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Shaft   /ʃæft/   Listen
Shaft

noun
1.
A line that forms the length of an arrow pointer.
2.
An aggressive remark directed at a person like a missile and intended to have a telling effect.  Synonyms: barb, dig, gibe, jibe, shot, slam.  "She threw shafts of sarcasm" , "She takes a dig at me every chance she gets"
3.
A long rod or pole (especially the handle of an implement or the body of a weapon like a spear or arrow).
4.
A column of light (as from a beacon).  Synonyms: beam, beam of light, irradiation, light beam, ray, ray of light, shaft of light.
5.
The main (mid) section of a long bone.  Synonym: diaphysis.
6.
Obscene terms for penis.  Synonyms: cock, dick, pecker, peter, prick, putz, tool.
7.
A long pointed rod used as a tool or weapon.  Synonyms: lance, spear.
8.
A vertical passageway through a building (as for an elevator).
9.
(architecture) upright consisting of the vertical part of a column.  Synonym: scape.
10.
A long vertical passage sunk into the earth, as for a mine or tunnel.
11.
A revolving rod that transmits power or motion.  Synonym: rotating shaft.
12.
The hollow spine of a feather.  Synonyms: calamus, quill.



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"Shaft" Quotes from Famous Books



... prisoner with very little hope of immediate escape, for the doors were not only immovable, without even locks to pick or panels to break in, but the place was bare of windows, and the only communication which it could be said to have with the outside world at all was a shaft rising from the ceiling almost to the top of the house. Whether this served as a ventilator, or a means of lighting up the hole when both doors were shut, it was much too inaccessible to offer ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... forward, pushing toward the open space, upon which a shaft of limelight had been thrown, the better to display the faces and figures of eight Spanish women who, dressed in their national costume, stood preening themselves like vain birds, tossing their heads and showing their white teeth in sudden smiles of recognition to their friends among the audience. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... the wheels, and away went the pony down the hill madly, with Kate inside rending the Isle of Thanet with her screams. The accident might have been a fearful one, if the pony had not, thank Heaven, on getting to the bottom, pitched over the side; breaking the shaft and cutting her hind legs, but in the most extraordinary manner smashing her own way apart. She tumbled down, a bundle of legs with her head tucked underneath, and left the chaise standing on the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... Nature has not provided it. I watched some men making one of these kanats. They had bored a vertical hole about three feet in diameter, over which a wooden windlass had been erected. One man was working at the bottom of the shaft. By means of buckets the superfluous earth was gradually raised up to the surface, and the hole bored further. The earth removed in the excavation is then embanked all round the aperture of the shaft. When the required depth is attained a tunnel is pierced, mostly with the hands and ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... forward of the wheels without injury. At last, however, the Queen was able to strike just abaft the starboard wheel-house, crushing the wheel, disabling the starboard rudder, and starting a number of leaks abaft the shaft. The starboard engine was thus useless and the Indianola helpless to avoid the onset of the Webb, which struck her fair in the stern, starting the timbers and starboard rudder-box so that the water poured in in large volumes. This settled ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... young but plucky, wayward, willful child. Nearby, on the Canadian side, are the battlefields of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Queenstown Heights. On the steep bank of the river on the top of a well-wooded height stands a graceful Doric shaft erected by the British in memory of their commander, General Brock, who fell on the battlefield of Queenstown Heights October 12, 1812. The monument has a lightning rod on it and on being asked the reason for this ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... up toward the summit of the great mountain. Suddenly, as the sun rose higher in the heavens, it sent a shaft of rosy light on the face of the berg that had been scarred by the landslide. Tom Swift uttered an exclamation, ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton

... water at depths varying according to local conditions. The well-sinker commences by boring, or rather digging, a circular hole two feet six inches in diameter. The soil of Cyprus is so tenacious that the walls of the shaft require no artificial support; this much facilitates the work, and the labourer, armed with a very short-handled pick, patiently hacks his vertical way, and sends up the earth by means of a basket and rope, drawn by a primitive but effective windlass above, formed of ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... morning down at the bottom of the shaft, and when I see by the sun it was getting along towards noon, I put in three good shots, tamped 'em down, lit the fusees, and started to ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... equipped and very fast. The massive walking-beam rose and fell above the deck; at one end a piston-rod worked up and down; and at the other was a connecting-rod which, in changing the rectilinear motion to a circular one, was directly connected with the shaft of the paddles. The General Grant was rigged with three masts, giving a large capacity for sails, and thus materially aiding the steam power. By making twelve miles an hour, she would cross the ocean in twenty-one days. Phileas Fogg was therefore justified in hoping that ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... medicine 'twould have been to pierce my heart; But my soul's Lord owns only one strong charm, Which makes life grow where grows life's mortal smart. My Lord dealt death, when with his-powerful arm He bent Love's bow. Winged with that shaft, from Love An angel flew, cried, "Love, nay Burn! Who dies, Hath but Love's plumes whereby to soar above! Lo, I am He who from thine earliest years Toward, heaven-born Beauty raised thy faltering eyes. Beauty alone lifts ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... Lanc'd, as the game was rous'd, at hind or hart, Wing'd through the yielding air its weetless way, And pierc'd unwares a metamorphos'd fay. Lo! back recoiling straight, by fairy craft, Back to its master speeds the reeking shaft; Deep in his sinewy thigh inflicts a wound, And strikes the astonish'd hunter to the ground, While, with a voice which neither bray'd nor spoke, Thus fearfully the beast her silence broke:— "Pains, agonizing pains must thou endure, Till wit ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... the enclosure beyond. The shadows had shifted. Sunny patches lay, distributed in fresh patterns, upon the old brickwork flooring. An oval shaft of light, glinting through the foliage, had struck the pedestal of the Faun and was stealthily crawling up its polished surface. He looked at the statue. It was still slumbering in the shade. But a subtle change had spread over the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... beholding his people's ruth and their enemies' rage, but as an actor in all actions, to bring to naught the desires of the wicked, ... having also the ordering of every weapon in its first produce, guiding every shaft that flies, leading each bullet to his place of settling, and weapon to the wound it makes." To men engaged in such a crusade against the powers of evil, nothing could seem insignificant or trivial; for, as Johnson continues, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... heaps of it lying at the mouth of our hole. If we chose to liken ourselves to gigantic moles, we have reason to be proud of our mole-hills! All this 'stuff' has to be got along the drives, some of which are twenty-five feet in length. One of us stands at the top, and hoists the stuff up the shaft in buckets. The other sits and fills ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... umbrella in the other, he sped along the corridor to the elevator-shaft, arriving in time to catch a glimpse of the lighted roof of the cage sliding into ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... certainly, sir. Come this way," and Vincent moved toward the elevator shaft. "I don't believe Mr. Whitney has gone to his studio, yet, sir; he never takes anyone there, and I haven't seen Mr. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... found that this ridiculous brother of mine had set up a pin-organ in a circular form. He had made one of those little whirligigs which spin around when they are held over the register or by a stove-pipe, and then had connected it by a string with a wheel. This wheel, as it turned, set an upright shaft in motion, and from this there projected a stick armed at the end with a pin. This was arranged, as is shown in the cut, so that when it revolved, the pin in the stick played upon the pins in the circle, and rattled off the "Mulligan Guards" at a ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... sympathy with the humdrum dramas in progress behind the rows of lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate opened and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the shaft of light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed the white-capped and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting hansom, drove off into the darkness whither my speculative fancy followed them. Now and then silhouettes appeared upon the window-blinds, especially on the ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... should fly with the wind from east to west? How much more natural that our understanding should be carried from its place by the volubility of our disordered minds, than that one of us should be carried by a strange spirit upon a broomstaff, flesh and bones as we are, up the shaft of a chimney? Let not us seek illusions from without and unknown, we who are perpetually agitated with illusions domestic and our own. Methinks one is pardonable in disbelieving a miracle, at least, at all events where one can elude its verification as such, by ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... later, in a silence that could be felt, he blew out the light, and followed Sievers into the tunnel. A few cave-black yards, crawled painfully on hands and knees, slipping and slithering along the propeller shaft, brought the leaders to the edge of a wider space. Sievers struck a match, and a well-like, vertical opening was revealed. High overhead towered and threatened an enormous steel crank. Before their feet lay a deep pool of slime. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... now there is space and breathing room, for many are in the fields. A squaw sits weaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked, except his moccasons, and tattooed with fantastic devices, binds a stone arrow-head to its shaft with the fresh sinews of a buffalo. Some lie asleep, some sit staring in vacancy, some are eating, some are squatted in lazy chat around a fire. The smoke brings water to your eyes; the fleas annoy you; small unkempt children, naked as young puppies, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... muttered to himself; "very satisfactory for a first go-in at the gold-diggin's! but I shall expect my California to produce a little more than that before we close the shaft, and retire upon the profits of the speculation. I think my friend is safe—I don't think he'll run away. But I shall keep my eye upon him, nevertheless. The human eye is a great institution; and I shall watch ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... "The shaft can be lowered to within a few inches of the top of the water," the lieutenant explained, "thus guarding against the danger of being hit. The officer in the conning tower peers into the binoculars and sees just what ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... Cresting the billows like silvery foam, And then wheeling away to its cliff-built home! What joy it must be to sail, upborne By a strong, free wing, through the rosy morn, To meet the young sun, face to face, And pierce, like a shaft, the boundless space! ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... worker, and there was plenty of work to do. Whitehead and the others out there would be surprised to see him coming into camp again so soon. Well, that was nothing. Perhaps, too, it was just as well he was going back early. There was the new shaft-house to get up, and the sooner that was ready the sooner they could work the new lead. He raised his head, conscious of a disturbing factor, and then arose and closed the door into the hall. Closing the door ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the flywheel, shaft, valve cams, pistons and bracing rods connecting the upper and lower plates of the frame proper, is of brass, the other parts named being of cast iron and ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... shaft broke in from without and became entangled with her hair, which was in some ways so curiously like it. McTosh, whose eye was everywhere, promptly lowered a shade two inches—the one blunder he ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... and two expire in one? This said, in agonies she fetched her breath. The god dissolves in pity at her death; He hates the bird that made her falsehood known, And hates himself for what himself had done; The feathered shaft, that sent her to the fates, And his own hand that sent the shaft he hates. Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain, 110 And tries the compass of his art in vain. Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire, The pile made ready, and the kindling fire, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... at the first glance to be one between a grown man and a child, so unequal was the size of the combatants. But the second look showed that the advantage was by no means with Ironhook. Stumbling to and fro with the broken shaft of a javelin sticking in his thigh, he vainly tried to seize and crush Hereward in his enormous arms. Hereward, bleeding, but still active and upright, broke away, and sprang round him, watching for an opportunity to strike a deadly blow. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... in a hospital wagon at Cross Timbers in Indian Territory. The body was wrapped in spices and sent by way of St. Louis, New Orleans, and New York City, to Delhi, New York, where it remained until in 1902 it was reinterred in the national cemetery at Fort Leavenworth. A granite shaft some twelve feet ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... James that he had gone into the post-office when he left school. James gave in to him that the old red horse was hard to drive, but James could drive him better than Peter could lead him; and Peter marvelled at the skill with which James raised his hand from the shaft of the plough and struck the horse with the rein whilst he kept the plough steady ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... cut through it all, with the sound of heavy steps in panic flight. I jerked up. Jenny hung on. "Paul.... Paul...." But there was the smell of death in the air, suddenly. I broke free and was out into the corridor. The noise seemed to come from the shaft that led to the engine room, and I jumped for it, ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey

... port to Charleston on flat cars for the purpose of trying to break the blockade of that port by Federal war-ships. The Hunley was about forty feet long, six in diameter, and shaped like a cigar. Its motive power came from seven men turning cranks attached to the propeller-shaft. When working their hardest these men could drive the boat at a speed of about ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... shadowed such a group Of beauties that were born In teacup times of hood and hoop, And when the patch was worn; And legs and arms with love-knots gay. About me leaped and laughed The modish Cupid of the day, And shrilled his tinselled shaft.—Tennyson. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... prompt ridicule. Reticence, a shrewd alertness to the main chance of the hour, and the spirit of the entire proverb, 'Every man for himself,' become such fixed characteristics that I suppose there is danger that the deepest springs in one's nature may dry up, and no Artesian shaft of mercy or truth be able to find anything in a man's soul save arid selfishness. In spite of all that conscience can say against me—and it can say very much—I feel sure that I have not ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... A steamboat drew up to the Temple Pier, and a yellow shaft of sunlight fell softly upon its ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... touched the ground on one side, an ornamental figurehead had been broken off the radiator cap, and the face of the radiator was dented. This car was equipped with a searchlight fastened on one end of the windshield, and as Gilbert Tyson handled this it lighted, sending a penetrating shaft of brightness into ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... by the shaft. There were boxes and packages of all sorts in the cart, and at the back an empty crate with sacking over it. He got into the crate, pulled the sacking over himself, and settled down to ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... if it is, it would be well for you to stop and see if a wheel is not loose. It might be either the little belt wheel or one of the little cog wheels. If you find these are all right, examine the spool on the crank shaft from which the governor is run and you will probably find it loose. If the engine has been run for any length of time, you will always find the trouble in one of these places, but if it is a new one the governor valve might ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard

... obviously had to be either a waiter or a guest, and could not keep up both parts, as when the guests were arriving. Another man, a "Priest of Apollo," is worshipping the sun on the top of a "sky-scraping" block of offices in Westminster, while a woman falls down a lift-shaft and is killed. Father Brown immediately concludes that the priest is guilty of the murder because, had he been unprepared, he would have started and looked round at the scream and the crash of the victim falling. But a man absorbed ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... the soldier who struck the Saviour to the heart with his spear was named Longeus, and was blind; but, touching his eyes by chance with the mingled blood and water that flowed down the shaft upon his hands, he was instantly ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... position on the glassy fall. Above him, to the right, the stage lay collapsed, its wheels broken in. Below the yellowish-white horse, upon his back, drew his legs together, kicked out convulsively, and then rolled over, lay still. From the round belly the broken end of a shaft squarely projected. The other horse was lost ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... the same direction brings us to the village of Newington, which possesses one of the quaintest little churches in Kent. Among other things it boasts some seventeen brasses—some dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries—an ancient dial, on oaken shaft fast mouldering away—and a picturesque wooden belfry surmounted by a vigorously modelled gilt weathercock ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... perhaps the finest on all the border. The target at that moment was good, a shaft of clear moonlight falling directly upon the broad chest, and yet the bullet clipped a bush three feet away. Henry was conscious that, at the supreme instant when his finger pressed the trigger, he had been shaken ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... connection with the high-pressure service from the Kenia cascades. (In other towns, where a hydraulic pressure of thirty-five atmospheres is not so easily to be had, electric or atmospheric motors are employed.) Here the steel shaft in the hollow in the floor covered with that elegant grating, and there near the ceiling the bronze shaft that might be mistaken for a rod on which to hang mirrors or pictures—these transmit the motion of the hydraulic machine to every room in the house, from the cellar ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... here with Miss Cameron when they arrive. You will bring them to this house as a matter of course. I wish you could be guided to a different conclusion but, after all, it is your own conscience that must be satisfied. They will be better here than at the Murchisons'," he added with a last shaft of reproach, "and they will be ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... host, and multitudes destroy'd, For that the son of Atreus had his priest Dishonored, Chryses. To the fleet he came 15 Bearing rich ransom glorious to redeem His daughter, and his hands charged with the wreath And golden sceptre[2] of the God shaft-arm'd. His supplication was at large to all The host of Greece, but most of all to two, 20 The sons of Atreus, highest in command. Ye gallant Chiefs, and ye their gallant host, (So may the Gods who in Olympus dwell ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... straight into it. In other places the coal was so near the surface that it could be quarried under the open sky, just as granite is quarried. Generally, however, if you wish to visit a coal mine, you go to a shaft, a square, black well sometimes deeper than the height of three or four ordinary church steeples. You get into the "cage," a great steel box, and are lowered down, down, down. At last the cage stops and you are at the bottom of the mine. The miners' faces, hands, ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan

... what he wanted them to do. It gave Teddy an opportunity to talk back, and many a keen-pointed shaft did he hurl at the unwary who had been imprudent enough to try to make ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... Huguenot, first settled, about twenty-five miles from Eutaw and forty-three from Charleston. On the banks of the Cooper, amid the lovely scenes of "Magnolia," Charleston's city of the dead, there stands a marble shaft enwreathed in the folds of the rattlesnake, the symbol of Revolutionary patriotism, and beneath it rests all that was mortal of William Washington and Jane ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... his fellows as a white shaft under a starless midnight. He rises above the passions of men as an unshaken rock in the midst of a wild, lashed sea. He is to man's best character as harmony is to discord, as a smile is to a frown, as love is to hate, as blessing is to cursing, ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... the 'father of modern Taoism,' was on Ho-ming Shan with his disciple Wang Ch'ang. "See," he said, "that shaft of white light on Yang Shan yonder! There are undoubtedly some bad spirits there. Let us go and bring them to reason." When they reached the foot of the mountain they met twelve women who had the appearance of evil spirits. Chang Tao-ling asked them whence came ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... was fine to hear him pronounce the state name, Mizzoura, as it was originally spelt on many territorial charts, and as we were permitted to call it in the public schools until we reached the grades where imported culture ruled. The blacksmith's helper, who was finishing a wagon shaft with a draw knife, was younger and less intelligent, and preferred to talk to Mrs. Thomas. It is distracting to listen at the same time to three persons; but I learned that "You kin make anything ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas

... followed by Mary Anne. The door into the clothes chute was securely bolted, and when I opened it I saw the evidence of the woman's story. A pruning-ladder had been brought from where it had lain against the stable and now stood upright in the clothes shaft, its end resting against the wall between ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... are, Doctor. Take shaft number one. Slip the card into the scanner slot and you'll be taken to the correct floor. The offices you want will be at the end of the corridor to the left. You'll find any other data you may need on the card in case you get lost." She looked at ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... an insult, for he clearly regards Sir Alexander Boswell as a greater man than his father. But if, like the grandsire of Hubert at Hastings, Lockhart has drawn a good bow, Boswell, like the Locksley of the novelist, has notched his shaft, and comparisons have long ceased to be instituted. Gray has attempted the explanation—a fool with a note-book. He has invented nothing, he has only reported. But every year sees that person at ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... manufactured. The careless observer would enter the building and see the spindles, looms, and wheels operated by the hands, and go away satisfied that he has seen enough, seen all. But the more careful will look farther. He will trace each band and wheel, each cog and shaft, down by the balance power, to the water race and floom; or thro the complicated machinery of the steam engine to the piston, condenser, water, wood, and fire; marking a new, more secret, and yet more efficient cause ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... Phoebus' ever-peaceful sway, Away, ye bows, ye arrows fierce, away! Let Love without a shaft among earth's peoples stray! A noble weapon! but when Cupid takes His arrow,—ah! what mortal wound he makes! Mine is the chief. This whole year have I lain Wounded to death, yet cherishing the pain, And counting my delicious anguish gain. Of Nemesis my song must tell! Without ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... answer made them none, But turned upon the axe-shaft, wha Was with the stroke broken ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... I might at least liberate her for the moment from the besetting memorials of sorrow and calamity. But, as if in the very teeth of my purpose, one of the large columns which supported the roof of the chapel, had its basis and lower part of the shaft in this very pew. On the side of it, and just facing her as she lay reclining on the cushions, appeared a mural tablet, with a bas-relief in white marble, to the memory of two children, twins, who had lived and died at the same time, and in this ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... mushroom growths of a day born of a lucky "strike." Into the valleys and up and down the hillsides ran a network of rails for trolley and steam cars. Everywhere were the open tunnel mouths or the frame shaft-houses perched above the gray Titan ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... the flesh head and hands; and endeavoured to calculate his horoscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiff that has darkened God's daylight, or painted himself in the human retina, for these several thousand years. Nay, since Chaos first shivered, and 'sneezed,' as the Arabs say, with the first shaft of sunlight shot through it, what stranger product was there of Nature and Art working together? Here is a Supreme Priest who believes God to be—What, in the name of God, does he believe God to be?—and discerns that all worship of God is a scenic phantasmagory of wax-candles, organ-blasts, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... them. But failing a winter, a week with the gods made Herminia happy. She carried away but a confused phantasmagoria, it is true, of the soaring tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, pointing straight with its slender shaft to heaven; of the swelling dome and huge ribs of the cathedral, seen vast from the terrace in front of San Miniato; of the endless Madonnas and the deathless saints niched in golden tabernacles at the Uffizi and the Pitti; of the tender grace of Fra Angelico at San Marco; of the infinite wealth ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... all go armed with some weapon,—are a dagger under the left arm, a sword slung on the back, and a spear in the right hand. The spear-shaft is wood, whilst those of the Ghat Tuaricks and Haghars are frequently metal, of the same substance as the point of the weapon. These iron spears are said to be manufactured by the Tibboos. They are much ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... through the brushwood, an arrow sticking in his side. With a look of terror, he pointed towards the point from which he had come, uttering the words "Cashibos—Cashibos." Having broken off the head of the arrow, and drawn out the shaft, I told the poor fellow to run into the camp; I sprung on my horse, and dashing forward with my rifle in my hand, I saw Manco and the two other Indians contending with a dozen or more Cashibos. Manco had ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... there are other ties. I know the cabin her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I DID know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying through the air and clear down to the trail and hit an Indian in the back with almost ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... the green moss takes the place of the lichen. These are fretted grooves—you can trace them to the earth, and on a 'rubbing,' as we call it, they would be plainer still. They indicate to me incisions down the sides of a cross-shaft. They are all that many years of weathering have left. Look at the shape too: the stone grows slightly thinner every way towards the ground. What is hidden we can't say yet, but I pray that the arms may be at least still indicated. You see it is the base sticking ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... with a hot flush of anger on his face. Yet the sharp, satirical shaft found its way to his heart. He thought of the words and brooded over them—they made more impression on him than any others had done. In his mother's mind he had evidently lost his place in the world's ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... cart came crawling past where Mrs. Duff and Con stood, a furious rush so tilted it over that the horse fell, breaking a shaft, and some of the topmost sacks tumbled off, dropping with dull thuds, like dead bodies, upon the damp cobblestone pavement. Con saw a little cloud of white dust rise up over each as it dumped down, and melt away on the air, making him wonder to himself: "Is it smokin' ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... of us kept on mining. Our luck was not very good, but we persevered, for there was nothing to be gained by fainting by the way. I went into an old abandoned shaft about ten feet deep and found the bottom filled with a big quartz boulder, and as I had been a lead miner in Wisconsin, I began drifting, and soon found bed rock, when I picked up a piece of pure gold that weighed four ounces. This was what I called a pretty big find, and not ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... showing the least anxiety to pause upon his aim, Locksley stepped to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bowstring, yet it alighted in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which marked the center than that ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... a pound, almost, just what his great ship would carry, and how much fuel would keep her afloat a certain number of hours. But the thing that aroused the admiration of the public was the aluminum shaft that passed from the floor of the cabin straight up through the center of the globe, and extended on above it full ninety feet. And from this dizzy height, floated "Old Glory," constructed of fine wire of that same beautiful, evershining metal, aluminum. Round and round ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... can never forgive me; it's all over, everything is over. It would make very little difference to me, what happened now—if the steamer broke her shaft, or anything. But if I can only believe ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... so often conjured must appear. A shaft of golden candlelight flickered through the half open door. The little boy prepared an attitude to greet his Angel that was a compound of the suspicion and courtesy with which he would have welcomed a new governess and the admiring fellowship ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... "happily for me my welfare is not bound up in the honor of any woman." And leaving that shaft to work its way into her heart, if that heart were vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and less decided than when ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... therewith, it must be said, that the length and diameter of bearings has been increased far beyond the proportions of former years. The "brasses" are bored out about three-sixteenths of an inch larger than the shaft; then the recesses are slotted out for the reception of the wooden strips. If care be taken with this part of the operation, any number of strips can be supplied ready fitted, and to put in a set of spare strips becomes a short and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... is out of date! The good old cross-bow bends to Fate, 'Tis gone—the archer's craft! No tough arm bends the springing yew. And jolly draymen ride, in lieu Of Death, upon the shaft.— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... cell was situated immediately under the leads, and he hoped that once in it he should be able readily to find a way through the roof. That cell of Balbi's communicated with a narrow corridor, no more than a shaft for light and air, which was immediately above Casanova's prison. And no sooner had Balbi written, consenting, than Casanova explained what was to do. Balbi must break through the wall of his cell ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... a little house set on top of a hill, where indeed no little house should be set, for little houses should nestle, protected by the slopes back of them. But this little house was set up there for the view—the Monument a spectral shaft, miles away, the Potomac broadening out beyond it, the old trees of the Park sleeping between. This was what the little house saw by night; it saw more than ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... in the skirmishing line... pass and watchword—shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in reserve tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front, this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now before I am off duty. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... teeth of the wind, and the wind seized the frail thing and toppled it over upon its back, and twisted and turned it and hurled it over and over; the propellor raced for an instant in an air pocket and then the tempest seized it again and twisted it from its shaft, leaving the girl helpless upon an unmanageable atom that rose and fell, and rolled and tumbled—the sport of the elements she had defied. Tara of Helium's first sensation was one of surprise—that she ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... sloped somewhat toward the south, thus permitting the sun's warmth to penetrate the one loose place in the mass, the muskrat's ventilating shaft. In a snug room about a foot down from the roof of the dome, and well above the water line, he had made his bed of leaves and grass, where he could sleep snugly even when the winter gales shrieked overhead and ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... prows, With laurels thickening round her blazon'd brows, In joy dejected, sees her triumph crost, Exults in Victory won, but mourns the Victor lost. Immortal Nelson! still with fond amaze, Thy glorious deeds each British eye surveys, Beholds thee still, on conquer'd floods afar: Fate's flaming shaft! the thunderbolt of war! Hurl'd from thy hands, Britannia's vengeance roars, And bloody billows stain the hostile shores; Thy sacred ire Confed'rate Kingdoms braves And 'whelms ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... the earth. But his efforts were in vain. After a series of contortions and manoeuvres, the eagle darted forward, with a quick toss threw herself back-downward, and, striking upward, planted her talons in the under part of the wing of her victim. The lacerated shaft fell uselessly down; and the great white bird, no longer capable of flight, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... set this fear at rest, I changed the form of my inquiries; and spying an honest fellow coming along a lane on the shaft of his cart, I asked him if he had ever heard tell of a house they ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... downfall of all chivalrous and romantic usages. "English soldiers," he says, "have never been the men they were in the days of the cross-bow and the long-bow; when they depended upon the strength of the arm, and the English archer could draw a cloth-yard shaft to the head. These were the times when, at the battles of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, the French chivalry was completely destroyed by the bowmen of England. The yeomanry, too, have never been what they were, when, in times of peace, they were constantly exercised with the ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... cathedral foundation, and lived just opposite the west front. He made a special study of the history and fabric of the cathedral. Hardly a year passed without something falling down; sometimes a piece of a pinnacle, sometimes a crocket or other ornament, sometimes a shaft. Old engravings of the spires show the pinnacles broken. Many of the shafts are wanting. Some have been replaced in wood. Many wholly new ones were put up by Dean Monk. And concerning the north arch, which was notoriously the most dangerous, Dean Patrick has recorded that ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... he drove along in his powerful car. "I've got quite a lot to do if I make an early start for Philadelphia, in my airship, to-morrow. I want to tighten the propeller on the shaft a trifle, and give the engine a good try-out. Then, too, I think I'd better make the landing springs a little stiffer. The last time I made a descent the frame was pretty well jarred up. Yes, if I make that air trip to-morrow I'll have to do some tall hustling when ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... of mechanics and artisans—the class of men with whom Samuel Adams used to love to hold intercourse. The Old State House and Faneuil Hall are only a stone's-throw distant from the statue, but the face is not looking in the direction of either; it is turned directly toward the visible shaft of granite on Bunker Hill—the monument which marks the first great battle in the struggle for that Independence toward which, in all his labors for so many years, the eyes of Samuel ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... giue you some taste of the Cornish mens former sufficiency that way: for long shooting, their shaft was a cloth yard, their pricks 24. score: for strength, they would pierce any ordinary armour: and one master Robert Arundell (whom I well knew) could shoot 12. score, with his right hand, with his left, and from ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... Regina reached the outer edge of the railing, and, creeping behind the broken granite shaft which shielded her from observation, she peered cautiously around the corner, and saw that the noble towering tree had been struck by lightning and fired. Whether shivered by electricity, or subsequently blown down by the fury of the gale, none ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the pairing; and the extravagant becomes reasonable. The couple take up their pose in the form of a T. The male, standing perpendicularly, or nearly, represents the cross-piece and the female the shaft of the letter, lying on its side. To steady his attitude, which is so contrary to the usual position in pairing, the male flings out his long grappling-hooks, two sheet-anchors which grip the female's shoulders, the fore-edge of her corselet, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... Thaxter left this world, when she was still only fifty-five years old, she was stricken with a shaft of death. Her overworked body was prostrated in sudden agony, and she, well, young, vigorous beyond the ordinary lot of mortals, found herself weak and unable to rise. "I do so hate figuring as an interesting invalid," she wrote. "Perhaps I have been doing too much, ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... poisoned; and the pit was covered with leaves and soil upon a fragile framework; so that if a man stood upon it he would fall through upon the spike. Bows were set in the jungle with a string set across the trail so that any one stumbling over it would discharge a sharp bamboo shaft with a poisoned head. On September 18, 1900, Lukban congratulated the people of the town of Katubig upon the efficient use they had made of arrows with the heads dipped in 'dita,' a native ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... Coolness of Mind, stabb a dreaded Rival to the Vitals. His Words are like Honey, but there is a large Mixture of Poison. You who are in the Midst of Life & Usefulness, do not expect to escape the envenomd Shaft, but you have always the Cure at hand, Moderation, Fortitude & Prudence. It matters little what becomes of an old worn out Servt in this World. He has his foot on the Grave & with Pleasure views it. But the virtuous Patriot, who is in the full Exercise of the Powers of Body & Mind, shall ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... men come but seldom, and then at their peril. There the great ball-room of the winds and spirits stretched before us, to-day as smooth as if waxed and polished, and it was tessellated with bands of blue and green and purple, at the far horizon line, where, down through a deep mine shaft in the clouds, the hidden sun was making a silent glory. It was a dead sea, if you will. No gleam of sail, near or afar, lit up its loneliness. No flash of sea bird, poised for its prey, or beating slowly over the desolate ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... saw with a center pin mounted on a strong hollow metal shaft that is attached a transverse handle: used in surgery to remove circular disks of ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... devise New ways to show his skill to wondering eyes. There in the stream a patient fisher stood, And cast his line across the rippling flood. His silver spoil lay near him on the green: "Such fish," the courtiers cried, "were never seen! "Three salmon longer than a cloth-yard shaft— "This man must be the master of his craft!" "An easy art!" the jealous King replied: "Myself could learn it better, if I tried, "And catch a hundred larger fish a week— "Wilt thou accept the challenge, fellow? Speak!" ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... throbbed with expectation. Nor did it throb in vain. A muffled sound appeared in time at his door. It was some one at work on the fastenings, and Paul listened with every nerve a-quiver. Presently the noise ceased, a shaft of pale night light showed, and then was gone. But the door had been opened, and then closed, and ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... shaft-sinker, earning good money, but had been killed by a fall down the shaft when Aaron was only four years old. The widow had opened a shop: Aaron was her only child. She had done well in her shop. She had wanted ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... was stumping the deck in charge, I observed, in glancing through the skylight, that the captain had put Miss Le Grand upon the right of his chair, at the head of the table, a little before the fluted and emblazoned shaft of mizzenmast. I don't think above five sat down to dinner; a long heave of swell had sickened the hunger out of most of them. But it was a glorious evening, and the red sunshine, flashing fair upon the wide open skylights, dazzled out as brilliant and hospitable a picture of ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... suddenly that straight and glittering shaft Shot 'thwart the earth! In crown of living fire Up comes the day! As if they, conscious, quaff'd The sunny flood, hill, forest, city, spire, Laugh in the wakening light. Go, vain Desire! The dusky lights ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... middle of the great war? Was it possible that the greatest battle of all time was taking place at the very moment not sixty miles away? Yet it was a real "Bon soir" that a passing gendarme gave me as I strolled homeward past the great bronze shaft erected by Napoleon in the Place Vendome and now towering black in the white moonlight, while the river Seine shimmered like molten silver in its way to the sea. It was really true but it was one of those times when a soldier ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... feet by twenty-four feet. Mike had taken the twenty-four feet in the direction in which the lead seemed to be running, and now he lined out a shaft about four feet by two feet, and commenced sinking. He dug down to the depth of his waist, and at sunset the mates returned to Forest Creek. That night the teamster arrived with their goods, and Done and Burton slept under canvas, the tent having been hastily thrown across a hurdle ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... mouldings of the capitals are carried through the jamb from end to end, and on the front of the piers between the archways is a curious moulding which resembles an undercut roll set up on end, and which has a capital as if it were a shaft. In the arches the mouldings are chiefly rounds and hollows: many of the former are filleted, and some of the latter are filled with the dog-tooth (an ornament peculiar to this style), which is more profusely employed in the central ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... The shaft pierced me. Arthur Campbell was not always in a mood to flatter. I wanted to prove to him that two could play at his little game and I hardly knew how ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... now crossing a shaft of light flung on the water from some lamp or fire, now blending with the ghostlike shadows which lay in the moonless night. It passed out of the town itself, and edged into the shade of the forest that swept continuously for ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... its gaping mouth above the water-tank. The faint blue light was the spring evening—the spring evening that, encouraged by God knows what brave illusion, had penetrated even these desperate fastnesses. A little breeze accompanied it and the dirty pieces of paper blew to and fro; then suddenly a shaft of light quivered upon the blackness, quivered and spread like a golden fan, then flooded the huge cave with trembling ripples of light. There was even, I dare swear, at this safe distance, a smell of flowers ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother.' On hearing this, the duke exclaimed: 'O she that has a heart of this fine frame, to pay this debt of love to a dead brother, how will she love, when the rich golden shaft has touched her heart!' And then he said to Viola: 'You know, Cesario, I have told you all the secrets of my heart; therefore, good youth, go to Olivia's house. Be not denied access; stand at her doors, and tell her, there your fixed foot shall grow till you have audience.' 'And if I do speak to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill will: a word, a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... inwardly he bowed to the punishment. But the look he had fixed on Angus was not without effect, for the man was a father, though a severe one, and was not all a brute: he turned and changed the cart whip for a gig one with a broken shaft, which lay near. It was well for himself that he did so, for the other would probably have killed Gibbie. When the blow fell the child shivered all over, his face turned white, and without uttering even a moan, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... was aware of a faint reflection of the zed-light—a gray Cathedral shaft crossing the helio-room and falling upon the opposite wall. An unreality there, as the zed-light faintly strove ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... wages they got! Because people were not conscientious in their work there were flaws in the steel, which caused the rail or pillar to snap, the locomotive or other machinery to break. The steel shaft broke in mid-ocean, and the lives of a thousand passengers were ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... can't see as it looks anythin' like a mine," announced Abe Blower, presently. "Nothin' like a shaft ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer

... speaking of the character of Mrs. Mackenzie, the Campaigner, and in the middle of the conversation the lady leaned across to me and said in a low, hoarse, but emphatic voice, "She drank. Thackeray didn't know it; but she drank." And it is really astonishing what a shaft of white light this sheds on the Campaigner, on her terrible temperament, on her agonised abusiveness and her almost more agonised urbanity, on her clamour which is nevertheless not open or explicable, on her temper which is not so much bad temper as insatiable, bloodthirsty, man-eating temper. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... as eternal possessions of mind and soul. A shadowy garden, fragrant and dim, stretches up to the pyramidal pile which covers the hill. A frangipanni grove scents the air, with gold-starred blossoms gleaming whitely amid the silvery green of lanceolated leaves, and a shaft of ruby light striking the stone Buddhas which guard the portico, emphasises the inscrutable smile of the tranquil faces. Like all stupendous monuments of Art or Nature, Boro-Boedoer at first sight seems a disappointment, simply because the mind fails to grasp the immensity of the noblest ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... gives a man a feeling for these things. From the outside the ship was beautiful, a gleaming shaft of duralloy, polished until she shone. Her paint and brightwork glistened. The antiradiation shields on the gun turrets and launchers were folded back exactly according to regulations. The shore uniform of the ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone

... the hue of the western sky where the sun was just going down. He started to answer hotly, but an understanding of the Surgeon's evident kindness and sincerity interposed to deter him. He knew there was no shaft of sarcasm hidden below this plain speech, and after ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... water-color drawing of a sailor in a blue jersey and a sou'wester, standing, with his hands in his pockets, on the beach beside one of the boats of the region—a slender, clipper-built craft, painted yellow below and black above, good for oars or sail. Her bow rests on a shaft connecting two wheels, for convenience of running her down into the water. There was a dozen or more of these boats always ready on the beach in front of our lodgings. These lodgings were just back of the esplanade, which, during our sojourn, was ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... longer believed the Chan Santa Cruz Indians to be such a peaceable race. When, as Cummings had suspected, the shaft he was trying to climb toppled over, he was able to escape injury by leaping to one side, and immediately made an effort to detach the statue which was cemented firmly to ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... His shaft hit the mark. Alicia flushed and sat speechless. A glance at Lady Eynesford's face told him the scene had lasted too long: he rose and took his leave, paying Alicia the homage of a bow, but not seeking her hand. She ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... says Vitruvius, "has the proportion, strength, and beauty of man." The Gothic architecture had its birthplace among a people who had lived and worshipped for ages amidst the dense forests of the north, and was no doubt an imitation of the interlacing of the overshadowing trees. The clustered shaft, and lancet arch, and flowing tracery, reflect the impression which the surrounding scenery had woven into the texture of the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... forest the one most beloved by the bees. Melissa, the goddess of honey, has placed her seal upon this tree. The wild swarms in the woods frequently reap a choice harvest from it. I have seen a mountain side thickly studded with it, its straight, tall, smooth, light-gray shaft carrying its deep-green crown far aloft, like the tulip-tree or ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... to rest in the beautiful country cemetery near the home of Farmer Pitcairn, and between it and the town of Bellemore. In due time a plain, tasteful shaft was erected to his memory, on which, below his name, date of birth and death, were ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... we grounded just below this same Commerce; we jolted Beaver Dam Rock; we hit one of the worst breaks in the 'Graveyard' behind Goose Island; we had a roustabout killed in a fight; we burnt a boiler; broke a shaft; collapsed a flue; and went into Cairo with nine feet of water in the hold—may have been more, may have been less. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their heads with terror. They painted the mare ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... ambition,—sin and remorse, tearful repentance and holy aspirations? Who shall say that we have not all the essentials of the poetry of human life and simple nature, of the hearth and the farm-field? Here, then, is a mine unworked, a harvest ungathered. Who shall sink the shaft ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... deep down for our foundations below the rubbish that has accumulated. If a man wishes to build a house in Rome or in Jerusalem he has to go fifty or sixty feet down, through potsherds and broken tiles and triturated marbles, and the dust of ancient palaces and temples. We have to drive a shaft clear down through all the superficial strata, and to lay the first stones on the Rock of Ages. Do not build on that which quivers and shakes beneath you. Do not try to make your life's path across the weeds, or as they call it in Egypt, the 'sudd,' that floats on the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... spear out of him!" George pulled and Jem roared with pain, but the spear-head would not come back through the wound; then Jacky came up and broke the light shaft off close to the skin, and grasping the head drew the remainder through the wound forward, and grinned with a sense ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... artillery—at all events, any artillery of the calibre possessed by the besiegers. Whish resolved to effect their destruction by mines. On the 18th three mines were exploded, and the counterscarp was blown into the ditch. A shaft was then sunk under the trench, and a gallery cut towards the wall. At the same time a battery was placed on a level higher than the citadel itself; another carrying eighteen and twenty-four pounders was placed close up to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... contempt and loathing such as she had never felt even in all the years of her wedded life. Mr. Hayes was snoring profoundly: by his bedside, on his ledger, stood a large greasy tin candlestick, containing a lank tallow-candle, turned down in the shaft; and in the lower part, his keys, purse, and tobacco-pipe; his feet were huddled up in his greasy threadbare clothes; his head and half his sallow face muffled up in a red woollen nightcap; his beard ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... turned his back upon him and strode to the open door, through which the dismounted troopers could be seen standing back a respectful distance in the shaft of light that fell through it. At his appearance there, at the sight of that old battered hat and familiar uniform, the men lifted a cheer. Little tyrant that he was, hard-handed and exacting, they knew him for a soldier ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... ... The shaft therefore which is aimed at us turns against those who cast it. If, therefore, from these absurdities any one should attempt to conclude that substance extended must be finite, he would, forsooth, be in the position of the man ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... a day he swelt and said Alas, For sene his lady shall he never mo. And shortly to concluden all his wo, So mochel sorwe hadde never creature, That is or shall be, while the world may dure. His slepe, his mete, his drinke is him byraft. That lene he wex, and drie as is a shaft. His eyen holwe, and grisly to behold, His hewe salwe, and pale as ashen cold, And solitary he was, and ever alone, And wailing all the night, making his mone. And if he herde song or instrument, Than wold ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... we were close upon him; now, in obedience to the steersman, the boat sheered out a bit and we were abreast 25 of his laboring flukes; now the mate hurls his quivering lance with such hearty good will that every inch of its slender shaft disappears within ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... as the word he uttered, he drew his keen sword out Brazen, on each side shearing, and with a fearful shout Rushed on him; but Odysseus that very while let fly And smote him with the arrow in the breast, the pap hard by, And drove the swift shaft to the liver, and adown to the ground fell the sword From out of his hand, and doubled he hung above the board, And staggered; and whirling he fell, and the meat was scattered around, And the double ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... her eyes as a vagrant shaft of sunlight straggled down through the great green and yellow fronds of the cocoanut palms that stood about the bungalow; sometimes she kept her little black eyes fixed gravely on the flying shuttle which her mother threw deftly back and forth ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... in the vestibule at the west end is a most excellent piece of work. It was carved from a block of white marble by Grinling Gibbons, and is about 5 feet in height. The shaft is the tree of life, round which is twined the serpent, while figures of Adam and Eve stand on either side. It is well worth going into the church to see this alone. The font originally possessed a ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... alive, and with infinite precautions he tried to make his way out of the dangerous region, following the downward slope of the ground. In spite, however, of all his care, he found suddenly, on putting his foot down, that he was on the edge of a shaft, and that his foot was dangling in vacancy. He threw himself backwards, but too late, and he slid down several feet, grasping at the grass and heather; his foot fortunately struck against a large stone, which though precariously poised, arrested his fall; and he hung there for some hours in mortal ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and a tree crashed heavily past Alan into the stream. Above him on the bank, silhouetting against the moons, the killer robot stopped and its blaster swivelled slowly down. Frantically, Alan hugged the bank as a shaft of pure electricity arced over him, sliced into the water, and exploded in a cloud of steam. The robot shook for a second, its blaster muzzle lifted erratically and for an instant it seemed almost out of control, then it quieted and the muzzle again ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik



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