"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wellington remembered a crack in the wall, at the back of the house, through which he could see and hear, and quietly stationed ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... English: we can be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget restlessly on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... boots was in the girls' hands, and they were creeping softly through the empty corridors toward their respective rooms. As fate would have it, the only one who reached her room was Lilly White. To be sure, Fraeulein Sausmann, the German teacher, heard steps in her corridor, and, opening her door a crack, peeped out. When she saw Lilly White creeping along on the toes of her great feet, her boots, like two boats, held one in each hand, she only smiled, and said to herself, "Oh, Fraeulein White! She matters not. She studies no times at all," and shut ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... you dare crack a coward's crown, Or quarrel for a pin, You dare not on the wicked frown, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... some sense! We ain't slippin' you nothin'. I'd take the dogs 'n' leave you 'n' Peewee ride if I knew the way. What do you want to make a crack about quittin' fur just as the game's gettin' good?' I says. 'We cops a neat little bundle at our last stop, 'n' we'll grab a nice piece of change here. I feel ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... from here we enter another crevice which serves as a steep stairway descending to a lower level, and measures from top to bottom one hundred and eighteen feet. This is called Rip Van Winkle's Stairway, and although merely a high and crooked crack in the rock, is very beautiful because heavily coated with crystal, the effect being especially striking at the top where the crystal is partly worn away and leaves exposed patches ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... you left it stranded there in the wind and sun, green and sappy as it is now, ye'd have every seam and crack startin' till the ribs shone through, and no amount of calkin' would make it watertight agin. No; my idea is—clear out the brush and shadder around it! Let the light shine in upon it! Make the waste places glad around it, but keep it THERE! And that's my idea o' gen'ral missionary work; ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said the emperor, scratching his head with an expression of ludicrous surprise; "then we have really got back from the peach- stone to political affairs and the war-question. Now, this war- question is a hard peach-stone to crack, and the mere thought of it sets ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... suspended in the box experiment. Evidently the box had suggested to him the banana. For thirty minutes he struggled with the box almost continuously, chewing persistently at the hinges, the hasp, or the lock. Then he took the key in his teeth and tried to push it into one of the hinges, then into the crack beneath the lid ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... much could not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not understand; 'Twas the great day of mourning ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... told him. He is vulnerable to reason there—always a few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness. Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on. And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we should not see what we ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... when he was six months old, Baree was almost as large as Gray Wolf—big-boned, long-fanged, with a deep chest, and jaws that could already crack a bone as if it were a stick. He was with Nepeese whenever and wherever she moved. They swam together in the two pools—the pool in the forest and the pool between the chasm walls. At first it alarmed Baree to see Nepeese ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... something much more grossely material then the objects of the rest of the senses, as for instance in the discharging of a canon being a distance looking on we would think it gives fire long before it gives the crack, tho in wery truth they be both in the same instant. The reason then whey we sie the fire before we hear the crack is because the species Wisibiles that carries the fire to our eyes, tho material are ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... That is quite a usual plan with people who are prospectively fashionable. They do nothing with the drawing-room, library, and reception-room until the daughter of the house is pronounced ready. The plastering, after a dry of eighteen years, has had plenty of time to settle, and is not apt to crack the costly papers or ruin the elaborate frescoes; and the wood-work no longer in danger of warping or ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... his cart so as to form a seat for Lavinia, and having helped the girl to mount, bade Hannah adieu, a matter which took some few minutes and was only terminated by a hearty kiss which Hannah received very demurely. Then Giles after a crack of his whip started his horse, at the head of which he marched, and with waving handkerchiefs by Hannah and Lavinia the cart took the road ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... brathed, and still The dew of their great labor, and the blood Of their strong bodies, flowing, drain'd their force. But either's force was match'd till Yniol's cry "Remember that great insult done the Queen," Increased Geraint's, who heaved his blade aloft, And crack'd the helmet thro', and bit the bone And fell'd him, and set foot upon his breast And said, "Thy name?" To whom the fallen man Made answer, groaning, "Edyrn, son of Nudd! Ashamed am I that I should tell it them. My pride is broken: men have ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... continued Garvers, "it was the only explanation I had at the time. Either someone was watching me, which seemed impossible, or I was beginning to crack under ...
— The Untouchable • Stephen A. Kallis
... of the children huddled together for warmth in one bed, and the parents and balance of the family in the other. I slept on the floor near the door in my sleeping-bag, with my nose glued to the crack to get a breath of God's cold air, in spite of the need for warmth—for not a blanket did the house possess. When I asked, a little hurt, where were the blankets which we had sent last year, the mother somewhat indignantly ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Mail-Coach." The proper place to read about the coaches would be in Doctor Lyon's Pony Express Museum, out from Pasadena, California. May it never perish! Old Monte drives up now and then in Alfred Henry Lewis' Wolfville tales, and Bret Harte made Yuba Bill crack the Whip; but, somehow, considering all the excellent expositions and reminiscing of stage-coaching in western America, the proud, insolent, glorious figure of the driver ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a gale is rising. Now, if our ship had timbers they would crack, and if she had a bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each other we should not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its breakers dash against a heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains and battles fiercely with the water. This is "the pack," the edge ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... was never to reopen; but through its narrow crack Glennard, as the years went on, became more and more conscious of an inextinguishable light directing its small ray toward the past which consumed so little of his own commemorative oil. The reproach was ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... men, Mirandy's husband among them, surrounded a little fellow about six years old, who, having been made reeling drunk, was trying to walk a crack in the floor. The little victim swayed and tottered and struggled under the hilarious urging of ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... Mary's coaching, Annie did not knock again, but stood in pretty decision with her eyes straight before her. A leisurely footstep sounded within; the latch lifted with dignity, the door opened a crack at first, then more widely; and, outlined against a blacker background, stood the tall, stern, forbidding figure of Miss ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... good the Swedes had been to them; that the Swedes and Indians had been in the time of Governor Printz as one body and one heart; that they would henceforward be as one head, like the calabash, which has neither rent nor seam, but one piece without a crack; and that in case of danger to the Swedes they would ever serve and defend them. It was at the same time further arranged and agreed that if any trespasses were committed by any of their people upon the property ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... of moderation, but who is ready to resent any wilful insult: but I think you would be very wise to do as you say. Half an hour in a pistol-gallery every day is likely to be of vastly more use to you than any amount of Russian. The reputation that a man is a crack shot with a pistol will do more than anything in the world to keep him out of quarrels. Here at the depot at any rate, where the fellows are for the most part young, it would certainly save you a good deal of annoyance if it were known that, although not by any means a quarrelsome fellow, you ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... slowly and with effort, "if I was you, the first thing I did with that hammer, I'd crack ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... 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 ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... rocks and in the formation of debris. Rocks in exposed places are greatly affected by changes in temperature, and in regions where the changes in temperature are sudden, severe, and frequent, the rocks are not able to withstand the strain of expansion and contraction, and as a result crack and split. In the Sahara Desert much crumbling of the rock into sand has been caused by the intense heat of the day followed by the sharp frost of night. The heat of the day causes the rocks to expand, and the cold of night causes them to contract, and these two forces constantly at work loosen the ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... waterfall gave me back the reverberating words! How the lime trees rocked to the final crack of the whip over the unhappy Grafton! "The learned dullness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal Muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... I met him. I left a director's meeting and vital engagements, with indecent firmness, to meet that ship. At crack of dawn on a raw morning in March I arose and drove miles to a freezing pier to meet it. And presently, as I stood muffled in a fur coat, an elderly, grizzled, small man, grim and unexhilarating—presently the soul of this monotonous person broke into song. For out of the early morning, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... my mind," said Benoit, "that a man that nature twists in back, or leg, or body anywhere, gets a twist in's brain too. There's Parpon the dwarf—God knows, Parpon is a nut to crack!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... some shop to escape a street mob that was pursued by soldiers. Also, a bomb burst near me, once, in some still street, where, look as I would, up and down, I could see no human being. But my next sharp recollection begins with the crack of a rifle and an abrupt becoming aware that I am being fired at by a soldier in an automobile. The shot missed, and the next moment I was screaming and motioning the signals. My memory of riding in the automobile is very hazy, though this ride, in turn, ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... or pin drill. Where the cutters are secured, as usual, by a key, all mechanics know that it is very difficult to set a cutter twice alike; and the notch, which is filed in the cutter, to prevent it from moving endways, is a great source of weakness, often causing the cutters to crack in hardening, as well as after they are put to work. The inclosed sketch ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... gittin' mad 'bout it. Thet blamed quarter ye giv me rolled down a crack in the stoop, an' got lost. Sure. Got ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... man can hoist his brother into success. It is bound to be every man for himself. You can work over Arlt till the crack of doom, and that's all the good it will do him. People will say 'How noble of Mr. Thayer!' and they will burn moral tapers about your feet; and meanwhile they'll leave Arlt sitting on the floor alone in ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... 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 ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... and I had other cause to regret my course; for passing a door ajar, I looked through the crack, hearing voices, and found Mrs Pratt conversing very much at her ease with my prodigal—a thing which, though well enough in Congreve's comedies, is what I will not have in my family. I am so ill-bred as to be quite insensible to the romantic nights ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... thing thus agreed on, all hearty and hale, The lord and his party, at crack of the dawn, With hounds at their heels canter'd over the lawn. Arrived, said the lord in his jovial mood, 'We'll breakfast with you, if your chickens are good. That lass, my good man, I suppose is your daughter: No news of a son-in-law? ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... of stairs lighted by starlight from a window somewhere high up. At the head of the flight they came to a door, and through the crack beneath it streamed a warmer light than starlight. Ivra opened that door gayly, and through it with her, Eric went ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... in the white robes and the thick head-dress that hid her face, all except a little crack left for the eyes to peep through, whilst Betty, with the help of Inez, arrayed herself in the wondrous wedding robe beset with jewels that was Morella's bridal gift, and hid her dyed tresses beneath ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... furled and gasketed, awnings stretched, and sheets and tackles coiled harbour fashion, David Grief paced the deck and looked vainly for a flutter of life elsewhere than on the strange schooner. Once, beyond any doubt, he heard the distant crack of a rifle in the direction of the Big Rock. There were no further shots, and he thought of it as some hunter shooting a ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Are you desirous of becoming one, and making me your victim?" asked the hunter, with a look of contempt; "for you will find that no easy job, stout though you be. I have a good mind to crack your crown for coming here to ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... little bit. If you don't know your business, sir, I know mine. Somebody's got to tend that sling, and everybody's business is nobody's business. If I'm not on the job a bundle of shingles may come flying down from above and kill a man, or that heavy cargo block may crack a stevedore on the head. Who's going to look after the broken bundles and see that they're repacked if I don't? I can't do that and mule shingles round in this hold, sir; and what's more I'm not going ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... witnessed on the bloody day of Fuentes d'Onore, that of the Spanish guerilla chief, Julian Sanchez, deserves notice. At the head of his ragged and ill-disciplined band, he had the temerity to charge a crack French regiment, and, as might be expected, was sent back with a sore head. Whilst on the subject of guerillas, Mr Grattan combats an opinion which he believes many persons in this country entertain, "that the Spaniards and Portuguese did as much, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... shame of soldiers, Above the best of generals? crack the world, And bruise the name of Romans into dust, Ere ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... ice and water, the mountains themselves being the residual forms of this grand sculpture. I had heard the Via Mala cited as a conspicuous illustration of the fissure theory—the profound chasm thus named, and through which the Hinter-Rhein now flows, could, it was alleged, be nothing else than a crack in the earth's crust. To the Via Mala I therefore went in 1864 to instruct myself ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... again. Or lead me from this vile place, where one heareth naught but the squawk of birds and the croak of frogs. I would fain see the Green Dragon and the idiot groom that did send me here. I warrant thee I will crack his pate ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... 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 countenances and gestures, no unwillingness ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... shelter of the masonry, he lit a splinter and looked about for a door or an opening through which he could get down underground. After looking about fruitlessly for some time, at last he discovered a hole at the foot of the wall, which seemed to lead downwards. He put the burning splinter in a crack in the wall, and cleared out so much earth and rubbish with his hands that he could creep through. After he had gone some distance, he came to a flight of stone stairs, and there was now room enough for him to stand ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires. This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in consequence we find a number of these vents—as volcanic mountains may be styled—in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you came ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bottom of the wet mess of hair and red and flesh was old Shep, stone-dead. And as Saunderson pulled the body out, his face was working; for no man can lose in a crack the friend of a dozen years, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... gyardin dey had fur tuh skin. Ter fin' de crack whar Satan crept in Dey sarch fur and wide, dey sarch mighty well. Eve, she knowed, but she 'fused fur ter tell. Ole Satan's trail was all rubbed out 'Ceppen a track er two, whar he walked about. Talk about troubles, I ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... The clepsydrae that measure the centuries as they drop from the dizzy cliffs—the glaciers, by the descent of which "time is marked out, as by a shadow on a dial," and which thunder out the high noon of each revolving year with their frozen tongues, as they crack beneath the summer's sun—have registered a new centennial circle, and at the very hour of its completion, Switzerland vindicates her ancient renown in these fair pages, at once pledge and performance, of another ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... over this building—roof to cellar—within the hour. They'd not have overlooked a crack big enough for him to hide in. Put yourself in Clayte's place. Time was the most valuable thing in the world with him right then. If ever he got up to this roof, he'd not waste a minute longer on it than ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... made fast to the quay wall, but in forgetfulness that on a tidal river this fastening must be such as to allow for several feet of fall as the water ebbs. Therefore, about the inevitable hour of one o'clock, in the dark, there was a loud and ominous crack and jerk from the rope, and I knew too well the cause. In the rainy night it was a troublesome business to arrange matters, and next day was a drowsy one with me, spent in the strange ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... ascend to the belfry on moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened to ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... her, for, swerving suddenly, he made for the crossing without slackening speed. He had almost reached the water's edge when there came a spurt of flame from the door of Doubler's cabin, followed by the sharp whip like crack of ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Cattle this Dragon did eat, Some say he eat up Trees, And that the Forest sure he would Devour by degrees. For Houses and Churches were to him Geese and Turkies; He eat all, and left none behind, But some Stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack, Which on the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Doctor Bellamy, the better. Obstinate, swell-headed women give me an acute rectal pain. Pitching your curves over all the vizzies in space got you aboard, but it won't get you a thing from here on. And for your information, Doctor Bellamy, one more crack like that and I take you over my knee and ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... 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 ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... readily, when brought to a red heat," said Mr. Arcubus, abstractedly, as he pulled at his long fingers and made their joints crack. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and tough as it cools. Indeed, the true use of gold in this world is only as a very pretty and very ductile clay, which you can spread as flat as you like, spin as fine as you like, and which will neither crack, nor tarnish. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of years. My dear, how infinitely happier they will be together than they are being now. Funny old dears! Each at its own fireside, saying that it's too old, bless them! And you and I will sing 'Voice that breathed o'er Eden' and in the middle our angel-voices will crack, and we will sob into our handkerchief, and Eden will be left breathing deeply all by itself like the Guru. Why did you never tell me about the Guru? Mrs Weston's a better friend to me than you are, and I must ring for my cook—no I'll telephone ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... came back, Ma was sitting on a velocipede I used to ride, which was in the store-room, and she had her apron over her face, and she just more than bellowed. Pa he was pale, and he told the doc. he was just a playing with me with a little piece of board, and he heard something crack, and he guessed my spine got broke falling off the trunk. The doctor wanted to feel where my spine was broke, but I opened my eyes and had a vacant kind of stare, like a woman who leads a dog by a string, and looked as though my mind was wandering, and I told the doctor there was no use setting ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Carlyon asked again for the story of the Goddess's discovery, and heard all the details of how there was a ray of light in the dark passage, coming from some cleverly contrived crack on the first terrace. Here Halcyone's foot had struck against the marble upon her original voyage of discovery, and by the other objects she encountered she supposed someone long ago, being in flight, had gradually dropped things ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... Conrad's store, the 7th Louisiana, Colonel Hays, a crack regiment, on picket down stream, had a spirited affair, in which the enemy was driven with the loss of a score of prisoners. Shortly after, for convenience of supplies, I was directed to cross the river and camp some miles to the southwest. The ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... Kentuckians, eager to avenge the slaughter of their friends at River Raisin. For three days the pursuit continued. At last, on the morning of the 5th of October, the army came up with Proctor. Fernando was with the advance guard when they came on a small party of Indians. The sharp crack of their rifles warned the armies to prepare for action, and both ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... hardly backed three paces when he bumped into some one. He was pushed violently forward, and, before he could recover, winced under a stinging crack from a whip. ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... humanity, struggling up or slipping back, it is no culture properly so called, but a sham, a mask of wax, a varnish with cruel glitter; and what a double wrath will be poured on him who cracks the wax and the varnish, not only because of the rude awakening, but because the crack ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... at Liege, to the southeast, still held out, though fiercely bombarded by German siege guns. The fortress of Namur was also being attacked. The Germans had bridged the river Meuse and were moving their crack artillery against the Belgian lines. French troops had joined the Belgian defenders and the main battle line extended from Liege on the north ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... country would be able to afford it; and similar competitive leagues, to supersede trade unions, would soon be formed by other trades. One seems to hear faintly the loud plaudits of the onlookers as two crack teams of West-end road-menders step smartly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... avert the evil eye they hang round a child's neck a nut called bajar-battu, the shell of which they say will crack and open if any one casts the evil eye on the child. If it is placed in milk the two parts will come together again. They also think that the nut attracts the evil eye and absorbs its effect, and the child is therefore not injured. If they think that some one has ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... his party, traced in their corresponding places on the large existing detailed plan of the fort, all the injuries arising from the attack. Every hole in the ground, (whether caused by the mortar shells or round shot,) break in the walls, crack in the masonry, each gun dismantled or disabled, the burnt citadel, the hospital and outbuildings, the destroyed bridges and injured magazines, were noted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the storm came the thud of torn branches striking the house and the sharp crack of breaking glass. In three minutes every pane in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures covering the floor with stones, the smallest of which was as big as a hen's egg. For three ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... impossible to ignore the horrible truth. The door, cleverly constructed to serve the vengeful purposes of the Duchess, could not be opened from within. Rinaldo laid his cheek against the wall in various spots; nowhere could he feel the warmer air from the passage. He had hoped he might find a crack that would show him where there was an opening in the wall, but nothing, nothing! The whole seemed to be ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... off my rifle at a bird which I took for an eagle, little thinking how soon my wasted bullet (for I did not strike the bird) would be wanted in defence of my life. The crack of my piece reverberated from the green-topped bluffs that rose from the prairie; and I suppose it was this that brought Sir Bruin upon me. He came on with huge strides, and I had nothing but a hunting-knife to use in my defence, ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... crack and looked out. Before her, stretched along the banks of the river, were countless Austrian soldiers, staggering and fighting in a wild attempt to run away from the guns in the wall that mowed them down pitilessly. The officers tried to drive them ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... or unresisting; armed or unarmed; men, women and children alike were pitilessly being put to the sword. Charged was the air of Worcester with the din of that fierce massacre. The crashing of shivered timbers, as doors were beaten in, mingled with the clatter and grind of sword on sword, the crack of musket and pistol, the clank of armour, and the stamping of men and horses in that ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... returned it to his pocket, and clasped his hands about his knees, while he fixed his eyes on the glimmer of red showing itself through a crack in a stove-plate. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... described, we may say that "nigrography" is best adapted for copying drawings of a large size; the copies can with difficulty be distinguished from good autographs, and they do not possess the bad quality of gelatine papers—the tendency to roll up and crack. Drawings, however, which have shadow or gradated lines cannot be well produced by this process; in such cases it is better to adopt "anthrakotype," with which good results will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... letter for you, Alec!" he cried. "Where's my hammer, Flip? I want to crack some of those nuts we ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... from Cairo he allowed this feature of his character a much freer run. The legend used to be that he was looked upon in Egypt as rather grim, and by no means to be trifled with. He was not the man, we may be sure, to be funny with a Young Turk, or to crack needless jokes with a recalcitrant Khedive. But retirement softened him, and the real nature of Lord Cromer, with its elements of geniality and sportiveness, came ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the whole configuration of the heartless, uncharacterized place there was not one gracious inequality to lean against; not a ledge to rest elbow upon; not a panel, not even a stove-pipe hole, to become dearly familiar to the wistful eye; not so much as a genial crack in the plastering, or a companionable rattle in a casement, or a little human obstinacy in a door to base some kind of an acquaintance upon and make one less lonely. Through the grim, untwinkling windows, gaping sullenly the wrong way with ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... Columbus has been greatly misunderstood, and his 600 biographers have in turn invested him with the glory of the religious hero and the contumely of the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer. An impartial critic must admit, indeed, that he was something of both, though more of the hero than the adventurer, and that his biographers have erred considerably in what Mr. R. L. Stevenson would ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... is War," says Julius Fraithorn. He pulls out his handkerchief and wipes his damp forehead and the beady blue lines about his mouth, and the crack and rattle of rifle-fire sweeping over the veld and through the town, and the ping, ping, ping! of Mauser bullets flattening on the iron gutter-pipe and the corrugated iron of the roof above them seem ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... right before the boat. Blue lightning streamed on a lane of tumbling waters at its foot. Was this the entrance? With the vague notion of shortening sail, I let the sheet go from my hand. There was a jerk, the crack of snapped wood, and the next flash showed me Castro emerging from the ruins of mast and sail. He uprose, hurling the wreck from him overboard, then flickered out of sight with his arm waving to the left, and I bore accordingly on the tiller. In a moment I saw him again, erect forward, with the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... host to-day should be the bugler Peterkin, And he should lead our smugglers up that steep and narrow track, A band of noble brigands, bearing each a mighty pack Crammed with lace and jewels to the secret cave of Peterkin, And he should wear the biggest boots and make his pistol crack,— The Spanish cloak, the velvet mask, we'd ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... business over again, sergeant," said one of the troopers. "I was on this job before, and I reckon we landed hereabouts every time we lit on Retief's trail. But we never got no further. Yonder keg is a mighty hard nut to crack. I guess the half-breed's got the bulge on us. If path across the mire there is he knows it and we don't, and, as you say, who's goin' to follow him?" Having delivered himself of these sage remarks he stepped to ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... it will not run through the Trencher, though it stand melted upon it; and this is to be helped by blowing the Coals a little, or pouring on new Lead that is hotter: but the cooler the Lead, the larger the Shot; and the hotter, the smaller; when it it too hot, the drops will crack and fly; then you must stop pouring on new Lead, and let it cool; and so long as you observe the right temper of the heat, the Lead will constantly drop into very round Shot, without so much as one with a tail ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... story. In a sea fight in the reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor louse, returned him to ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... on the boom, and my companion also adhering to the gaff. Shortly after descending the Cascades, I perceived the barge, bottom upwards, floating near me. I succeeded in getting to it, and held by a crack in one end of it; the violence of the water, and the falling out of the casks of ashes, had quite wrecked it. For a long time I contented myself with this hold, not daring to endeavour to get upon the bottom, which I at length effected; and ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... cooked thus for invalids. The best way of lightly boiling an egg is to put it in boiling water, set the basin or saucepan on the side of the stove, and let it stand just off the boil for five or six minutes. Eggs often crack when they are put into enough boiling water to well cover them, owing to the sudden expansion of the contents. If they are not covered with water there is less danger of them cracking. One can easily tell stale eggs from fresh ones by holding them up to a strong light. A fresh egg looks clear and ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... lamp prevailed. The walls were of unpainted wood, made of slips as thin as laths, and several doors were roughly cut in it. At the end, one of these doors gaped open, music of a peculiar shrillness floated out. Also a smell as of musk and sandalwood drifted through the crack, with small, fitful trails of smoke ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to form a laager or fort, their families and belongings being placed in the centre. During an attack the women would attend to the men's wants, reload their rifles, and even take a more active part in repelling the enemy, many of them being also crack shots. The above-stated efficient and hardy habits with men and women apply more to the people in the two Republics, and particularly so to those of the Transvaal, while the Colonial Boers on the whole have had no such experience, but instead have ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... burst into song. The Abbe Domenech {42} has observed that the American savage pays attention to every sound that strikes upon his ear when the leaves, softly shaken by the evening breeze, seem to sigh through the air, or when the tempest, bursting forth with fury, shakes the gigantic trees that crack like reeds. "The chirping of the birds, the cry of the wild beasts, in a word, all those sweet, grave, or imposing voices that animate the wilderness, are so many musical lessons, which he easily remembers." In illustration ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood there, his head turned so his ear rested against the ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... in a heap upon the floor of a grey chamber. A small fire smoldered in the corner, the smoke disappearing in a crack. In another corner was a bed of faded hemlock boughs and two blankets. Cooking utensils and clothes lay about, with boxes ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... name of this castle confounded with that of Nueva Cordoba. This latter denomination was formerly synonymous with Cumana.—Herrera, page 14.) The walls of freestone, five feet thick, have been blown up by mines; but we still found masses of seven or eight hundred feet square, which have scarcely a crack in them. Our guide showed us a cistern (aljibe) thirty feet deep, which, though much damaged, furnishes water to the inhabitants of the peninsula of Araya. This cistern was finished in 1681, by the governor Don Juan de Padilla Guardiola, the same who built at Cumana ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... Presently his voice came from its depths, appealing in hollow tones to the sky. "He asks me—thees friend of my soul, thees brother of my life, thees Pancho that I lofe—what it was? He would that I should tell him why I am game in the legs, why I shake in the hand, crack in the voice, and am generally wipe out! And yet he, my pardner—thees Francisco—know that I have seen the mees from Boston! That I have gaze into the eye, touch the hand, and for the instant possess the picture that hand have drawn! It was a sublime picture, Pancho," he said, sitting ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... in us, to see that all His deeds are done in us. Christ's will must become our will, Christ's peace our peace, Christ's sufferings our sufferings, Christ's cross our cross, and then we may know "the eternal Sabbath," and keep "quiet, even if the whole fabrick of heaven and earth crack and the ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... which they were apparently well acquainted, and in this traveling was easy. But Rod gave an involuntary shudder as he gazed ahead into the chaotic tangle through which it led. At any moment he expected to hear the sharp crack of a rifle and to see Mukoki tumble forward upon his face. Or there might be a fusillade of shots and he himself might feel the burning sting that comes with rifle death. At the distance from which they would shoot the outlaws could not miss. Did not Mukoki realize this? Maddened by the thought ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... he said cheerfully. "Stamboul and I have been sliding all over it, so of course it would bear an ox. It did not crack anywhere." ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... get nex' to me wife, de Circassian Beaut',' answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts bum poetry about her, an' I won't stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight left in him and tried to break loose, but the Circassian's remarks wilted him and I never knew him to ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... word came to me out of the shadows with startling distinctness. I nodded. I sat there on that spindley, gim-crack chair and stared contemptuously at the paraphernalia of learning and refinement on the great table, at the silver cigarette box, the bronze inkstand, the sphinxes and scarabs and cenotaphs, the bits of papyrus under glass, the books and magnifying glasses. Stared at ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... apathetic way that he had intended to obey her behest but had not understood that she was in so great a hurry. "I am always in a hurry," she said. "I like things to be done—sharp." And she hit the table a crack. "Please bring me some iced water," this of course was addressed to the waiter. "And a glass ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... westward, and had, at the same time, closed in upon the land where the Griper was lying, by which means she was forced against the submarine ice, and her stern lifted two feet out of the water. This pressure, Lieutenant Liddon remarked, had given her a twist, which made her crack a good deal, but apparently without suffering any material injury in her hull, though the ice was still pressing upon her when Mr. Griffiths came away. She had at first heeled inward, but, on being lifted higher, fell over towards the deep water. Under ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... between the forest and an arm of the sea, they gently grounded the Callisto, and not being altogether sure how the atmosphere of their new abode would suit terrestrial lungs, or what its pressure to the square inch might be, they cautiously opened a port-hole a crack, retaining their hold upon it with its screw. Instantly there was a rush and a whistling sound as of escaping steam, while in a few moments their barometer stood at thirty-six inches, whereupon they closed the opening. "I fancy," said Dr. Cortlandt, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... villages above to their canoes in the rivers below. Lovely indeed are these cliffs; first, because of the profusion of fern frond, leaf, and moss, growing from everything that can climb to, lay hold of, or root itself in crack, crevice, or ledge, and droop, glistening with spray-drops, or wave whispering in the wind; next, because of the striking form and colour of the cliffs themselves. They are formed of what is called ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... in which it gets at these seeds shows a correlation of structure and habits, which would point out the "kanary" as its special food. The shell of this nut is so excessively hard that only a heavy hammer will crack it; it is somewhat triangular, and the outside is quite smooth. The manner in which the bird opens these nuts is very curious. Taking one endways in its bill and keeping it firm by a pressure of the tongue, it cuts a transverse notch by a lateral sawing motion of the sharp-edged lower ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a smooth funnel of water swirling about with nauseating rapidity. And then (it must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it parted from shore to shore with a loud crack like the ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... soon other and less exclusive regions, however, which I shared with other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his noble son—the last, alas! of the Mohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard under the green-wood tree: where Quentin Durward, happy squire of dames, rode midnightly ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... ice seemed now to crack ominously. 'You mean,' she said, 'that you wouldn't have thought of marrying Franklin if it ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... said; "but as I know you are a great deal heavier loser than that, I'll give you a chance to get even, so crack her down." ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... my limbs tottered, my eyelids closed. Then the shadow from the doorway moved towards and THROUGH me, and with the coldness of its passage I revived! With desperate energy I cut a couple of chunks off the washstand, and paring them down, eventually succeeded in slipping them in the crack of the door, and rendering it impossible to open from the outside. That done, I staggered to the bed, and falling, dressed as I was, on the counterpane, sank into a deep sleep. How long I slept I cannot say. I suddenly heard the loud neighing of a horse which seemed to come from just under ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... shot was not a mountaineer. Although it was evident that the firearms used were mostly old smooth-bore muskets, and the smoke from the powder rose in clouds over the undergrowth and drifted to the tree-tops, he had detected the sharp crack of a modern rifle occasionally among the duller reports of the more ancient weapons. The mysterious attackers were apparently numerous and completely surrounded them. Dermot cursed himself for his folly in halting for food instead of pushing on to safety without a stop. But he had calculated ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... curious nature he described to Dr. Silence. Outwardly or inwardly, it happened beyond a doubt, and in spite of the jeers of his few friends who heard the tale, and observed wisely that "such a thing might perhaps have come to Iszard, that crack-brained Iszard, or to that odd fish Minski, but it could never have happened to commonplace little Vezin, who was fore-ordained to live and ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... "that's not a Frenchman, my lads," and he closed the glass with a smart crack. "I say, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up over her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door, "that these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a crack in the door Roger saw the crew coming aboard. The engineer was in the lead; behind him came the captain, a tall man of vicious appearance, and a ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... simultaneous, with a less thunderous explosion than on Earth, but singing in a higher key and flaming vastly more, startled and terrified the Martians. Then crack! crack! bang! bang! four other shots in swift succession, followed by the terrific croaking of the wounded Terror-bird, which fell ponderously forward, kicking violently and beating the ground ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... no hiding place, no opening of any sort is found; if the examination of the walls—even to the demolition of the pavilion—does not reveal any passage practicable—not only for a human being, but for any being whatsoever—if the ceiling shows no crack, if the floor hides no underground passage, one must really believe in the Devil, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... piece, to dash it straight again? Why should she take such work beyond her skill, Which, when she cannot perfect, she must kill? Alas! what is't to temper slime and mire? But Nature's puzzled when she works in fire. Great brains (like brightest glass) crack straight, while those Of stone or wood hold out, and fear not blows; And we their ancient hoary heads can see Whose wit was never their mortality. Beaumont dies young, so Sidney did before, There was not poetry he could live to more, He could not grow up higher, I ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... with a by-day now and then when the country's light, she's the best instance of perpetual motion I know. Well, it's not my fault the chief won't let us hunt our second chargers—that's the charm of being in a crack regiment—I always have one lame at least, and no one will sell me hunters ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... all were prominent men and all of them mental workers of high caliber. That didn't appear peculiar because it is the man of high mentality who is most apt to crack." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... examining the china on a side-table). Why, I declare, Julia! Here is your Dresden that was broken—without a crack in it! ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, St. John, and several other figures of different sizes. It was painted on a pannel of 1-1/2 inches in thickness: a crack extended from its circumference to the left foot of the infant Jesus: it was 4-1/2 lines wide at its upper part, and diminished progressively to the under: from this crack to the right hand border, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... in this book in all cases where the term "pressure of the gas" or the like is used. The quantity of acetylene which will flow in a given time from the open end of a pipe is a function of this pressure, while the quantity of acetylene escaping through a tiny hole or crack or a burner orifice also depends on this total pressure, though the ratio in this instance is not a simple one, owing to the varying influence of friction between the issuing gas and the sides of the orifice. Where, however, acetylene or other gas is flowing ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... hammered. Long afterwards I found myself trembling with those waves of vibrating sounds. Worse still, because sharper and more piercingly staccato, was my experience close to a battery of French cent-vingt. Each shell was fired with a hard metallic crack, which seemed to knock a hole into my ear-drums. I suffered intolerably from the noise, yet—so easy it is to laugh in the midst of pain—-I laughed aloud when a friend of mine, passing the battery in his motor-car, raised his hand to one of the gunners, and said, "Un moment, s'il ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... seems finally exhausted. There is not a grain left in the barns where he had garnered up the harvests of the past; there is not a head of wheat to be found in the fields where he had always been able to glean something; if he shakes the tree of knowledge in the hope of a nut to crack or a frozen-thaw to munch, nothing comes down but a shower of withered leaves. His condition is what, in the parlance of his vocation, he calls being out of a subject, and it is what may happen to him equally whether ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells |
