"Curve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we cannot catch it alive, we will have it notwithstanding." Saying this, he got his bow ready, with one of several large arrows which he had formed fixed in it. We had cautiously approached; when, standing up, he shot his arrow into the air, which formed a curve and came down perpendicularly on the shell of ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... answered Andrews. "There is the same danger with that as with the freight. If we don't come within an hour of the time we're due, it has a right to go ahead and meet us at the next station." They were rounding a curve which gave them a clear view of the track behind for several miles. The pursuing engine was ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... Megarians took and razed to the foundations the long walls which had been occupied by the Athenians; and Brasidas after the capture of Amphipolis marched with his allies against Acte, a promontory running out from the King's dike with an inward curve, and ending in Athos, a lofty mountain looking towards the Aegean Sea. In it are various towns, Sane, an Andrian colony, close to the canal, and facing the sea in the direction of Euboea; the others being Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... not see her face, more than the full curve of her cheek. He watched her hair, which at the back was almost of the colour of the soapstone idol, take the candlelight into its vigorous freedom in front and ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... women were sitting together, Susan in a rocker, with her sleepy little daughter in the curve of her arm, Anna in a deep low chair, with her head thrown back, and her eyes on ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... that the other had a proper cowpuncher's pride in his dress. His bench-made boots molded his long and slender feet to a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... the two dams—a distance of four miles—is but sixty feet, or fifteen feet to the mile. [Footnote: In a sheet-iron siphon, 1,000 feet long, with a diameter of four inches, having the entrance 18 feet, the orifice of discharge 40 feet below the summit of the curve, employed in draining a mine In California, the force of the current was such as to carry through the tube great quantities of sand and coarse gravel, some of the grains of which were as large as an ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... barest structure becomes visible! but when one once gets a dim inkling of what is going on, as the stubborn temper yields, as the face takes on its noble frankness, and the shapely limbs emerge in all the glory of free line and curve, how gratefully and vehemently one co-operates, how little a thing the endurance of mere pain becomes by the side of the consciousness that one is growing into the likeness ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hopped to still another. The actual amount of time concentrated on any given mind at any single given period varied from a minimum of one point three seconds to a maximum of two point six. The timing samples, when plotted graphically over a period of several months, formed a skewed bell curve with a mode ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... slowly, yet ever carefully counting his steps. The roof sank with the advance until it became so low he was compelled to stoop. The sound of picks smiting the rock was borne to him, made faint by distance, but constantly growing clearer. There he came to another curve in ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... question of motive and consequences, because the character determines the motive and therefore the action. Nobody should have seen this more clearly than Mill as a good 'determinist.' Conduct and character are related as the convex and concave of the curve; conduct is simply the manifestation of character, and to separate them ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... Hospital Mountain, where the enemy's headquarters lay, great watch-fires were blazing through the thick, snow-laden air. Now and then the glare of a mortar shone suddenly out, followed after a few seconds by the thundering explosion. Then a fiery curve traced itself against the sky, the end of which advanced hissing towards the city, and at last burst somewhere among the houses. Such was the picture that presented itself to the eyes of the two children when they reached the Peter Gate ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... about Mr. Graham. His candid brow, his kindling blue eye, his fresh-colored cheeks, the genial curve of his lip and his strong but amiable chin, spoke of a sunshiny nature, with neither taste nor turn for the weird. But, as he read, the strange "conscience-story" moved him—held him in a grip of intense interest—wove a spell ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... they may know it is D, they will say, Because it is made of a perpendicular line and has a curved line behind. Further information may then be given. Turn the D letter up thus , and say, I want to teach you the difference between concave and convex: the under part of the curve is concave and the upper part of it is convex. Then say, I shall now take the letter away, and wish you to shew me concave and convex on one of your fingers; when they will bend the forefinger and point them both out ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver than to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as the cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that on grim Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that the mouth did not come over from Sleswig with ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... have been engaged in this work for forty years. When I began, I stood absolutely alone. I worked ten years and made only one proselyte, and that was my wife. All mathematicians know that if they can establish one or two points in a curve, they can project that curve to its completion. In this way we have established several points in our great work of suffrage, and now we can see how to complete it. The work must go on. Truth is immortal and will prevail. From ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a short distance, however, when, passing around a curve in the road, they beheld a sight that ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... systems, and her right shoe with its steel buckle pressed against the yielding back of the Chesterfield. The right arm lay lissom like a snake across her breast. All her muscles were lax, and every full curve of her body tended downward in response to the negligent pose. Her eyes were shut, her face flushed; and her chest heaved with the slow regularity ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... eyes. They were graceful, living, free things. They were triumphant. The getting of food, even the eating of sewage was done thus gracefully, beautifully. The gulls turned and twisted in the air. They wheeled and floated and then fell downward to the river in a long curve, just touching, caressing the surface of the water and ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... as if in sleep, the boy did not, indeed, seem to resemble very closely any of the many types Lucile had chanced to meet. There was something of the clean brown, the perfect curve of the classic young Italian; something of the smoothness of skin native to the Anglo-Saxon, yet there was, too, the round face, the short nose, the slight angle at the eyes which ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... forehead was well formed, her black eyes had an arch, almost a roguish, glance, her finely cut lips, and the whole contour of her physiognomy, betrayed a frank and joyous disposition, whilst the slight curve of her Roman nose gave her an air of decision and self-reliance, with which her bearing and costume corresponded. This costume was far superior to the usual dress of Indian girls, and as remarkable for simplicity as for good taste. She wore a sleeveless calico gown, reaching to the ankles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... mysterious letters on our sickles, B.Y and I.R! What were they? Were they beginnings of words, or whole words themselves? Did they stand for things, qualities, or persons? "Mine is a By sickle; mine is an Ir one. Mine is the best," says the last, "for it has the finest teeth and the best curve." That was our boys' talk in walking through the rye, with bent backs and red faces, a little behind our fathers; who cut a wider work to enable us ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... words. A number of sticks, most artistically woven together, form the base, from the centre of which the walls of the structure arise. These walls are made of lighter twigs, and considerable pains must be taken in their selection, for they all have an inward curve, which in some "runs" cause the sides almost to meet at the top. The degree of forethought that these self-taught architects possess is strikingly exemplified in the fact that, whilst building the walls, any forks or inequalities are turned 'outwards', so as to offer ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... round green spot, way down there behind us. The cabin? No. That's in a hollow, you may be sure, well out of sight. I'm an outlaw, dearest, remember. There's a curve of the river, like a silver elbow. And Sylvie, up above us, an eagle is turning and turning in a huge circle. He thinks he's king. But, Sylvie, it's our world—yours and mine. This is ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... to curve. "I am not referring to the facts of generation," she said drily, and her smile broadened, her eyebrows lifted humorously. "I am quite aware that the—the advantages of a country life include an early arrival at that kind of knowledge. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... exquisitely sweet and perfect her beauty was! And she had lain in my arms for that moment, one moment that was stamped into my brain in gold. I put my head into my hands and shut out the dim grey wood from vision and recalled that moment. It came back to me, the touch of her soft form, the smiling curve of the lips put up to me, the fire in the liquid depths of those almond eyes, the round throat delicate as polished ivory. The extraordinary triumph of beauty over the senses came before my mind suddenly, presenting the problem that always puzzles ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... work, for the water seemed to hinder him, and he had reached a curve where the gallery took a fresh direction when there was a fiercer roar behind, one which betokened that the water was forcing for itself a greater way; and so it proved, for in a very few moments the rushing icy stream was ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... half-second, finally raised the Denton. The little gun spat its noiseless, invisible needle of destruction eight times. Six small puffs of crimson smoke hung in the air. The two remaining targets swerved up in a mocking curve and shot back ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... and the French armies of the left and centre, and any attempt on their part to pierce his line and cut his communications would have been hampered by the deadly peril of finding themselves outflanked by the German centre swinging down from the north in a western curve, with its point directed also upon Paris. The whole aspect of the war would have been changed, and there would have been great strategical movements perilous to both sides, instead of the siege war of the trenches in which both sides played for ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the second morning after he had left her; but he could see that she had lived long since their parting. He thought, "That is the way she will look as she grows old." The delicate outline of her cheeks showed a slight straightening of its curve; her lips were pinched; the aquiline jut of her nose was sharpened. There was no sign of tears in her eyes; but Adeline wept, and constantly dried her tears with her handkerchief. She accepted her affliction meekly, as Suzette accepted it proudly, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... you beheld me now, Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall On a quaint bench, which to that structure old Winds an accordant curve. Above my head Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves, Seeming received into the blue expanse That ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... so amiable a mood, she requires pressing a little, and with almost a bitter curve of triumph and disdain upon her lips, she seats herself in the attitude of an idol, raises her long, dark-colored sleeves, and begins. The first hesitating notes are murmured faintly and mingle with the music of the insects humming outside, in the quiet air of the warm and golden twilight. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... emaciated. But her eye was the most remarkable feature,—so large, so heavily black, overshadowed by long lashes of equal darkness, and so wildly, mournfully despairing. There was a fierce pride and defiance in every line of her face, in every curve of the flexible lip, in every motion of her body; but in her eye was a deep, settled night of anguish,—an expression so hopeless and unchanging as to contrast fearfully with the scorn and pride expressed by ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... value so highly and to feel too deeply. The smallest of the pencilled branches of the bare ash-tree drawn distinctly against the winter sky, waving lines one within the other, yet following and partly parallel, reproducing in the curve of the twig the curve of the great trunk; is it not a pleasure to trace each to its ending? The raindrops as they slide from leaf to leaf in June, the balmy shower that reperfumes each wild flower and green thing, drops lit with the sun, ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... gray eyes, I had to crush a sudden desire to lay my hand on his shoulder and call him son. It would have been against my principles to be so outspokenly sentimental, but his light hair waved back from a boyish face pallid with illness and the playful curve of his mouth touched me. If I had been Jane Gray I should have cried over him. From the forced smile to the button hanging loose on his vest there was a silent appeal. All the mother in me was aroused and mentally ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... like a city boy taking his first trip into the country. He hung out of the window, and smoked and smoked. Whenever the train swept round a curve he could look into the rear carriages; and the heads sticking out of the thirds reminded him of chicken-crates. Never had he seen such green gardens, such orange and lemon groves, such forests of olives. Save that it was barren rock, not a space as broad as a man's hand was ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... held a total length of 1,450 yards, stretching from our old right, Trench 37, across the Messines road to a ruined cottage, close by which our trenches were carried over the Douve by a wooden bridge. Our line was thus drawn in a curve right round the south of Messines Hill, which twinkled with points of fire at every morning 'stand-to' from the tiers of trenches which honeycombed its face. Contrary to expectations, the centenary of Waterloo passed without incident during this tour, in spite of the Huns' ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... lingering look at her face passed on. I turned to her; she was gazing after him with eager eyes. My presence seemed forgotten; I would not remind her of it; I turned away in silence, and hastened after Darrell and his companion. The curve of the wall hid them from my sight, but I quickened my pace; I gained on them, for now I heard their steps ahead; I ran round the next corner, for I was ablaze with curiosity to see more of this man, who came at so strange an hour and yet was expected, who bore himself ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... homely face, only redeemed from positive ugliness by her deep, expressive eyes. Her figure was superb; rather slender, lithe and sinewy, but without an angle or thin curve. Like Diana, she was long limbed, so that she seemed taller than she really was. The sweep of neck and shoulder was exquisite, and her simple dress was admirably adapted to display the lines of her supple form. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... that seemed to stretch to the verge of the horizon. Through this ran the river, its waters almost on a level with the banks—which were covered with a grassy sward, and without a single tree. At some distance from the curve the stream almost doubled back on itself—forming a verdant delta, around the apex of which ran the road that led ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... to make good his assurance that they were full of wealth and would swell the revenues of the King and Queen of Spain. A brief survey of this first island was all he could afford time for; and after the first exquisite impression of the white beach, and the blue curve of the bay sparkling in the sunshine, and the soft prismatic colours of the acanthus beneath the green wall of the woods had been savoured and enjoyed, he was anxious to push on to the rich lands of the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... have impressed this movement upon the planets directly, as easily as upon the comet to communicate it to them? Finally, how could the planets have left the body of the sun without falling back into it again? What curve did they describe in leaving it, so as never to return? Can you suppose that gravitation could cause the same body to describe a spiral and an ellipse? In the same exact spirit, Turgot brings known facts to bear on Buffon's theory of the arrangement of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... the nature of the battle changed. The tallest of the attackers opened his tiny mouth and piped a signal. The ring of weaving tall bodies surrounding the two opened and became a U. The creatures in the curve of the U raised their shock-tubes and, with none of their own kind behind the victims to share in its discharge, released whatever power it was that lurked ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... of the past and present, are the basis of speculative politics. A judgment upon a movement in the present, an opinion hazarded upon the curve which a state, a nation, or an empire will describe in the future, is of little value unless from a wide enough survey the clear sanction of the past can be ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... were hidden behind a curve which had given the place the name of Tournevent. It seemed to have sought shelter in this ravine overgrown with grass and rushes, from the keen, salt sea wind—the ocean wind that devours and burns like fire, that drys ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... points of resemblance that struck me at once, such as the very graceful curve of the neck and the delicacy of the hands ... and also something about the figure, about the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... poor student of fulfilling his patient task when, on his approach, he was sure to be met by this surprise of the parted lips, and sudden smile, and bright look? He was far too bewildered to examine the outline of her nose or the curve of ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the extraordinary effect they had had on him, especially as he had once seen them from a great altitude upon a clear day—an eternal, immeasurable sea of white ice, broken by hummocks and wrinkles that from below were soaring peaks named and reverenced; and, beyond, the spherical curve of the earth's edge that dropped in a haze of air into unutterable space. But this time they seemed more amazing than ever, and he looked out on them with the interest ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... denyin' he looked the part, this short-legged, long-armed, heavy-podded gent with the greasy old derby tilted rakish over one ear. Such a hard face he has, a reg'lar low-brow map, and a neck like a choppin'-block. His stubby legs are sprung out at the knees, and his arms have a good deal the same curve. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,—and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,—I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse's devils led me the round ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... adventure upon it, yielded up his life. On either side of his body stood his two rivals. They were gazing at the she-wolf, who sat smiling in the snow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even as in battle. The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. The curve of his neck was turned toward his rival. With his one eye the elder saw the opportunity. He darted in low and closed with his fangs. It was a long, ripping slash, and deep as well. His teeth, in passing, burst the wall ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... London, probably about the end of the Crimean War. His sketch did not reach the office of the paper for which he worked in time, and some one went to see what the man of genius was doing. He was found in bed, but he was equal to the occasion. Snatching a sheet of paper and a pencil he drew a curve. "There," said he, "is the triumphal arch, and here"—scribbling a number of scratches like eccentric comets—"here are the fireworks." Mr. Browne's drawings occasionally showed a tendency to approach the rudimentary ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... of the Eight Scholars spans the canal narrowly. On the gray stone of its arch are carvings in low relief, and the curve of its span is pleasing to the eye. No one knows how old is the Bridge of the ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... bent south, at Livingston, Claire had her first mountain driving, and once she had to ford a stream, putting the car at it, watching the water curve up in a lovely silver veil. She felt that she was conquering the hills as she ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... glossy. And he liked her because she was so exquisitely fresh and candid, so elegant, so violent and complete a contrast to James Ollerenshaw; so absurdly sagacious and sure of herself, and perhaps because of a curve in her cheek, and a mysterious suggestion of eternal enigma in her large and liquid eye. When she looked right away from him, as she sometimes did in the conversation, the outline of her soft cheek, which ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... dress; and she look'd to his eyes Like a young soul escaped from its earthly disguise; Her fair neck and innocent shoulders were bare, And over them rippled her soft golden hair; Her simple and slender white bodice unlaced Confined not one curve of her delicate waist. As the light that, from water reflected, forever, Trembles up through the tremulous reeds of a river, So the beam of her beauty went trembling in him, Through the thoughts it suffused with a sense soft ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... because he has not yet arrived. The world, in any case, speaking generally, was enormous; it was endless; it was always dropping things and people upon them without warning, as from a clear and cloudless sky. But this particular individual was still climbing the great curve below their horizon, and had not yet poked his ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... marvelous," she continued cheerfully. "Who lives in that salmon-pink pagoda just this side of the curve?" ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... his chance of error five times. He judges the flight of the ball some 10 feet away, and never really sees it again until he has hit it (if he does). A slight deflection caused by the wind or a small misjudgment of curve will certainly mean error. Remembering the 85 percent errors in tennis, I again ask you if it is worth while to take ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... 15 the vertical curve describes the values of the spectrum as they grade from red through yellow, green, blue, and purple. The horizontal curve describes the chromas of the spectrum in the same sequence; while the third curve leaning outward is obtained by uniting the ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... overhanging top. Here with infinite toil the Cliff Dwellers constructed a fortress, the front of which rose forty feet from the foundation and contained five stories. This front was not made straight, but concave, to correspond to the curve of the cliff. ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... green shades encroach upon the verge of the ocean. It is less than half-a-mile across, and nearer its northern than its southern extremity, the sea has cast up a key of large grey rounded ironstone, which interrupts the equal curve of the beach, and doubtless marks the spot where the ship's carpenter swam ashore."—Gell's Remarks on the First Discovery: Tasmanian Journal, vol. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... other instrument of torture on my horses. Don't the simpletons know that blinders are the cause of well, I wouldn't like to say how many of our accidents, Joe, for fear you'd think me extravagant. and the check-rein drags up a horse's head out of its fine natural curve and presses sinews, bones, and joints together, till the horse is well-nigh mad. Ah, Joe, this is a cruel world for man or beast. You're a standing token of that, with your missing ears and tail. And now I've got to go and be cruel, and ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... if the aeroplane is travelling slowly, say at 20 miles an hour, the curve of the trajectory will be flatter, and if a head wind be prevailing it may even be swept backwards somewhat after it has lost its forward momentum, and describe a trajectory similar to that ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... LUGS FOR HARNESS.—T.J. Magruder, Marion, Ohio.—This invention relates to improvements in the construction and application of shaft tug lugs for harness, and consists in forming the said lugs with broad and long plates, properly curved to suit the curve of the pad, and connecting the latter to the under sides of the skirts and to the pads in a way to stiffen the skirt and to hold the stud securely from breaking loose, the said lugs being made solid with ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... however, had by this time turned out of the gallery into a passage, which, after a single curve, terminated in the private room of the seneschal. Believing that his ignorance of the localities was thus leading him on to certain capture, the Landgrave pursued more leisurely. The passage was dimly lighted; every image ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... cried the man outside. But the girl was not frightened in the least. "Let him stay outside," she said. And we let him stay outside. But that door of mine bent inwards in a great curve every now and then, ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... impression; but before long the pallor of his face, deeply marked by smallpox, the infinite gentleness of his eyes, and the elegant framework of his long and flowing black hair, which grew in an admirable curve around a broad, high forehead, attracted towards him that emotion of sad sympathy to which we yield without inquiring its reason or dreaming of resistance. Though it was still early, he seemed already to have come some distance, for his boots were covered with dust; but no doubt he was nearing ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the pony's bridle. Seizing the reins and bracing my feet against the dashboard, I wheeled around in an instant. The pony was ever ready to try his speed. Looking backward, I saw Dawee waving his hand to me. I turned with the curve in the road and disappeared. I followed the winding road which crawled upward between the bases of little hillocks. Deep water-worn ditches ran parallel on either side. A strong wind blew against my cheeks and fluttered my sleeves. The ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... pencil which moves in front of a vertical cylinder. This cylinder itself moves around its axis by means of a clockwork mechanism, and accomplishes one entire revolution every twenty-four hours. By this means is obtained a curve of the tide in which the times are taken for abscisses and the heights of the sea for ordinates. However little such marigraphs have had to be used, great defects have been recognized in them. When we come to change the sheet on the cylinder (and such change should be made at least ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... respire A liquid element, whereon Our spirits, like delighted things That walk the air on subtle wings, 965 Floated and mingled far away, 'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day. And when the evening star came forth Above the curve of the new bent moon, And light and sound ebbed from the earth, 970 Like the tide of the full and the weary sea To the depths of its own tranquillity, Our natures to its own repose Did the earth's breathless ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... arms will part, and though hot fever sear it, My mouth will curve again with the old, tender flame. And darkness will come down, still finding in my spirit The dream of your brief love, and on my lips ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... points might perhaps be added. The oval seal is undoubtedly a plain sleeve-link—what else is of such a shape? The scissors were bent nail scissors. Short as the two snips are, you can distinctly see the same slight curve ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... begin to watch for the house," said the silent Esther, as Carter swung the car around another curve in the beautiful road. "I don't see why I couldn't have been ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... a step towards the thermometer. Suddenly everything appeared unsteady. The bricks on the floor were dancing up and down. Then the white blossoms, the green leaves behind them, the whole greenhouse, seemed to sweep sideways, and then in a curve upward. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... to myself and rushed forward with the rest of the lads. Did he follow behind us? I do not think so, for the rosy lips which had smiled upon us with so airy a welcome soon showed a discontented curve not to be belied by the merry words that issued from them, and when we would have escorted her across the fields to her father's house, she made a mocking curtsy, and wandered away with the ugliest old crone who mouths and ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... per cent of those who begin the study fail to reach this speed and so are not employed. Bryan and Harter[2] explained the rate of improvement in both sending and receiving, with results represented for one typical subject in the curve on the following page. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... of his demeanour; the feeling of utter powerlessness which poverty brings having effectually chased away all the natural piety and light-heartedness of youth. Dark circles surrounded his sunken eyes, his cheeks were hollow, his mustache drooped in a sorrowful curve over his sad mouth. His long black hair was negligently pushed back from his pale face, and showed a want of care remarkable in a young man who was strikingly handsome, despite his doleful desponding expression. The constant pressure of a crushing grief had ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the largest star involved in its course it bends sharply about 10 deg. out of its former direction, and for the additional fact that it seems to take its origin from a curved offshoot of the intricate nebulous mass surrounding Maia. Exactly at the point where this curve is transformed into a straight line shines a small star! In view of all the facts the idea does not seem to be very far-fetched that in the Pleiades we behold an assemblage of suns, large and small, ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... epic, something large-gestured and splendid in the "breaking" season. Smooth, glossy, almost unwrinkled the thick ribbon of jet-black sod rose upon the share and rolled away from the mold-board's glistening curve to tuck itself upside down into the furrow behind the horse's heels, and the picture which my uncle made, gave me pleasure in spite of the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... acres of the sensitive plant, called by the Marquesans teita hakaina, the Modest Herb. A wide glade in a curve of the mountains was filled with a sea of it, and my companions delighted in dashing through its curiously nervous leafage, that shuddered and folded its feathery sprays together at their touch. If shocked further it opened its leaflets as if to say, "What's the use? ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... been raining for a week. Berta was writing a poem, her elbows on the desk, her hair clutched in one hand, her pen in the other. At the window Robbie Belle was working happily over her curve-tracing, now and then drawing back to gaze with admiration at the sweeping lines of her problem. Once the slanting beat of the drops against the pane caught her eye, and she paused for a moment to consider their angle of incidence. She decided that she liked curves better than angles. She ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... sentinel at the entrance to the harbor, while beyond it stretches Massachusetts Bay. Turning nearly east the eye, passing over Chickatawbut Hill—three miles off and second in height of the Blue Hills—follows the beautiful curve of Nantasket Beach, and the pointing finger of Minot's Light. Facing nearly south, the long ridge of Manomet Hill in Plymouth, thirty-three miles away, stands clear against the sky, while twenty-six miles away, in Duxbury, one sees the Myles ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... elegant, it stood on a circular foot, a short pedestal with a slightly spreading base, and, though not of signal depth, justified its title by the charm of its shape as well as by the tone of its surface. It might have been a large goblet diminished, to the enhancement of its happy curve, by half its original height. As formed of solid gold it was impressive; it seemed indeed to warn off the prudent admirer. Charlotte, with care, immediately took it up, while the Prince, who had after a minute shifted his position again, regarded ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... The sweeping curve, the graceful arch, The line so firm and free; A skilful sculptor well might say: "Can this teach aught ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... yesterday—of battle-fields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers—of battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did we run; where the towers curved, there did we curve. With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that side into the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... orbit, man," Joyce said. "I'm trackin' it, but I don't understand it. That rock is on a closing curve with us, and ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... magnet be placed near the circuit, so that its north pole, N, is opposite that side of the circuit which acts as a south pole, the magnet and the circuit will attract one another. The lines of force that radiate from the end of the magnet, curve round and coalesce with some of those of the circuit. It was shown by the late Professor Clerk-Maxwell, that every portion of a circuit is acted upon by a force urging it in such a direction as to make it inclose within its embrace the greatest ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... of an acquired activity, there is progress in the rapidity, effectiveness, and accuracy with which the response is made. There is, up to a certain point, an almost vertical rise in the learning curve. After varying numbers of repetitions, depending somewhat on the particular individual, there occur what are known as "plateaux," during which no progress in speed or accuracy of response is to be observed. In ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... dogs, nor the court-house tower and the tall steeples that pierced her shade, but a high wall of mountains. We seemed to be driving straight for their heart. The river's mood was mine. It shrank from that forbidding wall and the mysteries beyond; it swept in a wide curve into pleasant lowlands. And now I looked across it northward, to other mountains—to my mountains, to the friendly heights that watched over my valley. Closing my eyes I saw it as on that morning ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... alphabet.) This apparatus is not a good one where the line is to be run with a "closed circuit battery," or where it is to be used very often. It will do, however, for places where a push-button would be too tiresome to use. The right end of C is curved. This curve serves as a handle. D and E are wires leading from X ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... their moderate pace for quite a distance further, continually looking back toward the camp-fire, the smoke from which continued to ascend with the same distinct regularity as before, but nothing resembling a warrior was detected. Finally a curve in the gorge shut out the troublesome signal, and they were left to continue their way and conjecture as much as they chose as to the explanation ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... that these wanderers are subject to the general laws that govern the universe. The great Newton announced that, like the planets, they were obedient to universal attraction; that they must follow an extremely elongated curve, and return periodically to the focus of the ellipse. From the basis of these data Halley calculated the progress of the comet of 1682, and ascertained that its motions presented such similarity with the apparitions of 1531 and 1607, that he ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... dealing with practical or imaginative things. By so doing they employ, as it were, the intuition of the brain, and by using it do not waver and vacillate by too much reasoning over the question or endeavouring to see both sides of it at once. When the sloping Line of Head has a gentle curve downwards towards the Mount of the Moon (1-1, Plate II.), distinct control over the imagination is indicated. The student will then know that the subject simply uses his imagination when he wishes to do so instead ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... suspended by the creepers entangled in their branches, were balanced like the formidable battering-rams of the ancients. Lucien was speechless at the sight before his eyes. A sudden cracking noise was heard, and another forest giant slowly bent over, and, describing a rapid curve, crushed its branches against the ground; ten seconds destroyed the work ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... learnedly described, as your worships may see—Act. Erud. Lips. an. 1695—to these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve line approximating to a cycloid—if ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... appealingly. The whole of her being became an appeal—the glance, the gesture, the curve of the slim and fragile body. She was like a slave. She had no pride, no secret reserve of thought. She was an instinct. Tears showed in her ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... rewarded with a faint smile, but the delicate curve of the girl's lips relaxed into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... can only cut certain shapes—for instance, you cannot cut a wedge-shaped gap out of a piece of glass (fig. 13); however tenderly you handle it, it will split at point A. The nearest you can go to it is a curve; and the deeper the curve the more difficult it is to get the piece out. In fig. 14 A is an average easy curve, B a difficult one, C impossible, except by "groseing" or "grozeing" as cutters call it; that is, after the cut is made, setting to work to patiently bite the piece ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... play-worlds for the real one on correlation with which human prosperity and dignity depend. On the other hand, the mind becomes wedded to conventional objects which mark, perhaps, the turning-points of practical life and plot the curve of it in a schematic and disjointed fashion, but which are themselves entirely opaque and, as we say, material. Now as matter is commonly a name for things not understood, men materially minded are those whose ideas, while practical, are meagre and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... around the heel a strap we bring, To the centre of the curve, A leather or linen strap is used, And don't affect ...
— How to Make a Shoe • Jno. P. Headley
... man and buried his teeth in his wrist. Roaring with pain, the conductor seized his assailant by the throat, and, before Donald could come to the rescue, tossed him out of the window. The train was dashing round a curve at thirty miles an hour, and when Donald stretched out his neck to find out whether Gum was killed, it was with small hope of ever seeing him more. For two minutes the miner gazed at the receding distance, then, without uttering a word, turned ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... horseback. He could catch a fish, and was known to be partial to a rubber at whist. He certainly was not regarded as a hard or cruel man. But Cousin Henry, in looking at him, had always seen a sternness in his eye, some curve of a frown upon his brow, which had been uncomfortable to him. From the beginning of their intercourse he had been afraid of the lawyer. He had felt that he was looked into and scrutinised, and found to be wanting. Mr Apjohn had, ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... of the Geometry of Descartes, which contains the application of algebra to the definition and investigation of curve lines (1637), constitutes an epoch in the history of the mathematical sciences. Two years previously, Cavalieri's work on Indivisibles had appeared. This method was improved by Torricelli and others. The way was now open, for the development of the Infinitesimal Calculus, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... nearly a yard deep, round a huge gray rock, fully fifteen yards across and nearly seven yards high, a bulge of worn stone, shaped much like half a melon and almost as symmetrical. And, as one might lay half a melon, curve up, and then split it with one blow of a kitchen- knife, so this great rock, as if cleft by a single sweep of a Titan's sword, was rent in half and the halves left about four yards apart. The fracture was clean and smooth, except that a piece about two yards square had cracked ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the track, and the heavy train got under way again; but the whistles behind grew nearer, sounding danger-signals, and in turning a curve he looked out and saw a train speeding after him at a rate that must bring it against the rear of his own train if something were not done. He broke into a sweat as he pulled the throttle wide open and lunged into ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... passion, no longer symbols of the transcendental glory of the world beyond the grave. "All rigidity had melted, everything which had been stiff and hard had become supple; the emotion of the soul flows through every curve and line; the set faces of the statues are illuminated by a smile which seems to come from within, the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Her voice was bleak. "I might as well let you know. The Institute could find out anyway through its government connections—the damned octopus!" he looked into the sky. Dalgetty's gaze followed the curve of her high cheekbones. Unusual face—you didn't often see such an oddly pleasing arrangement. The slight ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... again. "The bother is to keep it up," he said. "They won't trust me in the nursery alone, because I tried to get a growth curve out of Georgina Phyllis—you know—and how I'm to give ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... humble bourgeois going quietly about their business. Tournefort had donned an old blouse, tattered stockings, and shoes down at heel. With his hands buried in his breeches' pockets, he, too, turned into the long narrow Rue de l'Oursine, which, after a sharp curve, abuts ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... four fire-breathing steeds, behind which the young god stands erect with flashing eyes, his head surrounded with rays, holding in one hand the reins of those fiery coursers which in all hands save his are unmanageable. When towards evening he descends the curve[26] in order to cool his burning forehead in the waters of the deep sea, he is followed closely by his sister Selene (the Moon), who is now prepared to take charge of the world, and illumine with her silver crescent the dusky night. Helios meanwhile ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... mountains on a lowland curve surrounded by verdure too dense to be penetrated with the eye, and too far to try to walk—which is a good excuse for tired feet. The first prominent feature to meet the eye on land is a large square house, two stories high, located on a rocky eminence near the shore, and overlooking the entire ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... never fairly ushered in until Commencements were over. When the boys of the Military Institute, a mile beyond the village, had yelled their last yell from the back platform of the train as it swept around the curve, and Mrs. Graham's boarders had departed, accompanied by their trunks and the enthusiastic farewells of the town pupils, then, and not before, Friendship settled down to the enjoyment of picnics, ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... shining at the border of her eyelids, and soon two big tears breaking away from her eyes coursed slowly down her cheeks. Others followed them more swiftly, running like drops of water filtering through rocks and fell regularly on the rounded curve of her bosom. She remained upright, her eyes motionless, her face rigid and pale, hoping that the others would not ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... standing high out of water, in ballast trim, with a black hull, bright waist, and wales painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... know," answered Ralph, honestly. "I'll have to come every day for a long time—perhaps twice a day," he added, remembering the curve of Araminta's cheek and her long, ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... problem, in the form in which it had been attacked by previous mathematicians, involved no serious difficulty. At the Springfield meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1859, I read a paper explaining the method, and showed by a curve on the blackboard the changes in the orbit of one of the asteroids for a period, I think, of several hundred thousand years,—"beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitants"—said one of the local newspapers. A month later it was extended ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... of palms where a tiny oasis sheltered a few native huts. At an immense distance, here and there, other oases showed as dark stains show on the sea where there are hidden rocks. And still farther away, on all hands, the desert seemed to curve up slightly like a shallow wine-hued cup to the misty blue horizon line, which resembled a faintly seen and mysterious tropical sea, so distant that its sultry murmur was lost in the embrace of the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... fascinating, and even in the abstract is not devoid of utility. In each case a definite object is presented, and usually a choice of methods of attaining it; success requires a thorough knowledge of the properties of the curve in hand, while ingenuity is stimulated, and familiarity with expedients is cultivated, by the effort to select the most available of those properties, and to arrange parts whose motions shall be in accordance with them. Such exercise of the inventive ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... a different colony. Here, the Bembeces (A species of Digger-wasps.—Translator's Note.) were sweeping the threshold of their burrows, flinging a curve of dust behind them; the Languedocian Sphex was dragging her Ephippigera (A species of Green Grasshopper—Translator's Note.) by the antennae; a Stizus (A species of Hunting-wasp.—Translator's Note.) was storing her ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... sticks, intended to keep the place sheltered from the moisture of the soil. The arbour rises in the centre of this first platform. Boughs vertically arranged are interlaced at the base with those of the floor. The birds arrange them in two rows facing each other; they then curve together the upper extremities of these sticks, and fix them so as to obtain a vault. All the prominences in the materials employed are turned towards the outside, so that the interior of the room ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... was about three hundred yards. In this circle he walked round and round, keeping his eye fixed upon the crouching animal. When he had nearly completed one circumference, he began to shorten the diameter—so that the curve which he was now following was a spiral one, and gradually drawing nearer to the hare. The latter kept watching him as he moved—curiosity evidently mingling with her fears. Fortunately, as Norman had said, the sun was nearly in the vertex of the heavens, and his own ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... among the trees she fancied she was gaining upon him, and then as the pines came together again and were mingled with young spruces, she perceived that he drew away from her more and more. And he went round a curve and was hidden, and then visible again much further off, and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells |
