"Spadeful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the field in which it lay, the great trunks lay outside the mound, and the undergrowth was piled in stacks. The mound and ditch had all been unturfed; and the mound was daily dug down to the level, every spadeful being shaken loose; and now they came upon some few traces of human use. In the mound was found a short and dinted sword of bronze, of antique shape. A mass of rusted metal was found in a corner, that looked as if it had been armour. In another corner were found some large ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... feeling to follow! Of all things let us have the truth—even of fact! But to deny what we cannot prove, not even casts into our ice-house a spadeful of snow. What if the warm hope denied should be the truth after all? What if it was the truth in it that drew the soul towards it by its indwelling reality, and its relations with her being, even while she took blame for suffering herself ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... man who is leading the horses, at that other who throws up the sheaves on his fork, at the women bending over the corn, and the children at play. . . . They have not displaced a stone, or removed a spadeful of earth, to add to the beauty of the scenery; nor do they take one step, plant a tree or a flower, that is not necessary. All that we see is merely the involuntary result of the effort that man puts forth to subsist for a moment in nature; and yet those among us whose desire is only to create ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Another spadeful out and they could be plainly seen. How many it was impossible to tell, but three pairs of glowing bloodshot eyes in ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of modern surveys and explorations. But the Median capital has never yet attracted a scientific expedition. The travellers by whom it has been visited have reported so unfavorably of its character as a field of antiquarian research that scarcely a spadeful of soil has been dug, either in the city or in its vicinity, with a view to recover traces of the ancient buildings. Scarcely any remains of antiquity are apparent. As the site has never been deserted, and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... Edward Sommers grasped the spade and struck it into the ground. The clock in the distant town struck midnight as he commenced the task. Eagerly he worked and eagerly watched the two men beside him. Their eyes seemed to pierce through the damp mold, and every spadeful of dirt, as it was thrown up, seemed to increase their anxiety. Steadily worked the detective, and the new earth lay piled around him, but as yet no indication of the treasure they sought. The perspiration ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton |
