"Ball" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough to vindicate neglect of my words now, when you call them commonplace. So they are. But did you ever take that well-worn old story, and press it on your own consciousness—as a man might press a common little plant, whose juice is healing, against his dim eye-ball—by saying to yourself, 'It is true of me. I walk as a shadow. I am gliding onwards to my doom. Through my slack hands the golden sands are flowing, and soon my hour-glass will run out, and I shall have to stop and go away.' Let me beseech you for one half-hour's meditation on that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... or four miles away, and we were not therefore in a position to reciprocate the attentions we received from it. Another assault was subsequently made on the Premier fort. Our seven-pounders were this time able to do a bit of bowling, and a ball was hurled at the enemy's wickets that stopped ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... you make that out? He isn't worth the powder and ball necessary to kill him so I have heard military men say," the ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... spent the evening with us, and the ball of talk was chiefly sustained by him and myself. My wife said little, nothing save when spoken to, and wore a countenance of greater gravity than ever. It seemed that Edgerton made some effort to avoid any particularity in his manner, yet seldom ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the industrious and moral portions of our people to see so many loungers about the streets, and such a multitude whose highest aspirations seem to be to waste their time in idleness, or at base ball, billiards, etc. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... A brilliant ball-room, pretty faces, smart gowns, good music, and an excellent supper;—thus surrounded, I pass my first evening in Teheran, a pleasant contrast indeed to the preceding night of dirt, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... there was something in his eyes that shimmered and glistened in the dull light. And then, as he sat silent, his eyes clearing, he saw that the little mouse had climbed back to the edge of the table. It did not eat the food he had placed there for it, but humped itself up in a tiny ball again, and its tiny shining eyes ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... found him carelessly tossing half-a-dozen crab apples from hand to hand. Andy was an adept in "the glass ball act." He described rapid semicircles, festoons and double crosses. He shot the green objects up into the air in all directions, and went through the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... stationed; and he expected to meet De Wardes about half-way; but in this he was mistaken. He continued his course, presuming that his adversary was impatiently awaiting his approach. When, however, he had gone about two-thirds of the distance, he beheld the trees suddenly illuminated and a ball flew by, cutting the plume of his hat in two. Nearly at the same moment, and as if the flash of the first shot had served to indicate the direction of the other, a second report was heard, and a second ball passed through the head ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d'Arba in person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in; but the vessel was practically ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... not the waywardness of young men as they ought. They smile upon them in their villainy. They court the society of young men they have every reason to believe are corrupt. They will meet without a shudder or disapproving frown, in the ball-room and the private circle, men whom they know would glory in being the instrument of the moral ruin of any woman. Young women who claim to be good, and who would not for a fortune be guilty of a moral impropriety, often wreathe the villain's ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... and security such as she had not known since the return to Paris. She too began to come out of her shell, and to resume her former mode of life. She fulfilled her social duties, and paid and received calls, which Wilhelm was allowed to shirk. At the end of January the first ball of the Spanish embassy took place. Pilar's whole set was invited, and she could not well absent herself without exciting remark. She therefore made the necessary preparations for the festivity. A diadem of brilliants was sent to be reset, a sensational gown ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... granddaughter with a love of astronomy, and one day a visitor, entering unexpectedly, was startled to find the pair of them kneeling on the floor of the entrance hall before a large sheet of paper, on which the professor was drawing a diagram of the solar system, with a little pellet and a big ball to represent earth and sun, while the child was listening with rapt attention to an account of the planets and their movements, which he knew so well how to make simple and precise without ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... that Roger saved his life, but would not {216} take any reward, nor tell his name. Roger explains that the nobleman put so much money into his pocket, that it enabled him to marry his charming Henrietta, but Merinville is determined to do more for him. Meanwhile Roger tries to withdraw from the ball with his young wife; but Henrietta is called back by her relations according to custom.—Roger, being left alone, is accosted by two unknown men, who, veiling his eyes, force him to follow them to a spot unknown to him, in order to do some mason-work for them. It is to ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... avoid, and call importunately on others who sit quiet and will not come. We cannot at once catch the applause of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise. What are parties? Do men really great ever enter into them? Are they not ball-courts, where ragged adventurers strip and strive, and where dissolute youths abuse one another, and challenge and game and wager? If you and I cannot quite divest ourselves of infirmities and passions, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... were taken by a singular stratagem. The Indians are very partial to, and exceedingly dexterous at, a game called the 'Baggatiway': it is played with a ball and a long-handled sort of racket. They divide into two parties, and the object of each party is to drive the hall to their own goal. It is something like hurly in England, or golf in Scotland. Many hundreds are sometimes engaged on both sides; and the Europeans ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... bedchamber door. And as he did not dare to stand on the ordinary pulpits from which they usually harangued the people, he generally addressed them from a high tower. And it is said, that when he was disposed to play at ball,—for he delighted much in it,—and had pulled off his clothes, he used to give his sword into the keeping of a young man whom he was very fond of. On this, one of his intimates said pleasantly, "You certainly trust your life ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... not depressed—only a little thoughtful. His faith in his luck sustained him. He was, he realized, in the position of a man who has made a supreme drive from the tee, and finds his ball near the green but in a cuppy lie. He had gained much; it now remained for him to push his success to the happy conclusion. The driver of Luck must be replaced by the spoon—or, possibly, the niblick—of ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... last ball at the chateau. One extolled the charms of the Marquis d'Alincour, son of Villeroi; the second mentioned another young nobleman; while the third frankly ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... something portentous in Giovanni's unexplained demand for silence. He was not at the same dinner party with her, but she went on to a dance at the Marchese Valdeste's, feeling sure that she would have a chance to speak with him there. He always danced with her several times during a ball, and, as he was not very much taller than she, she could easily talk to him without danger of any ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... about Oscar's talent was that he did not monopolise the conversation: he took the ball of talk wherever it happened to be at the moment and played with it so humorously that everyone was soon smiling delightedly. The famous talkers of the past, Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle and the others, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... her two bites of her pickled lime. Lillie Downs "remembered" her, and did not shrink from partaking of Cassy's corn-ball. School was ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... told her, laughing as he did so, how hard it had been for him to keep the story of his wound secret from the doctor, who had already extracted the ball, and who was to visit him on the morrow. The practitioner to whom he had gone, knowing nothing of gunshot wounds, had taken him to a first-class surgeon, and the surgeon had of course asked as to the cause of the wound. Daniel had said that it was an accident as to which he could not explain the ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... near the close of winter. The Marquise gave a ball. Her fetes were justly renowned for their magnificence and good taste. She did the honors with the grace of a queen. This evening she wore a very simple costume, as was becoming in the courteous hostess. ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... knows except you and me. I tell you, the woman has immense power. The Germans have trusted her with their trump card, and she's going to play it for all she is worth. There's no crime that will stand in her way. She has set the ball rolling, and if need be she'll cut all her prophets' throats and run the show herself ... I don't know about your job, for honestly I can't quite see what you and Blenkiron are going to do. But I'm very clear about my own duty. She's ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... will be black with forms flitting swiftly down the shining roads on sledges or skates, illuminated by the electric light; a band will be braying blithely, regardless of the piercing cold, and the skaters will dance on, in their fancy-dress ball or prize races, or otherwise, clad so thinly as to amaze the shivering foreigner as he hugs ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... before them then, the four boys had started away early on that morning, bent upon making a new camp, and enjoying themselves to their full bent. Others might find pleasure in starting to play ball, and kindred sports that the coming of a few warm days always sees take on new life; but as for Max and his comrades, give them the open woods, and a ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... I had in mind to make me win this bet from Alex was a pitcher I had on the payroll who's name was Hector Sells. He would of been just as rotten a ball player if his name had been First Base, Center Field or Short Stop. He could do everything in the world with a baseball, with the slight exception of gettin' it over the plate, and, when he pitched, his main difficulty was keepin' ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... he would be," said Mrs. Whitney, suppressing a yawn. Gertrude was playing ping-pong with Doctor Lanning. "But isn't he homely?" she exclaimed, sending a cut ball into the doctor's watch-chain. ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... by this treaty to furnish six vessels of from sixteen to twenty-six guns, but being in want of ball and other stores they were supplied liberally by the English East India Company's factory; and the result was, that after three months' resistance, the pirates surrendered their ships, and promised to become peaceable subjects, and the people of Macao performed a Te Deum in honour of their ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... to face the west the glow of the sinking ball of fire dazzled his eyes a moment. But that was long enough, for in that instant a step fell on the rock beside me. A leap of lightning swiftness put a form between my eyes and the dying day; the flash of a knife—Jean Le Claire's short sharp knife—glittered ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... in to complete the banquet. The house was surrounded by a garden, if possible, near the river. It was open to the air and sun. The Egyptian loved the country, with its fresh air and sunshine, as well as its outdoor amusements—hunting and fishing, fowling and playing at ball. Like his descendants to-day, he was an agriculturist at heart. The wealth and very existence of Egypt depended on its peasantry, and though the scribes professed to despise them and to hold the literary life alone worth living, ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... of course, believe in the water-wizard and his forked wand; and their faith is extended to the discovery of mineral veins. While writing this I see the statement in a public journal that Richard Flannery of Cumberland county (Kentucky) uses an oval ball, of some material known only to himself, which he suspends between the forks of a short switch. As he walks, holding this extended, the indicator announces the metal by arbitrary vibrations. As his investigations are said to be attended with success, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... shot brought from Boston fitted them.] [Footnote: Mr. Theodore Roosevelt draws my attention to the fact that cannon were differently rated in the French and English navies of the seventeenth century, and that a French thirty-six carried a ball as large as an English forty-two, ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... life Milly was not faintly conscious. She could tell you just when the custom of giving afternoon teas first reached Chicago, when "two men on the box" became the rule, when the first Charity Ball was held and who led the grand march and why, and when women wore those absurd puffed sleeves and when they first appeared with long tails to their coats. But of the daily doings of men folk when they disappeared ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... picture the ideal good man of chivalrous times. It may, however, be permitted those of us who look at the system from underneath, to sympathise with our fellows who struggled to free themselves from bondage under Tyler and John Ball at least as much as with their splendid oppressors, and to recognise that the feudal system, however necessary in the thirteenth century, lost its value when its lords had ceased to be such good lords as ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... expended by Geoffrey Templestowe, who had developed a turn for household art, and seemed to enjoy lying for hours on his back on a staging, clad in pajamas and indenting the plaster with rosettes and sunken half-rounds, using a croquet ball and a butter stamp alternately, the whole being subsequently finished by a coat of dull gold paint. He and Clover had themselves hung the walls with its pale orange-brown paper; a herder with a turn for carpentry had laid the new floor ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... fired first, and the bird stooped, and then it was rising again as I pulled trigger. I should have claimed it for a certainty, but Natty said the hole was too big for shot, and he fired a single ball from his rifle; but the piece I carried then didnt scatter, and I have known it to bore a hole through a board, when Ive been shooting at a mark, very much like rifle bullets. Shall I help you, John? You know I have ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... glimpses of Jenny Lind in private life—her love of dancing, of which she seems to have been as passionately fond as was Fanny Kemble in her youth, and her delight in horseback riding. He gives a comical account of an improvised ball, in which he figured as the prima donna's partner, on board of the steamboat going from Dublin to Holyhead: "Unfortunately, our orchestra fell off one by one; the music finally ceased; and when we stopped waltzing and cast an uneasy glance around us, we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... locomotion among and over and in the crevices of the coral and rocks, some are necessarily worn at the points. With care they may be handled without injury, though at first glance it would seem impossible to avoid the numerous weapons. Imagine a brittle tennis ball stuck full of long slender needles, many tapering to microscopic keenness at the points, climbing stiffly along the edges of rocks by a few of the stilt-like needles, and a very fair figure of the ECHINUS is presented. As a curious ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... The sun, a ball of fire, was almost at the horizon, the sea all around lay an unruffled expanse of dark blue, undulating with the ground swells that caught the red glow of the sinking sun as they came in and broke upon the rocks. Albert walked on to the highest of the shore rocks and looked about. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... beings, in a low state of cosmic evolution, they undoubtedly had to thank the earth for their life, as we thank the sun. To them the earth, then incandescent, blazing with the heat that now reveals itself through volcanoes, was simply a whirling ball of fire, put in its ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... be unpleasant to the well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and running exhausts one. The same people run much faster in games and sports. The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting; little leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one's hat; and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; but man is ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... amusement, and obtained an addition to his income of more than four hundred pounds a year as house carpenter. In the morning you might see him trudging off to his work, and before night might meet him at some ball or soiree among the elite ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... the Jap didn't do a thing to pa. He grabbed pa by the wrist, and he seemed to be having an epileptic fit, and pa's leg shot out so his feet hit a guy pole, and then the Jap pulled him back like he was a rubber ball on a string, and then he took pa by the elbow and held him out at arm's length, and then swung him around a few times and let go of him, and he fell down among the reserved seats which representatives of the press occupy. Pa stood on one ear on a crushed chair, with his legs over the railing, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... am so glad we are all invited to the ball at the Prince's palace. You know, my dear, that it will be a great ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... glimmerings of the true light began to break in upon men. The Greek philosophers, who busied themselves much with such matters, gradually became convinced that the earth was spherical in shape, that is to say, round like a ball. In this opinion we now know that they were right; but in their other important belief, viz. that the earth was placed at the centre of all things, they were indeed ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... not to endeavour to satisfy her, since my satisfaction depended on hers. With this idea I got Dupre to give a ball at my expense in some house outside the town, and to invite all the dancers, male and female, who were engaged for the carnival at Turin. Every gentleman had the right to bring a lady to have supper and look on, as only the professional dancers were ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... from them a savage yell, which seemed to be echoed from the praus; when as if to intimidate enemies and encourage the men a small gun was fired on board one of the vessels, and a little ball came skipping over the sea, to go crashing into ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... Tiger crouched and launched its huge body through the air swift and resistless as a ball from a cannon. The beast struck Jim full on his shoulder and sent the astonished cab-horse rolling over and over, amid shouts of delight from the spectators, who had been horrified by the ungracious act he had ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck; Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; Or, bridled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook; The good physician, Melampus, loving them all, Among them walked, as a scholar ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... I entered the Transportation Buildin', and looked round me, there wuz no gentle prick to that overgrown puff ball to let the gas out drizzlin'ly and gradual—no, there wuz a sudden smash, a wild collapse, a flat and total squshiness—the puff ball wuz broke into a thousand pieces, and the wind it contained, where wuz it? Ask the breezes that wafted ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... in October. On the night of the 20th two Massachusetts regiments crossed the Potomac at Ball's Bluff, a few miles above Washington, to surprise a hostile camp which according to rumor had been established there. A large force concealed in the woods attacked and forced them to retreat. They were re-enforced by 1,900 men under Colonel Baker. The ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... be the fairest at the ball which you are to attend. Is it still for your sake, or only for herself, or is it for ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... from small minnow hooks to large Limericks; four lines of six yards each, varying from the finest to a size sufficient for a ten-pound fish; three darning needles and a few common sewing needles; a dozen buttons; sewing silk; thread and a small ball of strong yarn for darning socks; sticking salve; a bit of shoemaker's wax; beeswax; sinkers and a very fine file for sharpening hooks. The ditty-bag weighs, with contents, 2 1/2 ounces; and it goes in a ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... all glad when morning came, and they had a glimpse of the sun, even if the golden ball was not so very heating. At any rate it was more cheerful than the long night, with the mysterious Aurora Borealis flashing in ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... former stamping-ground [he wrote to John Hay, describing that visit]. At every station there was somebody who remembered my riding in there when the Little Missouri round-up went down to the Indian reservation and then worked north across the Cannon Ball and up Knife and Green Rivers; or who had been an interested and possibly malevolent spectator when I had ridden east with other representatives of the cowmen to hold a solemn council with the leading grangers on the vexed subject of mavericks; or who had been hired as a train-hand when I had been ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... was the discharge of both weapons, that but one report was heard. But Carson's bullet entered upon its mission probably half a second before the ball of Shunan left the rifle. Shunan's wrist was shattered, as the bullet struck it; and from the curvature of the arm the ball passed through a second time above the elbow. The sudden shock caused the rifle to tilt a little upwards and thus saved the hero's ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... compelled to act promptly, or blood would undoubtedly have been shed. I therefore took my rifle from Coles and, directing it at a heap of closely matted dead bushes which were distant two or three yards to the right of their main body, I drove a ball right through it: the dry rotten boughs crackled, and flew in all directions, whilst our enemy, utterly confounded at this distant, novel, and unfair mode of warfare, fled from the field in confusion, the majority of our party rejoicing ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... and a missionary. As a missionary, he wishes all Americans to be as good judges of poetry as they are, let us say, of baseball. One of the numerous joys of being a professional ball-player must be the knowledge that you are exhibiting your art to a prodigious assembly of qualified critics. John Sargent knows that the majority of persons who gaze at his picture of President Wilson ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... have appealed, but on reflection thought it advisable to await the arrival of the captain. Beds and blankets were not supplied that evening: the boats were hoisted up, sentries on the gang ways supplied with ball-cartridges to prevent desertion, and permission granted to the impressed men to "prick for the softest plank" which they could find ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... attached constantly to their necks, so that in their frequent falls overboard, they are not in danger. Had we not read this in a grave, philosophical work, we should have thought it a joke upon poor humanity, or at best a piece of poetical justice, and that the hollow ball, &c. represented the head—fools being oftener inheritors of good fortune than their wiser companions. As the great secret in swimming is to keep the chest as full of air as possible, perhaps the great art of living is to keep the head a vacuum, a state "adapted to the meanest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball—bestride the stick— (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk, (He's got the scissors, snipping ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... greater altitude. She chooses in the bushy clump a twig no thicker than a straw; and on this narrow base she constructs her edifice with the same mortar that she would employ under a balcony or the ledge of a roof. When finished, the nest is a ball of earth, bisected by the twig. It is the size of an apricot when the work of a single insect and of one's fist if several have collaborated; but this latter case ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... Alexandria, and we were ready for any service. Orders came from General McClellan during the forenoon to move the four regiments now with me into Forts Ramsey and Buffalo, on Upton's and Munson's hills, covering Washington on the direct road to Centreville by Aqueduct Bridge, Ball's Cross-Roads, and Fairfax C. H. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 712, 726. For this he had Halleck's authority, in view of the danger of cavalry raids into the city. Id., p. 722.] General McClellan had established his ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... remember that a full toss on the leg side went to Mr. W. G. Grace when he had made ninety-six towards his hundredth hundred; and quite right too. When it comes, however, to throwing down one's bat and flinging the ball at a batsman (as George did), there is no excuse to be offered. I have omitted the end of the story, in which Mr. Danvers condescends to take a hand at the game, in a match against George and Tom Fletcher (who made it up), and beats them ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... he was about to say something to Eugene, to ask about the ball, or the Vicomtesse; perhaps he was on the brink of the confession that, even then, he was in despair, and knew that his marriage had been a fatal mistake; but a proud gleam shone in his eyes, and with deplorable courage he kept his noblest feelings ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... its orbit ranged some twenty thousand miles from the earth while the dead world edged ever nearer the cooling sun whose dull, red ball covered a large expanse of the sky. Surrounding the flaming sphere, many of the stars could be perceived through the earth's thin, rarefied atmosphere. As the earth cut in slowly and gradually toward the solar luminary, so was the moon revolving ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones
... into the hall, and swiftly through it. There on the desk in the window lay the pen he had flung down last night, but no more; the letter was gone; and, as he turned away, he saw lying among the wood-ashes of the cold stove a little crumpled ball. He stooped and drew it out. It was his letter, tossed there after the reading; his father had not taken the pains to keep it safe, nor even to ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... see whether any of their shots come through the wall. I think we are quite safe from the distant fire, but from the house opposite it is possible they may penetrate it. Anyhow, don't stand in the line of a loophole. A stray ball might ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... over the whole episode, but especially over the puppy. The latter, with the instantaneous adaptability of extreme youth, had snuggled down into a compact ball, and was blinking one hazy dark blue eye upward at ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... fox-hunter, and the frivolous existence of the fine gentleman present extremes, each in its way so repugnant, that one feels half inclined to smile when called upon to sentimentalise over the lot of a youth forced to pass from one to the other; torn from the stables, to be ushered perhaps into the ball-room. Jack dies mournfully indeed, and you are sorry for the poor fellow's untimely end; but you cannot forget that, if he had not been thrust into the way of Colonel Penruddock's weapon, he might possibly have broken ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... did this sort of thing extremely well; indeed she had no rival in her own particular field. The weekly society journals depended upon her to supply them with spectacular pictures of a Chinese ball every November and a Micareme dance every spring; they sent photographers all the way up to her camp that their readers might not miss a yearly glimpse of the ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... sat without words, holding each other's hand. The sun hung a glowing ball of fire on the rim of the far-away hills, and the shadows of the ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... an abject crowd, who tarried in the snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to dispense the public charity (the lawful charity; not that once preached upon a Mount), to call them in, and question them, and say to this one, "Go to such a place," to that one, "Come next week;" to make a foot-ball of another wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose claims allowed of no ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... eh?"—rejoined Dimsdale feebly, yet ironically; for that was the thing he expected now of the Minister, who had played him like a ball on a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... itself from certain evil effects of this business centralization by providing better methods for the exercise of control through the authority already centralized in the National Government by the Constitution itself. There must be no ball in the healthy constructive course of action which this Nation has elected to pursue, and has steadily pursued, during the last six years, as shown both in the legislation of the Congress and the administration of the law by the Department ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the handsome features of the Duke of Brunswick, whose fine, manly figure, as he galloped across the field, quite realized my beau ideal of a warrior. The next time I saw the Duke of Brunswick was at the dress ball, given at the Assembly-rooms in the Rue Ducale, on the night of the 15th of June. I stood near him when he received the information that a powerful French force was advancing in the direction of Charleroy. "Then it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... laboratory and brought out a small box with a glass front. From the top projected a spike topped with a ball. Through the glass, Carnes could see a thin sheet of metal hanging ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... ducats in a night. They are very magnificently furnished, and the music good, if they had not that detestible (sic) custom of mixing hunting horns with it, that almost deafen the company. But that noise is so agreeable here, they never make a concert without them. The ball always concludes with English country dances, to the number of thirty or forty couple, and so ill danced, that there is very little pleasure in them. They know but half a dozen, and they have danced them over and over these fifty years: I would fain have ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... the manners of to-day in the greater world - not the shoddy sham world of cities, clubs, and colleges, but the world where men still live a man's life. The worst of my news is the influenza; Apia is devastate; the shops closed, a ball put off, etc. As yet we have not had it at Vailima, and, who knows? we may escape. None of us go down, but of course ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... braid of golden cords, girdling her beneath the breast, encompassing her again about the hips, and fastened at last in front by a diamond-shaped buckle of clustered emeralds. Her sandals were mere jeweled straps of white gazelle-hide, passing under the heel and ball of the foot. She was as daringly ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... The third horse is brought, but fearing disaster, St. Clair hobbles to the front lines to cheer his troops. He wears no uniform, and out from under his great three cornered hat flows his long gray hair. A ball grazes the side of his face and cuts away a lock. The weight of the savage fire is now falling on the artillery in the center. The gunners sink beneath their guns. The herculean lieutenant-colonel, William Darke, who has fought at Yorktown, is ordered to ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... pity," grumbled Barkins; "for Tsin-Tsin is after all rather a jolly place. Mr Brooke says the ball at the consul's last night was glorious, no end of Chinese swells there, and the music and ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... down at the great ball of light below them in silent wonder. Johnston was the first to speak. He pointed to the four massive cables which supported the sun at each corner of the platform and extended upward till they were enveloped ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... The ball had grown still more animated. A fresh quadrille was imparting a slight swaying motion to the drawing-room floor, as though the old dwelling had been shaken by the impulse of the dance. Now and again amid the wan confusion of heads a woman's face with ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... as much as twenty-one feet. The Persian weapon had a short head, which appears to have been flattish, and which was strengthened by a bar or ridge down the middle. The shaft, which was of cornel wood, tapered gradually from bottom to top, and was ornamented at its lower extremity with a ball, sometimes carved in the shape of an apple or a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... take that to the police.'—'I'll send it to-morrow morning,' says the charming Georgine, 'but I wished to show you my good luck.' Of course nobody came forward to claim the bracelet, and a month later Madame de Versannes appeared at the Cranfords' ball with a brilliant diamond bracelet, worn like the Queen of Sheba's, high up on her arm, near the shoulder, to hide the lack of sleeve. This piece of finery, which drew everybody's attention to the wearer, was the famous bracelet picked up ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... like a circular wash-basin, with an outer rim turned slightly inward. The "croupier" revolves the wheel to the right. With a quick motion of his middle finger he flicks a marble, usually of ivory, to the left. At the Vesper Club, always up-to-date, the ball was of platinum, not of ivory. The disc with its sloping sides is provided with a number of brass rods, some perpendicular, some horizontal. As the ball and the wheel lose momentum the ball strikes against the rods and finally is deflected into one of the many little ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... with coastlines in the shape of a baseball bat and ball, the two volcanic islands are separated by a three-km-wide channel called The Narrows; on the southern tip of long, baseball bat-shaped Saint Kitts lies the Great Salt Pond; Nevis Peak sits in the center of its almost circular namesake island and its ball shape ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... make you gay or sad; I have sported in the brook, Truant from my work or book; Chased the butterfly and bee, Robb'd the bird's nest on the tree; Damm'd the brook and built my mill; Flew my kite from hill to hill; Sported with my top and ball— Childish joys, I know them all. Childish sorrows, too I've felt— Anguish that my heart would melt; Tears have wet my burning cheek, Caused by thoughts I could not speak. Mysteries then confused my brain, Which have since become more plain; Much that then seemed plain ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... knowing, rule that strange world of thine. Were it not a doom, were it not a frightful doom, that it should come to rule thee? ... Government from without! Government of to-day, Government abroad as we see it in every journal, in every letter that we open—how heavy, how heavy is the ball and chain the nations wear! If we alone in this land go free, if for four golden years we have moved with lightness, look to it lest a gaoler come! Government! What is the ideal government? It is ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... to light, likely enough, something that may once have been a court dress, a bridal costume, or a ball gown; a pair of small satin slippers, once white; a rusty crepe, a "topper of a manifestly early vintage, or what not, all may be found here. One might almost fancy that Pride, in some material personification, might indeed ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... presume to interpose. Both were incensed against that prince; and one part of their design was to raise the pretender to the throne of England. Baron Gortz set out from Aland for Frederickstadt in Norway, with the plan of peace: but, before he arrived, Charles was killed by a cannon ball from the town, as he visited the trenches, on the thirtieth of November. Baron Gortz was immediately arrested, and brought to the scaffold by the nobles of Sweden, whose hatred he had incurred by his insolence of behaviour. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... at a distance. Doubly enraged by this, he flung himself upon me. Though I had prepared the arquebuse for my defence, I had not yet levelled it exactly at him; indeed it was pointed too high. It went off of itself; and the ball, striking the arch of the door and glancing backwards, wounded him in the throat, so that he fell dead to earth. Upon this the two young men came running out; one caught up a partisan from the rack which stood there, the other seized the spontoon of his father. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... footeball with the Sauages.] Diuers times they did waue vs on shore to play with them at the football, and some of our company went on shore to play with them, and our men did cast them downe as soone as they did come to strike the ball. And thus much of that which we did see and do in that harborough where ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... fellow," and, saying so, R—— quietly levelled his rifle, with some misgiving, for it was of Norwegian manufacture, and fired at the animal. Poor Bruin received the ball in his left fore-leg; and, with a piteous moan, he instantly assumed his natural position on all fours, and hissed and growled, and licked the blood which streamed from the wound. The animal, nothing daunted, even in this extremity, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... large, dark eyes without answering. Mrs. Hilson, and her sister now rose to take leave of Mrs. Graham, repeating, however, before they went, the invitation they had already given, to a ball for the next week. It was to be a house-warming, and a grand affair. The ladies then flitted away ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... to the shore, or on the buildings of the city, both the houses of the inhabitants and the temples of their deities receiving incredible damage. So great was the consternation, that the zamorin fled from his palace, and one of his chief nayres was killed by a ball close beside him. Part even of the palace was destroyed by the cannonade. Towards afternoon two ships were seen approaching the harbour, which immediately changed their course on seeing how our fleet was employed; on which the general ceased firing against ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... dress for it?' asked Mrs. Beecher. 'We are invited to the Aston's dress ball, and I want something suitable ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball. ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... some half-a-dozen times they appeared to lose their interest. But it was for the children that were growing up that this want was most severely felt. When the weekday afforded no amusements, they would seek them on Sunday; fishing, shooting, bathing, gathering nuts and berries, and playing ball, occupied, with few exceptions, the summer Sundays. In winter they spent them in skating, gliding down the hills on hand sleighs. And yet crime was unknown in those days, as were locks and bolts. Theft was never heard of, and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... had only stopped at that!—But, whirled along by his enthusiasm, he swept past the public and plunged like a cannon ball into the sanctuary, the tabernacle, the inviolable refuge of mediocrity: Criticism. He bombarded his colleagues. One of them had taken upon himself to attack the most gifted of living composers, the most advanced representative of the new school, Hassler, the writer of programme ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... he spread out various toys which he had been at pains to purchase for the unhappy little fellow,—a regiment of Garibaldian soldiers, all with red shirts, and a drum to give the regiment martial spirit, and a soft fluffy Italian ball, and a battledore and a shuttlecock,—instruments enough for juvenile joy, if only there had been a companion with whom the child could use them. But the toys remained where the father had placed them, almost unheeded, and the child sat looking out of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... whose praises they constantly sound, A Triton 'mongst minnows in prowess at cricket, When bowled by a ball that did not touch the ground, Very frequently swears 'twas the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... "Ball, n. An entertainment of dancing; originally and peculiarly at the invitation and expense of an individual; but the word is used in America for a dance at the expense of ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... formality; for she had heard how a colored man, who had wandered into the cemetery on a hot night and fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been arrested as a vagrant and fined five dollars, which he had worked out on the streets, with a ball-and-chain attachment, at twenty-five cents a day. Since that time the cemetery gate had been locked ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... in March he had gone to an early parade without seeing her, for there had been a regimental ball the night before, and she had danced every dance. Dancing seemed her one passion, and to Merryon, who did not dance, the ball had been an unmitigated weariness. He had at last, in sheer boredom, joined a party of bridge-players, with the result that he had not seen much of ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... her brother gave a ball. Percy, duly instructed by his sister, wrote to Julia as meek as Moses, and said he was in a great difficulty. If he invited her, it would, of course, seem presumptuous, considering the poor opinion she had of him; if he passed her over, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... remarked her father, who had come up and stood behind them, "as the finest lady at the ball: he wants more air. I wonder whether the poor fellow knows ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... large in the history of the word "gentleman," both in the English word and its Latin ancestor. The Latin word "generosus," always the equivalent of "gentleman" in English-Latin documents, signifies a person of good family. It was used no doubt in this sense by the Rev. John Ball, the strike leader, as we should call him in modern terms, of the 14th century, in the lines which formed a kind ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... There is an illuminated book of parchment, which appears more real than the reality; and a little bell of wrought silver, which is more beautiful than words can tell. Among other things, also, is a ball of burnished gold on the Pope's chair, wherein are reflected, as if it were a mirror (such is its brightness), the light from the windows, the shoulders of the Pope, and the walls round the room. And all these things are executed with such diligence, that one may believe without any ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... they stepped forth from the hall porch, and stayed for a moment by this aged trunk to admire the scene that was fast losing its glory and its brightness. They were bidden to the marriage-supper at Stubley, where a masqued ball was to be given after the nuptials of Dorothy Holt, the daughter of its possessor, with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... difficulty with just sufficient piquancy to excite our spirits. My men were so thoroughly drilled and accustomed to complete obedience and dependence upon my guidance, that they had quite changed their characters. I called Eddrees, gave him ten rounds of ball cartridge for each of his men, and told him to keep with my party should we be obliged to march: he immediately called a number of natives and concealed all his ivory in the jungle. At about 9 P.M. the camp was in an uproar; ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... pointing out one error therein, we had dismissed the whole speech as worthless, we should have imitated his reasoning, and in our conclusion have come much nearer to the truth. If we should say, indeed, that because the sun has a spot on its surface it is therefore a great ball of darkness, our argument would be exactly like that of Mr. Sumner. But that great luminary would not refuse to shine in obedience to our contemptible logic. In like manner, the authority of the illustrious Congress of 1793, in which there were so many profound statesmen and pure ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... physiognomy. A very great proportion of the Englishmen who come here, remain flunkeys to the end—an American, other than a soul-diseased disciple of Richmond sociology, or some weak brother or sister dazed by court ball-tickets—quite as generally remain a despiser of men who acknowledge other men as their betters by mere birth. A love of freedom is in our blood, in our life, in our habits. We are fond, it is true, of temporarily lionizing great people, but we soon reduce them ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
