"Masthead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out in common daily life the knife of sacrifice is held across the path constantly, sharp edge out, barring the way? And no one can go faithfully his common round, with flag at masthead, and needs crowding in at front and rear and sides, without meeting its cutting edge. That edge cutting in as you push on frees out the fine fragrance. Whenever you meet a man or woman with that fine winsomeness of spirit that can't be analyzed, ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a masthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque they are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent toward ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly. And presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... reefs were shaken out, and at Charley's suggestion a big fisherman's staysail was made all ready for hoisting, and the main-topsail, bunched into a cap at the masthead, was overhauled so that it could be set on ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... sailed the Essex to join the sister-vessels of her fleet, with a pennant flying from her masthead, on which were the words, "Free trade, and sailors' rights," for both of which, Captain Porter ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... was indeed the American whaleman in sight when the governor visited the waterside, and was then coming in, but just as the sea-breeze commenced, the look-out at the masthead reported a large school of sperm whales in the offing. Although the want of vegetables and fresh provisions did grieve him sore, yet want of oil did grieve him more; and accordingly, Captain Hazard, whose ship was but little more than half full, commenced beating out towards ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... lithe black-eyed youths, whose brown limbs carried them up the mast with the agility of monkeys. There was one in especial—a slight, well-made fellow about twenty, with a white turban cleaner than the rest—who contrived to cast wonderful glances from the masthead over the barrier at Rosette, who actually smiled in return at ce pauvre garcon, and smiled the more for Mademoiselle Julienne's indignation. Suddenly, however, a shrill shout made him descend hastily, and the old Turk's voice might be heard in its highest key, no doubt shrieking out maledictions ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Tupman told me herself. She calls it the Lady of Mystery. She said that years and years ago a schooner put out from this town on a whaling cruise, and was gone more than a year. When it was crossing the equator, headed for home, the look- out at the masthead saw a strange object in the water that looked like a woman afloat. The Captain gave orders to lower the boats, and when they did so they found this figurehead. She said it must have come from the prow of some great clipper in the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... into the harbour, the soldiers in the entrance castle blowing their trumpets in welcome as we passed between them. The captain of the port had run up my banner to the masthead of his boat, having been provided with one apparently for this purpose of announcement, and from the quays, across the vast basin of the harbour, there presently came to us the noises of musicians, and the pale glow of welcoming fires, dancing under the sunlight. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... was driving through a thick fog (in lat. 44.5, long. 41) a severe shock suddenly called Riou to the deck, where an appalling spectacle presented itself. The ship had struck upon an iceberg. A body of floating ice twice as high as the masthead was on the lee beam, and the ship appeared to be entering a sort of cavern in its side. In a few minutes the rudder was torn away, a severe leak was sprung, and all hands worked for bare life at the pumps. The ship became comparatively unmanageable, and masses of overhanging ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... her mizzen topgallant mast was gone, several great patches in her sails also attracted attention; there too was a field-piece mounted and lashed on the quarter-deck as a stern-chaser. The fore royal was furled, and two flags were hanging limply from the masthead; the light breeze from time to time fluttering them a little, but not sufficiently to disclose what they were, until just opposite High Street, where she dropped her only remaining anchor, when a sudden ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... was settled that Camp Randolph (it had been named after Tom's father when the Confederate flag was first run up to the masthead, and sorry enough the Rangers were for it now), was to become a camp of instruction, and that Sergeant Gray was to drill a volunteer squad every pleasant forenoon, and spend two hours every afternoon in teaching the company ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... an island and you begin at once to understand the legends of enchantment which ages have collected around such spots. Climb to its heights, you seem at the masthead of some lonely vessel, kept forever at sea. You feel as if no one but yourself had ever landed there; and yet, perhaps, even there, looking straight downward, you see below you in some crevice of the rock a mast or spar of some wrecked vessel, encrusted ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... flame and thunder issued from the guns aboard the stranger. Instead, from her deck there came to us what sounded mightily like a roar of laughter. Suddenly, from each masthead and yard shot out streamers of red and blue, up from the poop rose and flaunted in the wind the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, and with a crash trumpet, drum, and fife ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... as he pointed to a vessel, from whose masthead floated a flag with the arms of the Earl of March. "She is just entering the port. They did chase us after all, you see, but they did not gain on ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... dim unused parts of the building, we would rig up a pirate's ship, and Granfa would fix the broom to the masthead to show that he, like Drake, had swept ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the sea, a point of light flickered and disappeared, shone again for a moment, wavered and went out, only to reappear and shine steadily. "A steamer's masthead light," I thought, and ran to the house to give the news; but Jackson had already seen the light, and pronounced that she had anchored until the morning. At daybreak there she was, dipping her sides to ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... latitude, by observation, was 13 deg. 2' S., longitude 216 deg. W.; which was 1 deg. 23' W. of Lizard Island: At this time we had no land in sight; but a little before one o'clock, we saw high land from the masthead, bearing W.S.W. At two, we saw more land to the N.W. of that we had seen before: It appeared in hills, like islands; but we judged it to be a continuation of the main land. About three, we discovered breakers between the land and the ship, extending to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... "And after this they took me to the quay, and presently I espied among the masts one garlanded with amaranth flowers. 'Take me thither,' said I, and I let my guide know the custom of our Dutch skippers to hoist flowers to the masthead when they are courting a maid. Oft had I scoffed at this saying, 'So then his wooing is the earth's concern. But now, so far from the Rotter, that bunch at a masthead made my heart leap with assurance of a countryman. They carried me, and oh, Margaret! on the stern of that ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... nearly breathless. Her small voice grew sharp and shrill, like the cry of a sea-bird from the masthead. Meanwhile Paul, amused at first, had begun to listen impatiently, with his thoughts elsewhere. 'I am off,' said he abruptly. 'I have a breakfast ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... waited—waited till that trailing monster, the Persian fleet, had crept halfway from Psyttaleia toward them, then up the shrouds of the Spartan admiral leaped a flag. Eager hands drew it, yet it seemed mounting as a snail, till at the masthead the clear wind blew it wide,—a plain red banner, but as it spread hundreds of axes were hewing the cables that bound the triremes to the shore, every Greek oar was biting the sea, the ships were ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Yet in the heart of the young patriot there was prayer for his soul, should it be set free in that hour of danger; there was burning love for his country's cause. The eye of Derry Duck fell on the isolated group who had been firing at the privateer. He saw a well-known form climbing to the dizzy masthead, while the shot were flying around him. Derry rushed in among them with his axe in his hand, and waving it around his head scattered them like leaves before the wind. He stayed long enough to see that Blair had not dropped like a wounded bird among ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... art; that fidgeting ripple in the luff of the mainsail, and the distant rattle from the hungry jib—signs that they are starved of wind and must be given more; the heavy list and wallow of the hull, the feel of the wind on your cheek instead of your nose, the broader angle of the burgee at the masthead—signs that they have too much, and that she is sagging recreantly to leeward instead of fighting to windward. He taught me the tactics for meeting squalls, and the way to press your advantage when they are defeated—the iron hand in the velvet ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... our masthead told of our presence to the mariners of the fishing boats, or the vessels coming from far northern ports across our course, and warned them ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... and 31 were foggy days, and neither fleet could see the other. On June 1st there was a blue sky, a brilliant sun, a lively sea, and a wind that favoured the plans of the British Admiral. The signal for close action was flown from the masthead of the Queen Charlotte. Howe ordered his ships to sail on an oblique course down upon the French line, the two fleets having during the night lain in parallel lines stretching east and west. The intention ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... from the last, dates the maritime supremacy of England. Since then her commerce, protected and advertised by the most powerful navy in the world, has mounted by leaps and bounds, so that now half the vessels which sail the seas bear at their masthead the Union Jack. From her dominions beyond the oceans and from her ships upon the seas Great Britain drew power and prestige; British merchants acquired opulence with resulting social and political importance to themselves and to their country, and British manufactures received that stimulation which ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... was this. The Investigator was kept all day so close along shore that the breaking water was visible from the deck, and no river mouth or inlet could escape notice. When the weather was too rough to enable this to be done with safety, Flinders stationed himself at the masthead, scanning every reach of the shore-line. "Before retiring to rest," he wrote, "I made it a practice to finish the rough chart for the day, as also my astronomical observations and bearings." When darkness fell, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... be decided. I had always said that if we could get safely across the Kara Sea and past Cape Cheliuskin, the worst would be over. Our prospects were not bad—an open passage to the east, along the land, as far as we could see from the masthead. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... faithful ally, M. de Praslin? It would ill become us to detain him when the head of the family has taken leave of us." "You are right," replied the king, smiling; "besides, an old broom taken from a masthead would be as useful to us as he would." Then, turning to M. de la Vrilliere, the king dictated the following laconic notice:— "COUSIN,—I have no further occasion for your services; I exile you to Praslin, and expect you will repair ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... among the year's designs for toweling. The towel designs celebrating naval victories have been particularly successful: they are mostly in white, on a blue ground; or in black, on a white ground. One of the best—blue and white—represented only a flock of gulls wheeling about the masthead of a sunken iron-clad, and, far away, the silhouettes of Japanese battleships passing to the horizon.... What especially struck me in this, and in several other designs, was the original manner in which the Japanese artist had seized upon the traits of the modern battleship,—the ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... while cruising off Boston, a squadron of four French line-of-battle ships and a frigate were seen from the masthead. They made sail in chase, but the captain knew well all the shoals and quicksands in those parts, and soon got into channels where the big ships were afraid to follow. The frigate, however, kept on her course, and when we saw this we hove to, to wait for her. We all looked forward with ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... distractedly. He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the water without ...
— Options • O. Henry
... appetite. Nothing came amiss, and nothing was ever refused. Zac had picked the boy up three years before, and since that time he had never known him to be satisfied. At the present moment, Terry was standing at the tiller, while Biler was at the masthead, to which he had climbed to get rid of the disappointments of the world below, in a more elevated sphere, and from his lofty perch he was gazing with a hungry eye forth into space, and from time to time ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... wheel Drislane said nothing, but every moment the compass could spare his eyes saw them roaming across to where the Orion, like ourselves, was plugging through the short green seas for home. When his watch was done he borrowed my glasses, climbed by painful relays to the masthead and trained them on the Orion. After he came down and had gone below, I went aloft and spent the rest of the morning trying to see what it was that Drislane may have seen on the deck of Oliver ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... the Moors on the other, they are all armed. As we rode at anchor a long way up the river, we observed a large number of negroes in huts by the river's side, and for our own safety kept a wary eye on them. Early next morning we saw from our masthead a numerous body approaching, with apparently but little order, but in close array. They approached very fast, and fell furiously on the inhabitants of the town, who seemed to be quite surprized, but nevertheless, as soon as they could get together, fought stoutly. They had some fire-arms, ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... Harun-al-Raschid's own private shallop, all spangled with coloured lights, stole across the iron-grey water, and disappeared into the darkness of a slip. She came out again in three minutes, but the full day had come too; so she snapped off her masthead, steering and cabin electrics, and turned into a dingy white ferryboat, full of cold passengers. I spoke to a Canadian about her. 'Why, she's the old So-and-So, to Port Levis,' he answered, wondering as the Cockney wonders when a stranger stares at an Inner ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... ducked his head, and played out the line, as the boat dipped her masthead waterward, and came about on the other tack. When the sails were again drumming under the fingers of the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the night. It is better to make short tacks till daylight, than to heave to; and allowance should be made for a probable current of one mile an hour to the north-west. A good lookout must be constantly kept; and a confidential officer should now go to the masthead every two hours in the day and to the fore yard at night, to listen as well as look; for in dark nights the breakers may often be heard before they can be seen. It will not be amiss, if the time of the day be favourable, to make Bird Islet, which is well settled, in order to see how ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders |
