, as he wanted to see later how the drinking was progressing. Florrie consented, and he went to his room ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... the fuz. Not he; he slouches his hat over's eyes, and stands quite cool by fust fuz bush—I minded then as we was out o' our beat. Hows'ever my blood was up; so I at's him then and there, no words lost, and fetches a crack at's head wi my stick.' He fends wi' his'n; and then, as I rushes in to collar'n, dash'd if 'e didn't meet I full, and catch I by the thigh and collar, and send I slap over's head ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... that he cracks his whip? Does he pitend to be angry? If he pitends to be angry, why do all the others pitend that they think he doesn't pitend, but only,—Why does the gentleman crack his whip?" ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... organization to watch the war-makers we shall never end war, any more than a country can end crime and robbery without a police. Specialist must watch specialist in either case. Mere expressions of a virtuous abhorrence of war will never end war until the crack ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Grieve,' he said cheerily, 'we have been agreeing—your husband and I—that it will be best for you to go up to London and have that cheek looked at by one of the crack surgeons. They will give you the best advice as to what to do with it. It is not a common ailment, and we are very fine fellows down here, but of course we can't get the experience, in a particular line of cases, of one of the first-rate ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an epithelioma of the prepuce occurring in persons past middle life, beginning as a tubercle, crack, or wart, for which he advises an early circumcision; he admits, however, to not having sufficient data to determine whether Jews and circumcised persons are exempt from carcinoma of the penis; but as its usual ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... like a covey of frightened chickens before the echoes were done playing with the gun-bark. On the heels of Blink's shot came the crack of Happy Jack's "howitzer" as he fired blindly toward the hoof-beats. There was more shooting while they scurried to where their horses, snorting excitement, danced uneasily at the edge of the bushes. Only one man ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... right down to the river, all smooth and turfy, you know; and I was standing at the top, when Charlie comes slyly, and saying he would help the little bird to fly, gave me one push, and down I went, roll, roll, tumble, tumble, till Sylvia REALLY thought she heard my neck crack! Wasn't it fun?" ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he had left off doing so? Besides, was it not too late, at his age, to recommence a career? not to speak of the absurd rumors that had been circulating about him, the name which they had given him of a crack-brained genius. He would not find a single patient now, it would be a useless cruelty to force him to make an attempt which would assuredly result only in a lacerated heart and empty hands. Clotilde, on the contrary, had used all her influence to turn him from the idea. Martine comprehended ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... the last ounce of energy in their exhausted frames. They were blind, deaf and dumb, straining, gasping, forcing "heart and nerve and sinew" to drive the leaden boat through those last few yards. Suddenly, far above their heads, rang out the crack of a rifle, and the next instant another. The crew collapsed ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... queer kind of dawn life went on between the small boy and me. Morning after morning he threw a pebble to waken me and I hurried down to our tryst, which extended through the hour that lies between the crack of day and the first glint of the awakening sun. At first I had carried sweetmeats to our tryst, which were accepted with moderate pleasure, but one morning I had taken a huge volume of Rackham's Mother Goose which ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and writing, was done secretly and in spare moments. And his zeal was such that often in the middle of the night it would compel him to rise and, after drawing the shades carefully and stopping the crack under the door with his cassock, light his candle and dig away at his ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... strokes; Then of the joys that charm'd, or woes that wrung, Forces expression from the faithful tongue: But if the actor's words belie his state, And speak a language foreign to his fate, Romans shall crack their sides, and all the town Join, horse and foot, to laugh th' ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... and am looking about me, when my eye lights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me, but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closed to a mere black line; though this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and grotesque. It is a new effect, the night side of the woods by daylight. After observing them a moment I take a single step toward them, when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a very acute and intelligent one, became terrified at these alarming symptoms of danger, especially as the ice began to crack, and loud and prolonged reports reached them from every direction. Another most suspicious thing was the sudden disappearance of the company of merchants, whom they had all along kept well in sight. There was something wrong, he was fully convinced, ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... of room to move, w'ich it ain't so with a flour-barrel. An' then the smell! Oh! you've no notion! W'y, that's wuth the price of a night's lodgin' itself, to say nothin' o' the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o' sugar, that the former tenants has failed ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... withstand a gradually applied, evenly distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be nothing very serious in itself,—no more so than a rent produced by the hydraulic press,—if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of a thousand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bide his own time,—happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that this day he has seen something ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wouldn't sell it to you for that much. You've been so kind to me that I ought to be willing to make any sacrifice for you. I happen to need four dollars very particular just now, and I've a mind to sell him to you on your own terms." He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at a crack in the floor, as he stood by the fire with his hands in his pockets. "Yes," he said, at last, "you can have him for four dollars, if you'll keep mum about us being here for one more day. You can leave the ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... chemical books and attend chemical lectures, but that he should actually perform the fundamental experiments in the laboratory for himself, and thus learn exactly what the words which he finds in his books and hears from his teachers, mean. If he does not do so, he may read till the crack of doom, but he will never know much about chemistry. That is what every chemist will tell you, and the physicist will do the same for his branch of science. The great changes and improvements in physical and chemical scientific education, which have taken place of late, have ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... lest of the reward for whoso exceedeth in talk and vexeth the folk and turneth their joy to annoy.' This is what I wish, and no more." Said the Caliph, "Allah grant thee that thou seekest! Let us crack one last cup and rise ere the dawn draw near, and to-morrow night I will be with thee again." Said Abu al-Hasan, "Far be it!" Then the Caliph crowned a cup, and putting therein a piece of Cretan Bhang,[FN20] gave it to his host and said to him, "My ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... landing was made immediately, and while some of the men held the boats ready to pick up a prize, the others beat the island. I was assigned to man our boat, and as we waited up against the bank under the bushes, we could hear the rifles crack. Then all was still. Suddenly I heard a crashing of bushes and a hundred yards above us a superb black-tail sprang into the water and swam for the east bank. My sensation was divided between a desire to see the deer escape, and a desire to ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... blazes, as the blazing hayrick burned, The sucking pigs were in a crack, all into crackling turned; Grilled chickens clog the hencoop, roasted ducklings choke the gutter, And turkeys round the poultry yard on ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... at a time. Close to the front line of spectators, however, there came a check. People were vexed at the audacity of the girl and the elderly woman, and would have pushed them back, but at the critical second the blue and silver uniformed band of Rhaetia's crack regiment, the Imperial Life Guards, struck up an air which told that the Emperor was coming. Promptly the small group concerned forgot its grievance, in excitement, crowding together so that Virginia was pressed to the front, and only Miss Portman ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... what I'd do with it if it was mine. First, I'd buy pocketfuls of gingerbread; then I'd buy ever so many apples and nuts. Don't you love nuts? I'd buy nuts enough to last me from this time to Christmas, and I'd make little Newton crack 'em for me, for that's the worst of nuts; there's the trouble of ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... also a portentously swollen under-lip, with a crack in it which showed signs of festering. Now there was a base hospital at Figueira, to the surgeon in charge of which fell the duty of inspecting the men as they landed and detaining those who were sick or physically unfit. I need not say that his eye was arrested ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tumult moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork—a big rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it a little from its fatal end? He was strong enough to do it, if he only understood. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... time for your mind to be calm. But I must not affront you by my incredulity. Speak, then, but be quick, for I do not pretend to be calm; it not being, thank my stars, 'mon metier d'etre philosophe.' Crack goes the last seal—speak now, or for ever after hold your tongue, my calm philosopher of Oakly-park: but do you wish me to attend to what you are going ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... at daybreak by the chiming of bells, and soon afterwards muskets began to crack, near and far. Then there were noises all over the house, and presently what seemed to be a procession of horses or elephants began to thunder up and down the wooden stairs. In vain I tried to snatch the last ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Foster's activity was always salutary, in that Foster would prove to any man how small a space the acquisitions of a lifetime could be made to occupy when the object was not to display but to pack them. Foster could put all your pride on to four wheels, and Foster's driver would crack a whip and be off with the lot of it as though it were no more ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... paraffin has been suggested as a means of overcoming this growth, the cheese being dipped at an early stage into melted paraffin. Recent experiments have shown that "off" flavors sometimes develop where cheese are paraffined directly from the press. If paraffin is too hard, it has a tendency to crack and separate from the rind, thus allowing molds to develop beneath the paraffin coat, where the conditions are ideal as to moisture, for evaporation is excluded and the air consequently saturated. The use of formalin (2% solution) has been suggested ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... Sergeant crack jokes like two old cronies. The embarrassed orderly, failing to find a retort, goes away ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... smith only said, rudely: "It's none of your business what I do." So Fausch gave the trader a new nut to crack, though he had long puzzled over the smith's behavior and character. But Simmen, the landlord, of whom he also asked the cause of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... At the crack of the gun one of the largest mountain lions we have ever seen (you can imagine how large he appeared to the bold hunter) sprang from a cliff of rocks, and landed not over thirty feet from Curnutt, in an attitude looking anything but friendly, ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... a good deal to say, for it was a great fleet of vessels sailing out of Gloucester; but even so, even allowing for a young skipper's pride in his first crack vessel, it meant a whole lot coming like ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... Johnny. He put his hands close together on the rim of the wheel, settled his big shoulders, and hauled. With a sharp crack the wheel broke off in ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... man for his rank, not over thirty, with a fine, soldierly figure, handsome face and rather dandified air. He wore a brilliant uniform, which looked like that of some crack regiment of Guards. A cigar was in his mouth, and he was making a little nest for himself with rugs and books and papers, and a box of choice Havanas. A superb despatch box, with silver mounts, was plainly marked with his initials, ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... the two looked over together in that wainscoted parlour at Booth's Edge lie now in an iron case in a certain muniment-room. They are yellow now, and the ink is faded to a pale dusky red; and they must not be roughly unfolded lest they should crack at the creases. But they were fresh then, written on stout white paper, each occupying one side of a sheet that was then folded three or four times, sealed, and inscribed to "Mistress Marjorie Manners" in the middle, with the word "Haste" in the lower corner. ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... once or twice daily with a moderately stiff brush dipped in soft water into which has been dropped a few drops of the tincture of myrrh. A brush of badger's hair is best. If tartar accumulates, have it removed by a dentist. Do not bite thread or crack nuts with the teeth, or use the teeth for other purposes than those for which nature designed them." He bent toward his hearer with a smile of irresistible sweetness, drew his lips away from his gums, snapped ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... said Hamilton, and dropped his hand on his revolver, but before it was clear of his holster, there came a sharp crack, and the snake leapt up and fell back as a bullet went snip-snapping through the undergrowth. Then Hamilton saw Bones. Bones in his shirtsleeves, bareheaded, his big pipe in his mouth, who came hurriedly through the ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... had felt it before; no claw of desert beast was firmer or more unrelenting. Young Hortensius felt his whole body give way, his very bones crack beneath that mighty grip. His head, overheated with wine, fell back against the cushions of his couch, and he felt as if the last breath in him was leaving ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to the water's edge. The stream, says our author, "was frozen over thinely," but Miller "makes no more adoe, but venters over the haven, which is by the long bridge, as I gesse some forty yards over; yet he made nothing of it, but my hart aked when my eares heard the ise crack all the way. When he was come unto me," continues Armin, "I was amazed, and tooke up a brick-bat, which lay there by, and threw it, which no sooner fell upon the ise but it burst. Was not this strange that a foole of thirty yeeres was borne of that ise which would ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... kind to hurt or frighten their neighbors," began Nelly; but as she spoke, a plump white dove walked in, looked about with its red-winged eyes, and quietly pecked up a tiny bug that had just ventured out from the crack where it had taken refuge when the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer of the skeptic biographer, who weighed all men by the sum of ages and not by the age in which they lived, or the religious hero who carried a flaming cross into the darkness of the unknown West, as his reverential historians ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... remunerations they receive, to the newspaper and periodical press. But, in the fifteenth century, the vast majority of writers of manuscripts,—those who were in general employment from not commanding the high prices obtained by the "crack" transcribers, and might be compared to "penny-a-liners" among us, suppliers of scraps of news to the papers,—were still to be found only in convents, knowing more about ploughs than books, and for literary ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... rubbish, brush, old wood, and sods, and converting them into ashes or charcoal, is one which we could often adopt with decided advantage. Our premises would be cleaner, and we should have less fungus to speck and crack our apples and pears, and, in addition, we should have a quantity of ashes or burnt earth, that is not only a manure itself, but is specially useful to mix with moist superphosphate and other artificial manures, to make them dry enough and bulky enough to be easily and evenly distributed ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... no one seems to know what it is; to one and all he is "Jules," a capital patron who, having been a waiter himself, knows how to look after the personal tastes of his customers. These include the officers of the grenadiers, the crack Belgian regiment, whose barracks are close by, judges and barristers from the Palais de Justice, members of the King's household (the royal palace being nearly opposite), actors from the Moliere Theatre, sportsmen who foregather here on race-days, and the better-class Bohemians. ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... time of excitement. Dan Anderson himself drew the warrant. As it was read later by himself to Curly at the Lone Star, it did not lack a certain charm. It began with "Greeting," and ended with, "Now, therefore, in the name of God and the Continental Congress." Anderson did not crack a smile in reading it, and so far as that is concerned, the warrant worked as well as any and better than some. Curly, because he felt that he was in the hands of his friends, made no special demurrer to the terms of the "writ," and in a few moments the Lone Star was ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... the higher command; they have always wished to be in the front line"; and General Coybet said of the 371st and 372nd: "The most powerful defenses, the most strongly organized machine gun nests, the heaviest artillery barrages—nothing could stop them. These crack regiments overcame every obstacle with a most complete contempt for danger.... They have shown ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... cramped to stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of the door. ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... here," another one of the men said. "We wuz promised a station, but we haint goin' ter have no changin' of names. The railroad folks tried that down ter Skunk Hollow, settin' up a jim-crack station, all red shingles and fancy roof, and callin' it Ozone Valley. But they can't come any ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... bad when these great singers marry themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And the husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... charm which he recognised in some of Schubert's melodies, he did not care to hear those whose contours were too sharp for his ear, where feeling is as it were denuded, where one feels, so to speak, the flesh palpitate and the bones crack under the grasp of anguish. A propos of Schubert, Chopin is reported to have said: "The sublime is dimmed when it is followed by the common or ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and curses in harbor-English, and a second engine-room signal and a cessation of the screw thrashings. This was followed by a shower of carbine-shots and the plaintive whine of bullets above the upper-works, the crack and thud of lead against the side-plates. At the same time Blake heard the scream of a denim-clad figure that suddenly pitched from the landing-ladder into the sea. Then came an answering volley, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... Kew, and finding only a constable in charge, I made a thorough search through the place. In the dead man's room I naturally expected to find it, and after nearly a couple of hours searching in every nook and every crack I succeeded. It was hidden in the mould of a small pot-fern, standing in the corridor ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... he politely took off his old-fashioned top-hat; with his right he caught Prince Saradine so ringing a crack across the face that the white top hat rolled down the steps and one of the blue flower-pots rocked ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... "They'll crack old Tony on the skull, And preach and roar like Bashan bull, Or braying ass, of mischief full, Then seize old Jacob by the wool, And pull for ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... struck his wrist with a force that jerked up the barrel of the revolver. The spurt of flame, the sharp crack of the shot, the clatter of the Colt striking the edge of the precipice, all seemed to the girl to come simultaneously. A belated second afterward Lynch's furious curses came to her. With dilated eyes she saw him snatch frantically at the sliding weapon, and as ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... knees he looked round, and then crawled to a crack that appeared much wider than the rest, the boards being more than half an inch apart. Lying down over it, he was able to obtain a view of a portion of the room below. He could see a part of a long table, and looked down upon the heads of five men sitting on one side ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... heard Whigs crack o' the Saints in the Bass, my faith, a gruesome tale; How the Remnant paid at a tippeny rate, for a quart o' ha'penny ale! But I'll tell ye anither tale o' the Bass, that'll hearten ye up to hear, Sae ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... busy hum of men were already hushed in death, and the survivors, so used to scream and screech in their earnestness whenever they bought or sold, now showed an unwonted indifference about the affairs of this world: it was less worth while for men to haggle and haggle, and crack the sky with noisy bargains, when the great commander was there, who could “pay all their debts with the roll ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every crack, to touch the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... Soviet Union has surrounded itself with captive and sullen nations. Like a crack in the crust of an uneasily sleeping volcano, the Hungarian uprising revealed the depth and intensity of the patriotic longing for liberty that still burns within ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various |
