"Expanse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about this garden question some day," said Mary Ellen. She leaned against the corral post, looking out over the wide expanse of the prairie round about. "Are those our antelope out there, Lucy?" she asked, pointing out with care the few tiny objects, thin and knifelike, crowned with short black forking tips, which showed up against the sky line on a distant ridge. "I think they must be. I haven't noticed them for ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... of the rough water between the great headlands into the lake-like expanse of the glorious harbour; and before long, after signalling, boats were seen approaching, their white sails glistening in ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... the snow was, and blue the shadows, and fair the white expanse of hill and meadow, all crisp and sparkling. Everybody was out—which was not wonderful; but so well had Mr. Linden disposed and covered up his packages, that all anybody could see was that he and Faith were taking a sleigh-ride,—which was not wonderful either. And before long they left the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... current which rendered difficult or impossible a voyage from these regions to India, and which therefore must have tended in a southerly direction. In this current we have no difficulty in recognising that of Mozambique. On the other hand, that the rukh had an expanse of wing of thirty paces, and that it could lift an elephant in its talons, are ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... better earth-shaker of the two; first, by means of subterranean fires, he threw up a great many small islands, which, rising at his bidding, as thick as mushrooms after a thunder-storm, broke up the continuous expanse of water into lakes; and by continual perseverance in this plan, he at last rescued the whole plain from his antagonist, who, marshaling his remaining forces into a narrow file, was fain to retreat under the high banks of the Allier, and to evacuate a large tract of country, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... decent place in the world; he felt too that her merited wrath was in some way connected with this present encompassing peril, which seemed to shake the air all about him, to send round and round in a glancing, vanishing vision the expanse of sky overhead, the alarmed faces of the seconds and doctors, and the remoter figures of two stable boys wildly beating off with their caps the gambolling horses that wanted to come and look on. Suddenly came exclamations, sharp and peremptory: 'Enough! Stop, stop!' What has ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and fatalities,—they will understand the poor girl's tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed. She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet which could ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... after the sawmill the tar kiln, so that the dark green forest was now only a waste of blackened stumps and undergrowth, topped by the vulgar short-leaved pine and an occasional oak or juniper. Here and there they passed an expanse of cultivated land, and there were many smaller clearings in which could be seen, plowing with gaunt mules or stunted steers, some heavy-footed Negro or listless "po' white man;" or women and children, black or white. In reply to a question, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... numbers, at every shelter that was seen, whole troops left the waning squadrons, and rushed to hide themselves from the ferocity of the tempest. To right and left nought could be descried but the broad expanse of the moor, and the figures of their fellow-rebels seen dimly through the murky night, plodding onwards through the sinking moss. Those who kept together—a miserable few—often halted to rest themselves, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... laugh of triumphant optimism. Of the man's sincerity there could be no question; it beamed from his shining forehead, his pointed nose; glistened in his prominent eyes. He had a tall, lank figure, irreproachably clad in a suit of grey: frock coat, and waistcoat revealing an expanse of white shirt. His cuffs were magnificent, and the hands worthy of them. A stand-up collar, of remarkable stiffness, kept his head at the proper ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... looked down at the vast expanse of leather, both sections pointing inwardly, and said, "Well, dam a fool," and "changed cars" at the junction. As he got them on the right feet, and hired a raftsman to tie them up for him, he said he would get even with the doctor if he had to catch the smallpox. O, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... and I,—I had not a word to say to him. And he seemed to collect himself in his fierceness, and to remain obdurately silent in his anger. In this way we drove on, till, coming to a turn of the road, the expanse of the sea appeared before us. Here again I observed a small cloud of smoke which had grown out of the spot I had before seen, and I was aware that some large ship was making its way into the harbour of ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... buildings on the east side of the street. On the left, furthest from the spectator, is a wide, arched opening, apparently leading to another apartment, in which is the door giving entrance to the rooms from the staircase. Nearer, there is another french-window, opening on to an expanse of "leads" and showing the exterior of the wall of the further room above-mentioned. From the right, above the middle window, runs an ornamental partition, about nine feet in height, with panels of opaque glass. This partition extends more than half-way across the room, ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... the second day out and the three girls were leaning against the rail, gazing dreamily out over the boundless expanse of ocean. They wore natty white middy suits and, with floppy little sailor hats shading flushed cheeks and laughing eyes, they made an alluringly picturesque little group that had attracted much attention from ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... blinding to look at, scintillant as diamond dust. We sat down to rest on some scattered boulders, and gazed with wonder at the magnificent vistas of glowing peaks towering above us, and the luminous expanse of purple gorge and valley, with the white, roaring torrents below, over which wreaths of foam-like filmy mist hovered and floated continually. As I sat, lost in admiration, St. Aubyn touched my arm, and silently pointed to Theodor Raoul. He had risen, and now stood at the edge ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... schooner, a perfect cloud of canvas, took the lead, and left her consorts far in the rear. It was the privateer they were after. The jackies of the "Delaware" clambered into the rigging, and set all sail, with the clumsiness of merchant-sailors; but, though the ship spread a large expanse of canvas, she was making but little progress, for two long cables dragged in the water astern, holding her back. The Frenchman came up gallantly, but suddenly discovered the ports along the side of the "Delaware," and concluded he ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... three miles south of Elizabeth City on the banks of the Pasquotank River, just where that lovely stream suddenly broadens out into a wide and beautiful expanse, lies the old plantation known in our county from earliest days as ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... following he spent amid the faded grandeurs of the drawing-room, gazing longingly at the wide expanse of beach and the tumbling sea beyond. The house was almost uncanily quiet, an occasional tinkle of metal or crash of china from the basement giving the only indication of the industrious Mrs. Cox; but on the day after the quiet of ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... share, perhaps. Your picture, with its wide expanse of calm sea, was just reminding me of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... Bluff. Thither the Frenchmen repaired, pushed through the dense semi-tropical forest, and climbed the steep acclivity. Thence they surveyed their Canaan. Beneath them moved the unruffled river, gliding around the reed-grown shores of marshy islands, the haunt of alligators, and betwixt the bordering expanse of wide, wet meadows, studded with island-like clumps of pine and palmetto, and bounded by the sunny verge of distant forests. Far on their right, seen by glimpses between the shaggy cedar-boughs, the glistening sea lay stretched along the horizon. Before, in hazy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... or two we found a clear horizon before us to the south. The hills still continued upon our left, but we could not see any elevation over the expanse of reeds to our right. The river inclined to the left, and swept the base of the hills that still continued on that side. I consequently landed once more to survey ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... been made at the instance of Napoleon, and not in consequence of any demand made by the States. The district then called Louisiana included the present State of that name and the States of Missouri and Arkansas—included also the right to possess, if not the absolute possession of all that enormous expanse of country running from thence back to the Pacific: a huge amount of territory, of which the most fertile portion is watered by the Mississippi and its vast tributaries. That river and those tributaries are navigable through the whole center of the American continent up to Wisconsin and Minnesota. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... after-deck and drove the punt down the creek with a pole. He could see across the bank, and the wet marsh, glistening faintly in the moonlight, ran back into thin mist. In front, the creek got wider until it melted into the expanse of sands. Here and there a belt of smooth mud caught a silvery reflection, but for the most part the sands were dark. The night was calm and the advancing surf rumbled in the distance like a heavy train. It was a good night for shooting and Jim wondered whether anybody ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... excitement I watched the houses slipping behind us as we swept along. Then we came to the tree-lined expanse of road immediately leading to the cottage. As the car stopped, I leaped out quickly, Gatton close upon my heels, and ran up the path ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... wintry touch on the Ayrshire coast. Sweeping in from the sea, they made sport with the golfers on the Links, and taxed their skill to the utmost. The long stretch of grey sand upon which the great green waves rolled in and broke with no gentle murmur, the wide expanse of the still wintry-looking sea, the enchanting pictures to be seen in the clear morning light, where the Arran hills stood out so bold and rugged against the sky, and at sunset, when the tossing waters were sometimes stilled into an exquisite rest, all these were ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... could see nothing but one vast expanse of snow. I could not, however, remain where I was. Either on horseback or on foot I must try to reach a place of shelter and to find my companions. I now remembered that I had taken my shoes off. How to get them on again was the difficulty, for when I felt them, I found that they ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... her garments closer about her. It was cold, and she was trembling. She feared that vast expanse of bog and its evil creatures, but she was determined to face the matter out and see exactly how ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... right of their course, as far as she could see, there was one vast expanse of dark blue sea, gilded dazzlingly over one portion where the sun's beams were reflected. Far ahead to the north and as far behind them the sea was bordered with the fantastic curves of a faint blue coast ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... and yet her face offered contrast too: its features were by no means such as are usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such blended freshness and repose: their outline was stern; her forehead was high but narrow; it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but no expanse; nor did her peaceful yet watchful eye ever know the fire which is kindled in the heart or the softness which flows thence. Her mouth was hard: it could be a little grim; her lips were thin. For sensibility and genius, with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... glow appeared in the eastern horizon, gradually extending over the sky, and suffusing a wide expanse of the calm ocean with a bright pink hue, and tinging the loftier sails of the stranger, while to the west the surface of the water still remained of a ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... heavens to intercept its rays, or to receive the parting tinge of lingering day,—day that, scarcely softened into twilight, allows the freshening breeze to wake, and the moon to burst forth in all her glory to glide with solemn elegance through the azure expanse. ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... eight feet high, and so built that on all the expanse of its smoothed surface there was no foothold, no projection for fingers to cling to. But Brent was in that frame of mind which makes light of obstacles: he drew back into the lane, ran, gathered himself for an upward spring ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... others. And they saw that it was always full, and always dancing in its waves. And they saw that it was deep and abounding with fierce whales and makaras. And it resounded constantly with the terrible sounds of aquatic creatures. And they saw that it was vast, and wide as the expanse of space, unfathomable, and limitless, and the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... stars are golden instants in the deep Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set: The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep Seeming so motionless that I forget The hollow booming bridges, where it slides, Dark with the sad looks that it bears along, Towards a sea whose unreturning tides Ravish the sighted ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... task to climb so far—one is enabled to form a slight idea of the desert of Atacama. To the east, you see the majestic Cordilleras, their bright peaks glittering in the distance through a golden mist; while on the north, south, and west, there is an unrelieved expanse without sign of life or hope, but everywhere silence: and what a silence! It is not the stillness of a summer night in the country, nor of a church, nor of a sickroom: it is the silence of death! As you gaze on the scene before you, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... call came from the sands—a distant call, floating through the night. Another—and another! She stood up—she sprang on the heap of planks, straining her eyes. Yes—surely she saw a figure on that wide expanse of sand, moving quickly, moving away? And one after another the cries rose, waking dim ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mind The many meanings glistening up When Nature to her nurslings kind, Hands them the fruitage and the cup! And seek we rich significance Not otherwhere than with those tides Of pleasure on the sunned expanse, Whose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... credit for much insight in causing the article prohibiting the introduction of liquor into the Indian country to be inserted into the treaty of 1858. I think it was in 1910 that this forgotten provision was discovered and again enforced over a large expanse of territory occupied by whites, it being found that the ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... rays, and there, Stretching across its hoary breast, deep shadows lurk. A stream, with many a turn, now lost to sight, And then, again revealed, winds through the vale, Shimmering in the early morning sun. A few white clouds float in the blue expanse, Their forms revealed in the clear lake beneath, Which bears upon its breast a bark canoe, Cautiously guided by a sinewy arm. High in the heavens, three eagles proudly poise, Keeping their mountain eyrie still in view, Although their flight has borne them far away. Upon the cliff which beetles ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... its sway. This extensive flat could not fail to exert a noticeable influence upon the country and its inhabitants. The dense forests in the north, while acting as a screen, do not afford protection against the icy polar winds which sweep with scarcely diminished force over the broad expanse, so that the northern shores of the Black and Caspian Seas in January have about the same temperature as Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The mountains of Western Europe shut off the aerial current of the Gulf Stream which tempers the summer heat ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... a pair of dancers, ignored their glares and the man's hissed insult, which he didn't understand anyhow, and found his view suddenly blocked by a large expanse of ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the brilliant moonlight and shoot down a long, bare slope which was known as The Slide, where years before an avalanche had torn its way downward leaving bare earth in its wake. This V-shaped scar on the face of the mountain was now covered with a smooth expanse of snow—an ideal avenue for a swift and thrilling descent of the mountain. Teeny-bits had done more skiing in the last few days than he had done before in all the years of his life and had become enthusiastic over ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... four days, when we reached a point, on rounding which we saw a wide expanse of water before us, with another point in the far distance. We knew therefore that we were at the mouth of a considerable river. It was what we were looking for, and the wind, which had changed to the northward, would enable us to sail up it. The current, however, ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... mouth of the Soane, a vast expanse of sand dotted with droves of camels; and soon after, the wide-spread spits of sand along the north bank announced the mouth of the Gogra, one of the vastest of the many ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... leading my camel till I was out of the thicket, when I remounted; but at a loss which way to go, and unknowing where Providence might direct me, I reached the desert, and cast my eyes over the expanse; when, lo! at length a smoke appeared in the midst of it. I whipped my camel, and at length reached a fire, and near it observed a handsome tent, before which was a standard planted, surrounded by spears, horses picketted, and camels ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... and of charred trees run hard clay highways. When motor cars from the cities and health resorts began to invade the pines, it was found that the old wagon trails were inadequate; hence there followed experiments which resulted in intersecting orange-colored roads, throughout the desert-like expanse. ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... and is reached from the mainland by a regular steamboat service to Wittdun, a favourite sea-bathing resort; or at low water by carriage from Fohr. The larger part of Amrum consists of a treeless sandy expanse, but a fringe of rich marshes affords good pasture-land. The principal place is Nebel, connected by a light railway with Wittdun. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... road winds along a coast of low cliffs—the coast of the Japanese Sea. Always on the left, over a narrow strip of stony land, or a heaping of dunes, its vast expanse appears, blue-wrinkling to that pale horizon beyond which Korea lies, under the same white sun. Sometimes, through sudden gaps in the cliff's verge, there flashes to us the running of the surf. Always upon the right another sea—a silent sea of green, reaching to far misty ranges ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... their secteurs—the secteurs where their loved ones are engaged. How all the letters are read, re-read and handed about, each one seeking a hidden sense, the meaning of an allusion; how dark grows every brow when the news is not so good—what radiant expanse at the word victory. ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... the road, only a slight depression now in the expanse of weeds. The automobile that had brought Evan was standing there. It was a shabby little landaulet with the top up. It looked like a taxi-cab but carried no metre. Beyond the line of the road the view was ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... the expanse of stars above us is not more illimitable than my contempt for Miss Lindsay, nor brighter than my ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... though he had been watching her with the closest scrutiny. He was quite corpulent, past middle age, and not much taller than herself. He was quite bald, and had what seemed a black moustache, but Edith's quick eye noted that it was unskilfully dyed. There seemed a wide expanse in his heavy, flabby cheeks, and the rather puggish nose appeared insignificant between them. A slight tobacco stain in one corner of his mouth did not increase his attractions to Edith, and she positively shrank from the expression of ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... gradually precipitated upon this portion of the river until it reached the surface. Drift now lodged upon it: the decomposition of drift and the accumulation of other vegetable matter soon furnished a suitable bed for the growth of a marine vegetation, and now a vast area, a level expanse of waste land and marsh, is seen extending a great distance into the Gulf, ramified here and there by the outlets of the river. Indeed, so rapid have been these formations, that upon the testimony of history, the Mississippi River to-day is twenty-nine ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of river and a broad stretch of green farming country. It lays below like a vast sunken garden, with great square fields for lawns and clumps of full-leaved, rounded trees for shrubbery. The yellow-green of wheat and the blue-green of oats stretched out, a smooth expanse that rippled and crinkled as the wind and the sweeping shadow of a cloud went slowly down the valley. There were no country houses of high-walled, steep-roofed magnificence here, only comfortable farm dwellings with wide eaves and generous barns, a ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... the realms of thought. Before thy throne the subject-passions bow, Of subject-passions sov'reign ruler thou; At thy command joy rushes on the heart, And through the glowing veins the spirits dart. Fancy might now her silken pinions try To rise from earth, and sweep th' expanse on high: From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise, Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies, While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies. The monarch of the day I might behold, And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold, But I reluctant leave the pleasing views, Which Fancy dresses ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... Every now and then a dark patch fluttered across the shining road, and with a weird and plaintive cry, a night bird dashed abruptly from hedge to hedge, and seemingly melted into nothingness. I quitted the main road on the brow of a low hill, and embarked upon a wild expanse of moor, lavishly covered with bracken and white heather, intermingled with which were the silvery surfaces of many a pool of water. For some seconds I stood still, lost in contemplating the scenery,—its ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... days out. Stopped raining—We all went on deck this morning; it was a frightful picture—sun shining, not a cloud in the sky and not a sign of land nor ship, nor even a bird, in all this expanse of desolation; no life nor joyousness, nothing but muddy water; the dead world fathoms underneath, and we alone, with our ark, all that was left; and whiskey gone—not a ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... Brutus trotted soberly to heel, while Shaitan—a black Galloway, half Biluch, half Arab—tossed an impatient head, sneezed several times in succession, and generally declared his intention of taking matters into his own hands, so soon as he should reach the broader expanse of Terah Mall. But Lenox, impelled by an inbred desire to climb, was minded to push on to the higher, emptier levels of Bakrota—the great hill that towered, formidable, directly ahead of him. For the chalet-like dwellings of Dalhousie are scattered sparsely over three hills, Bakrota, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... 1540. "The houses have four stories, terraced roofs all of the same height, along which one can make the circuit of the entire village without meeting any street to intercept the passage.[123] Here we must remember that the widest gateway is 4 m.—13 ft.—wide,—an expanse easily spanned by common beams used by the Indians in their ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... and scanty herbage. The appearance of the plains is little superior; they are flat and without undulations, composed in general of gravel or hard clay, and rarely enlivened by any show of water; except for two months in the spring, they exhibit to the eye a uniform brown expanse, almost treeless, which impresses the traveller with a feeling of sadness and weariness. Even in Azerbijan, which is one of the least arid portions of the territory, vast tracks consist of open undulating downs, desolate and sterile, bearing only a coarse ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... of Spain, the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, the kingdoms of the Two Sicilies, the duchy of Milan, and certain fortresses and districts of Tuscany, in Europe; the kingdom of Barbary, the coast of Guinea, and an indefinite and unmeasured expanse. of other territory, in Africa; the controlling outposts and cities all along the coast of the two Indian peninsulas, with as much of the country as it seemed good to occupy, the straits and the, great archipelagoes, so far as they had—been visited by Europeans, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... blue banners. A window in a college hall was piled high with great comfortable-looking pillows, each bearing a great challenging Y in white ribbon or embroidery. And overhead the sky arched a broad blue expanse from ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... not often see the sun in times of flood, senor. Rain often falls very heavily, and even when it does not do so there is, you see, a mist in the air rising from this vast expanse of water. Besides, it is only when it is directly overhead that the sun's rays penetrate the foliage, and at that time it is too high for the shadows to afford much guidance. Among us, three shots of a gun at regular intervals ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... himself, as he boasts in The Second Defence of the People of England, to "the whole collective body of people, cities, states, and councils of the wise and eminent, through the wide expanse of anxious and listening Europe." Having sacrificed the use of his eyes to the service of the commonweal, he bates not a jot of ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... distances. Of the lakes, the most important are lake Superior, lake Huron, lake Michigan, lake Ontario, and lake Erie. These are adjacent to the territory of the United States. Lake Winipic is an expanse of water, more than two hundred and fifty miles in length, situated about the 53d degree of north latitude. The largest and noblest river in Canada is the St. Lawrence, which flows from lake Ontario, past the two towns of Montreal and Quebec, and falls ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... white and black; between us was this broad plain of parched shingle and rocks that could, in a night, become one enormous river, or dwindle to a chain of stagnant ponds. To-day some seven narrow streams wandered in the expanse, and again they seemed so easy to cross that again I wondered at ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... floated with her eyes on the sky. Its depth of color was no deeper nor more crystal clear than the depths of her own blue gaze. The tender brooding wonder of the lake was a part and parcel of her own little face, so tiny in the wide expanse of water. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... should be thought such a merit in her to hop over a succession of banners which are swept under her feet in a manner to minify her exertion almost to nothing, but I observe it is so at all circuses. At my first Venetian circus, which was on a broad expanse of the Riva degli Schiavoni, there was a girl who flung herself to the ground and back to her horse again, holding by his mane with one hand, quite like the goddess out of the bath-gown at my village circus the other day; and apparently there are more circuses in the world than circus events. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sitting-room which, being in a little projection of the house, overlooked a special little view of its own. From this window between the folds of the muslin curtains could be seen a file of blooming hollyhocks. Behind them a grassy expanse arose with a long ascent, and the rosette—like blossoms of pink and pale-gold, with gray-green bosses of leaves, lay against the green field like the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... battle. But all now was one immense shining lake. Where cavalry had charged and artillery had roared, and the whole living clash and confusion of a stubborn engagement had filled the eye and ear but a few hours before, all was now an expanse of quiet water, calm as the grave, without a vestige of the struggle, but with hundreds of the combatants sleeping their last sleep below, and the whole artillery and equipment of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Clement VII, took a site under Monte Mario at Rome, in which, besides a beautiful view, there were running waters, with some woods on the banks and a lovely plain which, running along the Tiber as far as the Ponte Molle, formed on either side a wide expanse of meadowland that extended almost to the Porta di S. Pietro; and on the highest point of the bank, where there was a level space, he proposed to build a palace with all the best and most beautiful conveniences and adornments ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... Oakland side of San Francisco Bay. The day was breaking as we crossed the ferry; the fog was rising over the citied hills of San Francisco; the day was perfect—not a ripple, scarce a stain, upon its blue expanse; everything was waiting, breathless, for the sun. A spot of cloudy gold lit first upon the head of Tamalpais, and then widened downward on its shapely shoulder; the air seemed to awaken and began to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the opposite mainland dwell the Aethiopians who are called Auxomitae, because their king resides in the city of Auxomis. And the expanse of sea which lies between is crossed in a voyage of five days and nights, when a moderately favouring wind blows. For here they are accustomed to navigate by night also, since there are no shoals at all in these parts; this portion of the sea has been ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... on upward, now and again turning to look at the great expanse of country which lay below them—the wide bay shining in the sunlight, the magnificent panorama of the mountains beyond, and the line of the deep sea beyond the entrance to the bay. They turned as they heard a sudden exclamation from Jimmy, who was prowling at the edge ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... around the shore of the lake slowly, scanning every cove and inlet with care. That the houseboat was hidden somewhere on that expanse of water none of the party had ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... night, and at midnight we lost our foremost wireless mast overboard; we have now (10 a.m.) been 48 hours without communication. At dawn we could see nothing to fix by; not a buoy in sight, nothing but an expanse of foam-topped short steep waves of dirty neutral-tinted water; how different to the great green and white surges ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... they were apt to do, in a mournful reverie, on the infinite expanse of waters, which was now broken and chopped into a thousand incoming waves by the fresh afternoon breeze. Madame de Frontignac noticed the expression, and began to play with her as if she had been a child. She pulled the comb from her hair, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... music, our orchestra was not very large. I am almost ashamed to say that one violin, solitary and alone, or a piano brought down from the Cottage, was often the only solace and cheer. But then the room was not large, and certainly it was not high, so that nothing was lost in its expanse, and truly the young man played very well, and I remember there were some brass instruments ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... one occasion it fell to one of them to go to the rescue of a fleet of American whalers who, nipped by an unusually early winter in the polar regions, were caught in a great ice floe, and in grave danger of starving to death. The men from the cutters hauled food across the broad expanse of ice, and aided the imprisoned sailors to win their freedom. The revenue officers, furthermore, have been to the people of Alaska the respected representatives of law and order, and in many cases the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... which in the primitive constitutions the war-instinct was checked.[2] The observation of Waitz is just, but a change in environment develops the latent qualities of a race. The restless and melancholy surge, the wide and desolate expanse of the North Sea exalted the imagination of the Viking as the desert the imagination of the Arab. Not the cry of "New lands" merely, but the adventurous heart of his race, lured on by the magic of the sea, its receding horizons, ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... mighty young body still hot from the joyous contact of the noonday sun, his eyes, full of an uncomplaining and uncomprehending agony, sought hers; and Marjorie looked dumbly back with a feeling of desolation growing within her as vast and dreary as the gray expanse lapping beside them, for it seemed to her that Leonard was groping, pleading—oh, so silently—for an explanation, an inspiration deeper than anything he had known before—a something immense that would make it all right, this gigantic twentieth-century work ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... with its expanse of boundless blue, rolls like an ocean in the far distance. We can see it from the hill-top where the sweet-smelling red-pines grow. At the bottom of the hill lies Brankly itself, with its orchards and homestead and fields of golden grain, and ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... across to the parapet and was staring out over the city. Below him spread the dim expanse of roofs and chimneys, with here and there the twinkle of light in an attic window. Leaning on the coping and looking down, he thought of the humanity under the dark roofs: a horizontal humanity—everybody asleep! The ugly fancy came to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... ado; took the pencil from the unwilling hand, and set to work on an imaginary problem. Rose Barclay sat still for a moment with averted face, pride and shame doing their best to silence the better voices within her. At length she stole a glance at Peggy's face, and there beheld such a shining expanse of goodwill and friendliness that Pride and Co. gave up the battle, and retreated into their dens. Heaving a long sigh of relief, she bent forward, and soon was following with all her might Peggy's ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... foot into the enemy's country. But the feeling had never been so strong as now. The Mountain Farm was home, and beyond it lay the wide, wide world, looking wide indeed, and bleak and cold. What with hot rebellion at injustice and cold fear of the vast and friendless expanse, Joe's tears multiplied, and leaning his arms upon the low coping of the bridge, with his head between them and his nose touching the frozen stone, he began to ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... the profession fed freely and voluptuously on the black eyes and cracked crowns of Little Water street, with an occasional haul from Exchange alley and the river Styx. A set, rather older, ventured into the expanse of Broadwater, and talked of the relations of landlord and tenant, of master and apprentice, and sometimes, in that belligerent neighborhood, of husband and wife, and not unfrequently of the writ of breaking the close. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... stronger sympathy for him when I learned that he was an American. He, like myself, had run away. The vessel, in which he had embarked, had been wrecked, and he, with two others, were saved in a small boat. For days they floated above the broad expanse of waters until at length the Delphine picked them up, and brought them to India. I had Ashton removed to my house, but as soon as he recovered, he took French leave of me. From that time I lived alone. I wrote to you frequently, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... and a peculiarly dull grumbling sound as if the elephant were muttering his objections to the orders of his master, the bald-headed man, who still held his hat in one hand, his yellow handkerchief in the other, and dabbed the big white billiard-ball-like expanse as if he felt that it ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... over fields still ghostly and foot-worn, under a sky where ragged clouds unfurl themselves upon the blackening expanse—which seems to have befouled itself by prolonged contact with so many multitudes ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... that is harder to remember still. A great tumult, cross voices, a sea of faces which all looked angry and terrified me, and then it suddenly changes like a dream to a great lonely expanse of shivering snow: and I and some others—whom, I know not—wander about in it—for centuries, as it appears to me. Then comes ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... king, O leader of fierce legions, in this assembly of monarchs of unrivalled power who have met together, I am unable to find out Vandin, chief of the controversialists. But I am searching for him, even as one doth for a swan on a vast expanse of water. O Vandin, thou regardest thyself as the foremost of controversialists. When though wilt engage with me in staking, thou wilt not be able to flow like the current of a river. I am like a full-flaming fire. ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... and the shore, gemmed with its twinkling lights, was very still, for it was too late an hour for Racicot folk to be abroad in the mackerel season. The moon was rising and the harbour was a tossing expanse of silver waves. The mellow light fell on a tall figure lurking at the angle of the road that led past the Shelley cottage. Nora saw and recognized it. She flew down the sandy slope with ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... recent marriage festivity having come up, the lady was amazed to find I had been there, and that I was fond of dancing! I fear this sent me down a great many more pegs in her estimation. In fact, my evening was a total failure, and I was glad to get to bed—though it was an immense expanse of bed, big enough ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... in some of the most delicious-made dishes without suspecting it. Herein lies the secret. With us and our transatlantic cousins the warming over is so artlessly done, that the hard fact too often stares at us from out the watery expanse in ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... dark expanse of the desert and the blue expanse of the sky, the soldier dreamed of France—he smelled with delight the gutters of Paris—he remembered the towns through which he had passed, the faces of his comrades, ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... became as far as possible the rule of action. With such conditions it was at once more difficult for a single ship of war to find, and when found to deal effectually with, a body of vessels which on the one hand was large, and yet occupied but a small space relatively to the great expanse of ocean over which the pursuer might roam fruitlessly, missing continually the one moving spot he sought. For such a purpose a well-handled squadron, scattering within signal-distance from each other, or to meet at a rendezvous, was more likely to find, and, having ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... epithet is as just as Tennyson's descriptive epithet almost invariably proves to be. For at Allington the Medway, which from Aylesford Bridge to Allington Lock has dwindled to a narrow stream, swells out into a broad expanse, where many boats can easily move abreast. If the Cloisterham Weir of Edwin Drood were really the nearest weir on the Medway to Rochester, then Allington Lock would be the place. But it has been pointed out on an earlier page that the distances do not tally in the novel and in actuality, and ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... cool wet sands, glorying in the broad expanse of blue, with white gulls dipping to it ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... melancholy wail With those hoarse sounds the rushing waters pour. Like thee, congenial bird: my steps explore The bleak lone seabeach, or the rocky dale, And shun the orange bower, the myrtle vale, Whose gay luxuriance suits my soul no more. I love the ocean's broad expanse, when dress'd In limpid clearness, or when tempests blow. When the smooth currents on its placid breast Flow calm, as my past moments us'd to flow; Or when its troubled waves refuse to rest, And seem the symbol ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... we shall not gain wisdom, power, and love. The beginner seeks to convert his belief into knowledge; but the trained thinker knows that knowledge ends in belief, since beyond our little islets of intellectual vision, lies the boundless, fathomless expanse of unknown worlds where faith and hope alone can be our guides. Once individual man was insignificant; but now the earth itself is become so,—a mere dot in infinite space, where, for a moment, men wriggle like animalcules in a drop of water. ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... an insignificant man and held in but little esteem; but I set out to conquer this round expanse under the sky, and those who live beneath the sky upon the earth are all my vassals. Those who do homage to me have peace and security, and live without fear. But I immediately send my captains and soldiers to those who do not render homage to me, to make ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... heather-clad hills which form the broad dividing barrier between England and Scotland, the little river Esk brawls and bickers over its stony bed through a wild land of barren braesides and brown peat mosses, forming altogether some of the gloomiest and most forbidding scenery in the whole expanse of northern Britain. Almost the entire bulk of the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Ayr is composed of just such solemn desolate upland wolds, with only a few stray farms or solitary cottages sprinkled at wide distances ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... word that stared at him from ceiling and walls and blue expanse of heaven; why was it there and not in the papers? Could it be that it was lying there yet, that awful, still thing, lying as he remembered it, as he could see it now, its ghastly features hidden among the leaves that rotted, its long arms outflung ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... efforts, was glad to stop, and looked about as he knelt in the middle. He had often thought it was from the river one best marked the savage austerity of the wilderness. In the bush, one's view was broken by rocks and trunks, but from the wide expanse of water one could look across the belt of forest that ran back, desolate and silent, to Hudson Bay. Here and there the hazy outline of a rocky height caught the eye, but for the most part, the landscape had no charm of varied beauty. It was ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... was pleasant to think that Cardington was to accompany him to the bishop's, but as it was still too soon to call for him, he stood for a few moments looking down upon the campus. The giant shadow of the Hall had now crept to the verge of the plateau. There was no human figure on its bleak expanse, but the small trees which found scant nourishment in the rock beneath swayed gently in the broken wind, like a line of sentries marking time. In the centre of the line the flagpole sprang up, thin and white, lifting the stars ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... sanity she must stop at some point. The only rational halting-place was at the Tomb. If I knew my Auriol, she would drop a flower and a tear on it, and then would start on a bee-line for Central Tartary, or whatever expanse of the world's surface offered a satisfactory field ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... response to it was a testimonial to Mrs. Masham, rather overdone. Gwen extenuated Mrs. Masham. She had known Masham all her life, and she really was a very good woman, in spite of her caps. As for her expanse, it was not her fault, but the hand of Nature; and her black jet ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... I travelled, a commuter bold, And many goodly excavations seen; Round many miles of planking have I been Which wops in fealty to contractors hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told Where dynamite had swept the traffic clean, And every passer-by must duck his bean Or flying rocks would lay him stiff and cold. As I was crossing Broadway, with surprise I held my breath and improvised ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... how long ago, how long ago!— Where all the broad expanse was clothed in vines, And fruitful fields and meadows starred with flowers, And clear streams wandered at their idle will; And still lakes slept, their burnished surfaces A dream of painted clouds, and soft airs Went whispering with odorous breath, And all was peace—in that fair ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bold sierra of the Axarquia, whose defiles had proved so disastrous to the Christians. The city lay between two spacious suburbs, the one on the land side being also encircled by a formidable wall; and the other declining towards the sea, showing an expanse of olive, orange, and pomegranate gardens, intermingled with the rich vineyards that furnished the celebrated staple ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... my thoughts go back to those old years, it is not the house, nor the family room, nor that in which I slept, that first of all rises before my inward vision, but that desolate hill, the top of which was only a wide expanse of moorland, rugged with height and hollow, and dangerous with deep, dark pools, but in many portions purple with large-belled heather, and crowded with cranberry and blaeberry plants. Most of all, I loved it in the still autumn morning, outstretched ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... expanse he skims On joyous wings, the late Frank Hutchings overtakes Miss Sims, Both bound ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... of song Spreads o'er th' expanse of heaven? In waves of light it thrills along, Th' angelic signal given— "Glory to God!" from yonder central fire Flows out the echoing ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... servants, a Chinese cook and a civilized Dayak named Dubi (Mr. R. Shelford also going), on board a government paddle-wheel steamer which was bound for Sibu, on the Rejang River. Twenty-five miles' descent of the Sarawak River brought us to the sea. We did not skirt the coast, but cut across a large open expanse of sea for about ninety miles. We then came to the delta of the Rejang River, and went up one of its many mouths, which was of great width, though the scenery all the way was monotonous, and consisted of nothing but mangroves, pandanus, the feathery ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... freight for her that evening. When the tide came in, and her eyes were lifted, gazing afar, scanning the broad expanse of water with such searching, anxious vision, as, it seemed, nothing could escape, Luke Merlyn's cap was dashed to her very feet, tossed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... Chambers', 'The House of the Eight Genii', and 'Pure Delight'. Here, like the Venetians, the men of Kinsai came for pleasure parties in barges, nobly hung and furnished, the cabins painted with flowers and mountain landscapes, and looking out they saw on one side the whole expanse of the city, its palaces, temples, convents, and gardens, and on the other the stretch of clear water, crowded with coloured pleasure boats, over which came echoing the high, clear voices and the tinkling instruments of the revellers. There is no space in which to tell of the King's palace, with ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... streets that Cartoner had told his driver to proceed, and the man had some difficulty in finding the number. It was a house like any other in the street—like any other in any other street. For St. Petersburg is a monstrous town, showing a flat face to the world, exhibiting to the sky a flat expanse of roof broken here and there by some startling inequality, the dagger-like spire of St. Peter and St. Paul, the great roof of the Kasan Cathedral, the dome of St. Isaac's—the largest ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... marmots had not yet emerged to welcome the spring with their shrill, joyous whistling. From their high place they could see the hills spread out below them,—fold after fold as of a great cloak, deeply green, seemingly infinite in expanse, broken only by the blue glint of the Agnes lakes, like two great twin sapphires hidden in the forest. But they couldn't make out a single roof top of Snowy Gulch. The forest had already ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... very morning taken her by a short cut to the vicinity of the upper meadow. She knew the way. But what was likely to happen? Town-bred girl that she was, she had no idea. A recollection of the smooth, upstanding expanse of the upper meadow gave her a clue. If the cows got into that even erectness— She began to run, Prince bounding beside her, his brown ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... the shoulder, the latter being an express guard who resisted. After the desperado, Two-Gun Steve, had forced the engineer to run the train back to a siding, he had ordered Butch to vamoose. Quite naturally, then, the collegian next found himself staggering across the arid expanse, until at last, half dead from a burning thirst, seeking vainly for a water-hole, the vast stretch of sandy, sagebrush-studded wastes shimmered into a gorgeous ocean of sparkling blue waters. Then, as he collapsed on the scorching-hot ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... be measured by number, not by size, and fifty widgeon at one discharge, or a brace of wild swans may almost serve to set against a stag of ten. {23} The lover of nature has glimpses in wild-fowl shooting such as she gives no other man—the glittering expanse of waters, the birds "all in a charm," all uttering their cry together, the musical moan of the tide, and the "long glories of the winter moon." But success is too difficult, equipment too costly, and ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... made a pretext of coming to see how the salt harvest throve, were on the jetty, admiring the silent landscape, where the sea alone sounded the moan of her waves at regular intervals, where boats and vessels tracked a vast expanse, and the girdle of green earth richly cultivated, produced an effect that was all the more charming because so rare on the desolate ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... administrator, came a string of country people with baskets on their heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the red and the saffron they wore, turned them into an ornamentation, in the profuse Oriental taste, of the empty expanse. There was the completest freedom in the wide tree-dotted spaces round which the city gathered her shops and her palaces, the fullest invitation to disburden any heaviness that might oppress, to give the wings of words to any joy that might rebel in prison. The advantage ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... were falling fast, but a young moon rode high in the sky, and helped to light up the expanse of broken ground and piled-up tree trunks which suddenly became visible to the traveller as he reached a clearing in the forest, through which the rough trail or path he was pursuing led. And here in this clearing he came upon the object of his search, and saw that his surmise as to ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the meaning of pity. "You know," he went on, "how fond I used to be of 'Madame Bovary,' but Flaubert would not admit pity into his work, and that is why it has a petty and restrained character about it. It is the sense of pity by means of which a work gains in expanse, and by which it opens up a boundless horizon. Do you know, my dear fellow, it was pity which prevented my killing myself? During the first six months in prison I was dreadfully unhappy, so utterly miserable that I wanted to kill myself; but ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the wide ocean surrounding him, like a vast sparkling plain, its myriad wavelets reflecting now the dazzling sun, now the azure vault, the commingling yellow and blue of which resulted in a lovely transparent green, save where a few puffs of wind swept over the great expanse and streaked it ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... roof, all over little sham domes, which went far to justify its title of the Rat-house, since nothing larger could well use them. The facade was thus somewhat imposing; of the rear the less said the better; and as to the interior, it was at present one expanse of dust, impeded by scaffold-poles, and all the windows had large ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... contemplative morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park, with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment as the first ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore |
