"Span" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... troublous feelings, Nor quells the cares that sport and play Round gilded ceilings. More happy he whose modest board His father's well-worn silver brightens; No fear, nor lust for sordid hoard, His light sleep frightens. Why bend our bows of little span? Why change our homes for regions under Another sun? What exiled man From self can sunder? Care climbs the bark, and trims the sail, Curst fiend! nor troops of horse can 'scape her, More swift than stag, more swift than gale That drives the vapour. Blest in the present, look not forth On ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... barbarism of those masters of violence, the princes and knights: it was what broke up the icefloes in that mighty deluge. Still, the chief aim of Christianity is not so much to make this life pleasant as to render us worthy of a better. It looks away over this span of time, over this fleeting dream, and seeks to lead us to eternal welfare. Its tendency is ethical in the highest sense of the word, a sense unknown in Europe till its advent; as I have shown you, by putting the morality and religion ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... across to the Pacific. The commercial importance of California was growing rapidly. By 1857 stage-coaches were crossing the plains and the pony-express riders were carrying the mail. The pioneers of the telegraph felt that a line should span the continent. This was then a tremendous undertaking, and when Mr. Sibley proposed that the Western Union should undertake the construction of such a line he was met with the strongest opposition. The explorations of Fremont were not far in the past, ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... feel that I am derelict if I do not manage a jaunt to the Cliff House. The most desirable method demands a span of horses for a spin out Point Lobos Avenue. We may, however, be obliged to take a McGinn bus that leaves the Plaza hourly. It will be all the same when we reach the Cliff and gaze on Ben Butler and his companion sea-lions as they disport themselves in the ocean or climb the rocks. Wind or fog ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... ours, where we could take a night train West, we must ride thirty miles. The train was due at eight-forty-five, and it was four o'clock when we started; a neighboring farmer (Mr. Graves), who had a span of fleet horses took us, and we dashed over the ground rapidly, having full five minutes to breathe in at the depot ere we took the train. No luxurious palace cars in those days, you know, just the cushioned seats, but that was enough for ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... I was sixteen. There was a girl staying there. Her hair was copper, and her flesh was pink and white. Her waist, you could span it. I saw her walking ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... is divided into three courts. In the entry is taken the sa pintu, that is, the price of admission. Of this price the Government has a share, and its revenues from this source are some hundred thousand pesos a year. It is said this license fee of vice serves to build schools, open roads, span rivers, and establish prizes for the encouragement of industry. Blessed be vice when it produces so happy results! In this entry are found girls selling buyo, cigars, and cakes. Here gather numerous children, ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... roars where the rocket soars Is the song of the stellar flame; The dreams of Man and galactic span Are ...
— The Stoker and the Stars • Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)
... up to bed More and more slow, a tall and sunburnt man Grown bony and bearded, knowing you would be dead Before the summer, glad your life began Even thus to end, after so short a span, And mused a space serenely, Then fell to easy slumber, At peace, content. For never again your head Need make ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... him to take Janet instead, and he consented. Alack! heavy wobs have taken all the grace from Janet's shoulders this many a year, though she and Jamie go bravely down the hill together. Unless they pass the allotted span of life, the "poorshouse" will never know them. As for bonny Chirsty, she proved a flighty thing, and married a deacon in the Established Church. The Auld Lichts groaned over her fall, Craigiebuckle hung his head, and the minister told her sternly to go her way. But a few weeks afterwards ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... table-glass plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail plant, cork works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her armor sheaths our battle-ships, as well as those of Russia and Japan. She equips the navies of the world with projectiles and range-finders. Her bridges span the rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine Republic; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used on the Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways for Great Britain and Brazil, and telescopes for Germany and Denmark. Indeed, ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... mud, Where the divers of Bathos lie drowned in a heap, And Southey's last Pan has pillowed his sleep; That Felo de se who, half drunk with his Malmsey, Walked out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, 10 Singing "Glory to God" in a spick and span stanza, The like (since Tom Sternhold ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... activity were crossed by sickness and sorrow. For the first time in a long life, which had already extended almost a decade beyond the allotted span, I became seriously ill. To be thus laid low by sickness was a deep affliction to one of my active temperament; but, if sickness brings trouble, it often brings joy in the tender care and appreciation of hosts of friends, and this joy I realized to the fullest extent. The ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?' The hours when the mysterious sustaining and driving force is withdrawn, and a lassitude and despair comes over us like that of a deserted child: the hours when we feel we have reached the limit of service, when our brief span of usefulness is done. Had God brought him, John Hodder, to the height of the powers of his manhood only to abandon him, to cast him adrift on the face of the waters—led him to this great parish, with all its opportunities, only that he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a small shelf edged in scalloped white oilcloth ticked with spick-and-span precision into a kitchen so correspondingly spick and span that even its silence smelled scoured, rows of tins shining into it. A dun-colored kind of dusk, soot floating in it, began to filter ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... to think whom she could find to live with her. As she sat and span in the twilight, one name after another occurred to her mind, but only to be ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... cripples for beggars and lepers in lieu of hawkers. The magic of his dream-city was not here. This was something prosaic, almost sordid. It made his heart sink as he thought of the sacred splendors of the Zion he had imaged in his suffering soul. The rainbows builded of his bitter tears did not span the firmament of this dingy Eastern city, set amid sterile hills. Where were the roses and lilies, the cedars and the fountains? Mount Moriah was here indeed, but it bore the Mosque of Omar, and the Temple of Jehovah was but one ruined wall. The Shechinah, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... days shall see the leaf red a hundred times." In effect, centenarians were needed to bear testimony to a week's fine weather; whereas no man—most certainly no woman—among the Alaculofs ever succeeded in reaching the threescore years and ten regarded by the psalmist as the span ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the pile of stone and mortar which had stood before the face of the wind as sturdily as old Harpeth itself. His words held the simplicity of those of a great poet and each was a separate jewel that could be imbedded in the hearts of his people to last for the span of their lives. He made a grateful acknowledgment of the safety of the chapel and of the spared lives of those before him, and in a few ringing sentences he prayed that we all be delivered from the blindness of the prosperity which was upon us ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... retired. And on my way to Mutton Cove was saluted by the females, with the appellation of Royal Reefer (midshipman), and a Biscuit Nibbler; but all this I neither understood nor cared for. I arrived safely at Mutton Cove, where two women, seeing my inquiring eye and span-new dress, asked what ship they should take "my honour" to, I told them the ship I wished to go ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... foremost of gods concluded it in due time. Having completed that sacrifice of theirs on the breast of that foremost of mountains. Himavat, the deities attached to the gift of earth a sixth part of the merit arising from their sacrifice. The man who makes a gift of even a span of earth (unto a Brahmana) with reverence and faith, has never to languish under any difficulty and has never to meet with any calamity. By making a gift of a house that keeps out cold, wind, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... den, or nest, or home, If, like the lion, free to go;— If, like the eagle, wing'd to roam, We span the rock and breast the foam, Still watchful for the hour of doom, When, with the knell of thunder-boom, We ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... adoption of the pointed arch had very important results. It enabled the builder to make arches of the same height but various widths, and of varying height and the same width. A round arch of a given span can be only half as high as it is wide, but the pointed arch may have a great diversity of proportions. The development of the Gothic style was greatly forwarded by the invention of the "flying buttress." By means of this graceful ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... far as it is idle for a man to refuse to go on despoiling weaker men for gain—but why not? I can spend a fortune every year for a long life-span, and still leave loot a-plenty behind my taking off. Yet, my idling is not mere slothfulness. I know the Orient, not as the ordinary white man knows it, but as one who has become a brother to the yellow and brown. I know these hills. No man in this town to-night, save yourself, ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... voices in the chapel school to be trained to five or six good carols, without knowing why. We did not care to disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the 24th of December should break up the spree before it began. Then I had told Howland that he must reserve for me a span of good horses, and a sleigh that I could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed. Howland is always good about such things, knew what the sleigh was for, having done the same in other years, and made the span four horses of his own accord, because ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... long-lived people. One hundred and twenty years was not an extreme age. In Genesis is the record of many over five hundred years old, and a few over nine hundred years of age. At the time of the apostles the life span of the Hebrews had grown shorter and hence the dictum of three score years and ten. Between the time of Moses and that of the apostles the Hebrews had advanced—or shall we say degenerated?—from a semi-barbarous people to one that had the graces and also the vices of a higher civilization. The ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... lodger had packed up all his little belongings and had bought a wagon and a span of oxen, which ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... Edith, spick, span and debonair as always (although during the war he had discarded his buttonhole). He was occupied, as he usually was in his leisure time, not in playing the piano or composing, but—in making photograph frames! This was his hobby, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... time, when compared to the span of human life, expectant motherhood occupies, and realize the vastness of its influence upon the nature of the child, and through that nature upon ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... weightiest supports of the belief in a future life is that yielded by the benevolence of God. Annihilation is totally irreconcilable with this. That He whose love for his creatures is infinite will absolutely destroy them after their little span of life, when they have just tasted the sweets of existence and begun to know the noble delights of spiritual progress, and while illimitable heights of glory and blessedness are beckoning them, is incredible. We are unable ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... purpose, were confined a quantity of cattle, sheep and hogs, for fresh meat. Every day or so several were slaughtered. Over the upper deck were stretched shade awnings. Officers and crew were smart and spick and span. ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... Mr. Squincher, As in contemplative pose, He stood before the looking-glass And burnished up his nose, And brushed the dandruff from a span- Spick-splinter suit of clothes,— "Why, bless you, Mr. Squincher, You're as handsome as ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... changing its winding course after the manner of prairie-rivers, has long since shifted its bed some distance to the south, leaving only a portion of the old bridge to span what in high water becomes an arm of the river, but which ordinarily serves to convey the water from a neighboring mill. We lean upon its guard-rail while fancy is busy with the past. We picture the prairie-schooners winding around the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... to the town proper he passed two brown-shirted militiamen, lounging on the rail of the middle span. They grinned at him, and, recognizing the outsider from his clothes, one of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... we succeeded in hiring a waggon and span (i.e. pair abreast) of stout horses to convey us and our luggage through the woods to the banks of one of the lakes, where S——— had appointed to ferry us across. There was no palpable road, only a blaze on the other side, encumbered ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... a deep breath of relief when she saw that this was no ravening monster. Her immediate thought was the hunter's thought. She drew her bow to the full length of her shaft, and as the panting beast went by she let drive. The arrow pierced to half its span, just behind the straining fore-shoulder. Blood burst from the animal's nostrils. It fell on its knees, struggled up again, blundered on for half a dozen strides, and dropped half-way across the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... need of someone able to respond to my questions without passion, yet with truth, and in the language of simplicity! For beside me there lay but a man dead and a man drunken, while without the threshold there was stationed one who had far outlived her span of years. No matter, however. If not today, then tomorrow, should I find a fellow-creature with ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... bride, a handsome demoiselle de boutique, or shop assistant, in white, with veil and wreath; behind her, girls in bright dresses bearing enormous bouquets; bridegroom and supporters, all in spick and span swallow-tail coats, with white ties and gloves, like beaux in a French comedy, backwards and forwards; the priests looking gorgeous, although in their second-best robes, their gold plates shining as they collected the money; for whether married first, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... but a transient span: Then, with a fervent prayer each night, Wind up the days, and set 'em right, Vain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... strangest exploits. Alternately they were beaten down on one knee, even lower still, till they crawled serpent-wise about the boards; they leaped into the air to avoid chopping blows at their lower members; they suddenly span round on their heels, recovering themselves in time to guard a serious blow, aimed with too much deliberation at some vital portion of their frames; occasionally they contrived an unexpected parry by swiftly passing the sword from the right hand to the left. Now and then ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... emblem. Moreover in Ionia there are two figures of this man carved upon rocks, one on the road by which one goes from the land of Ephesos to Phocaia, and the other on the road from Sardis to Smyrna. In each place there is a figure of a man cut in the rock, of four cubits and a span in height, holding in his right hand a spear and in his left a bow and arrows, and the other equipment which he has is similar to this, for it is both Egyptian and Ethiopian: and from the one shoulder to the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... guns and bursts of music from the "Troy Town Band," saluting the winner with "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the second boat with strains consecrated to first and second prize-winners in Troy harbour since days beyond the span of living memory, even as all races start to the less classical but none the less immemorial air of "Off She goes ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... if you like, call me a dreamer, or what is the same thing, a "nut." I can stand that, for have I not in my short span of life seen dreams come true. Suppose the wandering hunter, or the farmer's boy, who discovered the Baldwin apple in the woods of Massachusetts, had gone back to his home and stated that the time would come when this beautiful red fruit would grow wherever it found ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... like molten liquid and the bridges which span it a dozen times or more between Notre Dame and the Pont de l'Aima were as white as snow, and unsubstantial as though they bridged the gulfs of dreams. Even the great blocks of stone and the balks of timber which lie on the mud ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... well for those that like it," observed Mr. Windsor to the Duke, "but give me a box buggy and a span of long-tailed horses. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... their muddy uniforms and the hard fight they had just gone through, the French say that these soldiers looked spic and span as they passed their general. Their rifles went up in salute as straight and accurately as if they had just come from quarters and were marching over a level parade ground, instead of over fields filled with shell holes and slippery with ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... grotto of the wave-worn shore, They passed the Tropic's red meridian o'er; Nor long the hours—they never paused o'er time, Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime,[391] Which deals the daily pittance of our span, 350 And points and mocks with iron laugh at man.[fn] What deemed they of the future or the past? The present, like a tyrant, held them fast: Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide, Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide Their clock the Sun, in his unbounded ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... between the parent and the child. The character of that population has greatly altered since; generations have been born on the soil, whose recollections of their progenitors across the Atlantic have dwindled to the smallest span; and the intermixture of races has since done everything but destroy all filial feeling, has in fact destroyed nearly all but the common language, whilst ultra-democracy has been steadily at work upon the young idea to inculcate hatred to monarchy, and, above ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... Briancon, especially towards the east. The Fort Janus is no less than 4000 ft. above the town. The parish church, with its two towers, was built 1703-1726, and occupies a very conspicuous position. The Pont d'Asfeld, E. of the town, was built in 1734, and forms an arch of 131 ft. span, thrown at a height of 184 ft. across the Durance. The modern town extends in the plain at the S.W. foot of the plateau on which the old town is built and forms the suburb of Ste Catherine, with the railway station, and an important silk-weaving factory. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... But I cannot forbear the suggestion at this moment that there was a time in the history of the world when the science of medicine was unknown, when people lived to the incredible age of many centuries; and, even after the span of life had been reduced to threescore and ten, sickness was comparatively unknown. In ancient times, it was looked upon as a calamity, that had overtaken a tribe or people, when one of its members ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... a new horse, in a general way, is in a great hurry to try him. There is sumthin' very takin' in a new thing. A new watch, a new coat, no, I reckon it's best to except a new spic and span coat (for it's too glossy, and it don't set easy, till it's worn awhile, and perhaps I might say a new saddle, for it looks as if you warn't used to ridin', except when you went to Meetin' of a Sabbaday, and kept it covered all the week, as a gall does her bonnet, to save it from the flies); ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... for himself was a span of old horses, a mountain buckboard, and his one room in the crowded house. Further, having affirmed that he would be beholden to none of them, he got the contract to carry the United States mail, twice a week, from Kelterville up over Tarwater Mountain to Old Almaden—which ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... there happened to be only two Semper Augustuses in all Holland, one in Haarlem and one in Amsterdam. The Haarlem one was sold for twelve acres of building lots, and the Amsterdam one for a sum equal to $1,840,00, together with a new carriage, span of grey horses ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... span was like the sky, Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright; Like flowers that know not what it is to die; Like long-linked, shadeless months of Polar light; Like music floating o'er a waveless ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... home-made jams and cakes; home- made pickles and sauces; home-cured tongues and hams, and home-made liqueurs. Cook kept the tweeny busy in the kitchen, while Mary grumbled at having to keep half a dozen unused bedrooms in spick and span perfection, and Mason spent her existence in polishing, and sweeping invisible grains of dust ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... beyond the sea may plot, The warlike Basques may plan; Friend, never heed them! vex thee not; For this our mortal span Of ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... prayer shall be An arch of peace, a radiant promise-bow, To span the gulf, and shed its cheering glow O'er the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... more than three years, during which time he had developed a pronounced tendency to baldness, though his apple face had lost none of its roseate freshness. He looked spruce as ever, his clothes spick and span, his "four-in-hand" tastefully tied, his collar and cuffs immaculate. His hazel eyes, however, had a worn and wistful look ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... is a good root." "You do not see that your father and mother do so; look at me, and do as I do." These standing and going speeches, which have travelled through the world from the time when "Adam delved and Eve span," down to the present day, and which to the very end of time will be ever in use—together with assurances to the children, whenever they were punished, or when they must learn their lessons yet more—that all this was done for their benefit, and that the time would come ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... in American waters, but also recalls to mind the contrast between the steel-armored battleships of the navies of the world of to-day and the wooden hulks which prevailed up to that time. It is a long span of time from the battle of brave Captain Reid in the harbor of Fayal in 1814 to the year 1861, but during that half century little progress had been made in supplying the ships of our navy with protecting devices, as there had likewise been little occasion ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... make the best of what we have got. And, you know, Jack, I must have things ship-shape about me, and so, even if the Mary Jane has seen her best days, she can still be kept spick and span ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... "Span in six fast mules for a supply wagon, such as kin gallop. I'll sleep in that a hour or so. Git yore men started, Will. We may be too late. It's nigh fifty mile to the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... it to do something public-spirited once in a while without being paid for it. So the band did not come to the town as a shock in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack—the new glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright spick-and-span hearse harness on the horses; in those bustling days a quarter was nothing, and you can ride all over the Ridge for a quarter; so when the comrades at the depot, in their blue soldiers' clothes their campaign hats, and their delegates' badges, saw the band ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... combs out from her A span's length off her head; She sang this song of God's mother And of her bearing-bed. Mary most full of grace, Bring us to ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... on the bed of a shallow river, which enable the foot passenger to skip with ease from one to the other until he gets across; but if the stones are placed too far apart in attempting to span the distance one is liable to miss the mark and fall in the water and flounder about until he is again able to get a foothold. 'Tis the same with written language, the reader by means of paragraphs can easily pass from one portion of connected thought to another and keep up his ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... what is to come; but under the Canadian skies it is sadder and more moving than elsewhere, as though one were bewailing the death of a mortal summoned untimely by the gods before he has lived out his span. ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... found her thoughts wandering, now and then, away to the Altenfjord—she almost fancied she could hear the sigh of the pines and the dash of the waves mingling in unison as they used to do when she sat at the old farm-house window and span, little dreaming then how her life would change—how all those familiar things would be swept away as though they had never been. She roused herself from this momentary reverie, and glancing down at the recumbent gentleman at her feet, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... journey behold, a great serpent, the bigness of a date palm, came fleeing towards me in all haste, gliding along now to the right then to the left till she was close upon me, whilst her tongue lolled ground wards a span long and swept the dust as she went. She was pursued by a Dragon[FN324] who was not longer than two lances, and of slender build about the bulk of a spear and, although her terror lent her speed, and she kept wriggling from side ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... put it in this way: 'Let us suppose,' they said, 'that poverty and all the baneful influences upon life and health that follow in its train are abolished and all live out their natural span of life. Everybody being assured of maintenance for self and children, no motive of prudence would be operative to restrict the number of offspring. Other things being equal, these conditions would mean a ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... Why they did not send a memorial to Jay themselves, instead of placing Hamilton in a position to incur the full odium of such a suggestion, can only be explained by the facts that during the entire span of the party's existence, their leader had cheerfully assumed the responsibility in every emergency or crisis, and that if the distinguished formalist in the Executive Mansion of New York had a weak spot in him, it ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... paper and pen and began the urgent message to Supreme Command, headed, TOP EMERGENCY. It would be sent via Hyperspace Communications from the city and would span the hundred ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... illuminating each detail; and comparatively close against the face of the mighty planet they could see the whitish globe of Satellite III. It offered the nearest haven. They might arrive famished, but in the power-equipped space-suits which Friday was lugging they should be able to span the gap. ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... was on his feet. Along the broad, white road, with its rows of poplars on either side, came a troop of cent-gardes, spick and span in their brilliant uniforms, their cuirasses blazing in the sunlight, and immediately behind them rode the Emperor, accompanied by his staff, in a wide open space, followed by a second troop ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... plaster of Paris pellets, with an accompanying substitution of a spiteful desire to inflict injury for the old horse-play, it has become necessary to limit the duration of the Saturnalia to the briefest span, with the sure prospect of its being very shortly altogether prohibited. But at Florence on the first occasion, now several years ago, of an attempt to imitate the Roman practice, the conduct of the populace was such as to demand imperatively the immediate suppression of it. The ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the Life of Man Less than a span: In his conception wretched, from the womb, So to the tomb; Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns on water, or but writes ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... it's fun. I caught two big old beetles and tied threads on them for harnesses. Then I hitched them to a wee little paper box about an inch long and they made a good span. They dragged it all right 'til I dumped an old fuzzy caterpillar into the box, and then they tumbled over on their backs and squirmed and kicked like everything! If I could find one now I could show ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... galleries, presented the appearance of a sea of waving plumage, intermixed with glistening helmets, and tall lances, to the extremities of which were, in many cases, attached small pennons of about a span's breadth, which, fluttering in the air as the breeze caught them, joined with the restless motion of the feathers to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... pride and prejudice presume to dictate terms as to how they may escape the just penalty for their sins, as to how their sins should be taken away? "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel? And who instructed him, and taught ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... feature. The third pillar from the west end on each side is considerably larger and wider than the others; and it also projects further into the aisles. The arch also, springing from it westward, is of a much greater span. The opposite vaulting shafts, in the aisle walls, are brought forward, beyond the line of the rest, to meet the pillars in question; so that the arch across the aisles is, in this part, very much contracted, and, instead of being a mere groin rib, like ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... Through Mondemont and out of it, through Morin marsh and on, With earthquake of salutation the impossible thing is gone; Gaul, charioted and charging, great Gaul upon a gun, Tiptoe on all her thousand years, and trumpeting to the sun, As day returns, as death returns, swung backward for a span, Back on the barbarous reign ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... separate from him by a little span, Two eagle cousins, generous, reckless, free, Two Grenfells, lie, and my Boy is made man, One with these elder ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... an hour the scrub-woman had made her last trip with the extra dishes, and the little home was spick and span. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... make in the effect produced on us by visible nature. In this silent solitary place, with the walled field which was once Calleva Atrebatum at my feet, I yet have a sense of satisfaction, of security, never felt in a land that had no historic past. The knowledge that my individual life is but a span, a breath; that in a little while I too must wither and mingle like one of those fallen yellow leaves with the mould, does not grieve me. I know it and yet disbelieve it; for am I not here alive, where men have inhabited for ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... The plan provided a direct rail entrance into New York City for all railroads reaching the west side of the Hudson River, and also for the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, as well as adequate station facilities in that city. This bridge would have had one clear span of 3,100 ft. between pier heads, landing on the New York side at the foot of West 23d Street, and thence the line would have passed diagonally to the terminus at Sixth Avenue and 25th Street. The location of the terminus ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles M. Jacobs
... pay or to give up a single span of his land unless the friars should first prove the legality of their claim by exhibiting a title-deed of some kind. As they had none, a lawsuit followed, and Cabesang Tales entered into it, confiding that some at least, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... to span the narrow stretch of water that separated us from our late antagonist; and upon climbing the side we were received at the gangway by an officer of some twenty-five years of age, whose head was ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... become an object of general utility. The Southwark or New London Bridge consists of three arches, the centre of which is a span of 240 feet, and the other two 210 feet each; the Vauxhall Bridge consists of nine arches, over a width of 809 feet; and it is a fact, that a Sugar-house is building with cast-iron floors, window-frames, and rafters, to prevent ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... reality. American industry and agriculture are making increasing use of radioisotopes to improve manufacturing, testing, and crop-raising. Atomic energy has improved the ability of the healing professions to combat disease, and holds promise for an eventual increase in man's life span. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was every inch a sailor. He told us midshipmen that he intended we should become sailors, and he began by sending us aloft the first calm day to black down the rigging and grease the masts. I began to go aloft with my span new uniform on. "No! no!" he said, calling me down, "the second mate will serve you out a shirt and trousers fit for that work." The mates laughed and the men laughed also. I got the shirt and trousers, and spent a couple of hours aloft, making good use of tar-brush and grease-pot, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... possible here to follow the interesting history of the glacial movement, but a few words of explanation seem necessary. The Ice Age, or the glacial period, refers to a span of time ranging from 500,000 years ago, at the beginning of the first glaciation, to the close of the post-glacial period, about 25,000 years ago. During this period great ice caps, ranging in the valleys and spreading out on the plains over a broad area, proceeded from the north of Europe to the ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... astronomical world by declaring that he saw some of the canals double—that is appearing as two parallel lines. As these lines span the planet's surface for distances of many thousands of miles the announcement naturally gave rise to much surprise and, as I have said, to much scepticism. But he resolutely stuck to his statement. Here is his map of 1882. It ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... concerning the laws of nature, and seem to regard them much as the printed regulations stuck on hackney carriages, whatsoever they may be. Yet, how cruelly just they are! I suppose that the finding of the ship's booty by that huge creature has given a new span of life to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... hath taken my whole heart; but she loveth other than I and avoucheth that she loveth her [former] master; wherefore I have sworn a great oath that, if she come again to my sitting-chamber and sing for other than I, I will assuredly take a span from her highest part."[FN21]Quoth Zubeideh, "Let the Commander of the Faithful favour me with her presence, so I may look on her and hear her singing." So he bade fetch her and she came, whereupon the Lady Zubeideh withdrew behind the curtain, whereas she saw her not, and Er Reshid ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... that of Great Britain or the Continent; and if America does not show a Thames Tunnel, a Conway or Menai Tubular Bridge, or a monster steamer, yet she has a railroad-bridge of eight hundred feet clear span, hung two hundred and fifty feet above one of the wildest rivers in the world,—locomotive engines climbing the Alleghanies at an ascent of five hundred feet per mile,—and twenty-five thousand miles of railroad, employing upwards of five thousand locomotives and eighty thousand cars, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... remembrances of you. Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified by her romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, not to be buried in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick and span into a bran-new gown to wear when you come. I am the same as when you knew me, almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized. The soul hath not her generous ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... were in a sad state of dilapidation. One remarkable monument found at Kabah resembles a triumphal arch. It stands by itself on a ruined mound apart from the other structures. It is described as a "lonely arch, having a span of 14 feet," rising on the field of ruins "in solitary grandeur." Figure 41 gives ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... little span of happiness was theirs! Only two brief years, and then the cold hand of death was ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... fifty-five minutes!" said the same relentless voice, after the next interval, each of which narrowed to a lesser span the life ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... who had now rejoined us, looking spick and span, and with his face shining from the fresh application of soap and water, "I believe they are all down there ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... copy of the North Dutch church or not is not known. It looks much like it, tho the tower is simpler and the two rows of windows in the Fulton Street building become one row of great windows on Henry Street. But it has all stood the test of time. The old hand-hewn oak timbers still span the lofty ceiling, the glistening gray stone walls still stand four-square against all the winds that blow. The hand-made hinges and numbers are still on the pew doors, and the so-called slave galleries are still there, tho neither colored ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... down the Thames in May, the adventurers must have relaxed with the satisfaction that comes from real achievement. Twice now, within the span of two years, they had raised a great fund with which they sent each time nine vessels and 600 colonists to Virginia. Indeed, they had done even more. Counting Argall's ship, which sailed ahead of Somers in the spring of 1609, and ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... like open presses, That shawed the dead in their last dresses, And, by some devilish cantraip sleight, Each in its cauld hand held a light: By which heroic Tam was able To note, upon the haly table, A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... hearty voice of Labor arose a chorus of ringing acclamation. Tens of thousands of men, women and children crowded into the streets, and, after gazing admiringly upon the decorations, wended their way in the direction of the mighty river span. From neighboring cities and from the adjacent country for many miles around the incoming trains brought multitudes of excursionists and sight-seers. It seemed marvelous that they could all find accommodation, but the generous hospitality of the ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... it may well be that they loved, and that they were blessed in their love for the little space allotted them in each other's company. The sequel justifies in a measure the assumption. Just one little summer out of the span of their lives—brief though those lives were—did they spend together, and it is good to find some little evidence that, during that brief season at ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... about to turn into one of these side streets on his way back to Mrs. Atterson's. Turning the corner was a handsome span of horses attached to a comfortable but mud-bespattered carriage. It was ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Hetty Freeman was known as one of the best housekeepers in Brewster, and no one had ever seen her looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's untidy appearance ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... very satisfactorily in a cold grapery (without artificial heat). A simple lean-to against the south side of a building or wall is cheap and serviceable. When a separate building is desired, an even-span house running north and south is preferable. There is no advantage in having a curved roof, except as a matter of looks. A compost of four parts rotted turf to one of manure is laid on a sloping cement bottom outside the house, ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... to-day, Decking himself in all his best array; But in the midst of all his bravery Death rounds him in the ear, "Friend, thou must die." Or like a shadow in a sunny day, Which in a moment vanishes away; Or like a smile or spark,—such is the span Of life allowed this microcosm, Man. Cease then vain man to boast; for this is true, Thy brightest glory's as the morning dew, Which disappears when first the rising sun Displays his ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... for the earlier at two thousand years, more or less, we of that generation were truly singular in our opportunity of viewing this, among the very few "most magnificent of modern times." The tail, broadening towards the end, with a curve like that of a scimitar, was in length nearly a fourth of the span of the heavens, and its brightness that of a full moon. My memory retains the image with all the tenacity ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Pray, in the name of common sense, What fruit can he expect to gather Of all this labour and expense? Why, he must live like Lamech's father! What use for thee, grey-headed man, To load the remnant of thy span With care for days that never can be thine? Thyself to thought of errors past resign. Long-growing hope, and lofty plan, Leave thou to us, to whom such things belong.' 'To you!' replied the old man, hale and strong; 'I dare pronounce you altogether wrong. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... but only a blind mechanism, causes the course of things. Finally, the personality of man can be only perceived in its worth and in its full importance, when, in the first place, it is in the possession of freedom, of full moral responsibility; and when, in the second place, it lives beyond the span of its short earthly existence and may hope for a full realization of {386} all its ideals of virtue and the highest good for itself as well as for mankind. Both these points must be contested by monism and naturalism. The place of freedom is ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... great deal of shaking and going a great pace round many curves, which quite prevented us sleeping, we got here (Washington) yesterday at six o'clock. A man met us who was sent by an astronomer friend of John's, and brought us to this hotel, Wormley's. On our way in a spic and span omnibus we felt going down on one side, and found a wheel had come of. We jumped out, and a crowd collected, and finally we had to transfer our baggage and ourselves into another omnibus, and got through some handsome wide streets, with trees each side ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... life. Those who, like Mrs. Alving, have paid with blood and tears for their spiritual awakening, repudiate marriage as an imposition, a shallow, empty mockery. They know, whether love last but one brief span of time or for eternity, it is the only creative, inspiring, elevating basis for a new race, ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman |
