He formed his men sixteen deep, and placed in their grasp the sarissa, as the Macedonian pike was called, which was four-and-twenty feet in length, and, when couched for action, reached eighteen feet in front of the soldier; so that, as a space of about two feet was allowed between the ranks, the spears of the five files behind him projected in front of each front-rank man.

From the western one, the hills rise from the water with a steep acclivity, covered with a gigantic growth of timber, save on the northern side, where a pleasant natural meadow, covered with rank grass and a few spruce and fir trees, stretches away.

And all these have left traces of their sovereignty amid the rocks, the grass and the rank weeds of the hill.

On entering the lake, where the stream runs southeasterly, and for some time before, we had a view of the mountains about Katadn, (Katahdinauquoh one says they are called,) like a cluster of blue fungi of rank growth, apparently twenty-five or thirty miles distant, in a southeast direction, their summits concealed by clouds.

Then he lay prone, gasping and choking, almost blind, but sensitive to the rain of gravel and debris, the fearful cries of terrified men, taste of smoke and dust, and the rank smell of exploded gasoline.

Few, indeed, were they, who lived so much under a proper self-control, as to hesitate; and this rank injustice was done a private citizen, as much without moral restraint, as without remorse, by those, who, to take their own accounts of the matter, were the regular and habitual champions of human rights!

Speaking as one of the hundreds of millions of "rank outsiders" in public affairs, I do not mean to respect any peace treaty that may end this war unless I am honestly represented at its making.

What visionary land of delight, replete with perfume and luxury, lay ever beyond?what region rich, unknown, forbidden, whose rank vegetation steamed with such insidious poison?

It's rank poison.

As he came up he tried to smile, but it was a rank failure.

Everything here conveys the idea of concentrated vitality, but without that rank luxuriance seen in our American growth.

" This, according to our fraternal code, was rank treachery, yet I felt no traitor.

" Reflections on Progress Renan has said that truth is always rejected when it comes to a man for the first time, its evolution being as follows: First, we say the thing is rank heresy, and contrary to the Bible.

Why, then, discuss the ideas and influence of so despicable a creature? Because, sophistical as they were, those ideas contained truths of tremendous germinant power; because in the rank soil of his times they produced a vast crop of bitter, poisonous fruit, while in the more open, better aërated soil of this century they have borne and have yet to bear a fruitage of universal benefit.

When you see a white sky, a dome of colorless crystal, with purple swells of mountain heaving round you, and a wilderness of golden greens royally languid below, while stretches of a scarlet blaze, enough to ruin a weak constitution, flaunt from the rank vines that lace every thicket, and the whole world, and you with it, seems breaking into blossom,why, then you know what light is and can do.

But it must be owned that these things, so unspeakably interesting at first, became a little threadbare before the end of the winter; we grew tired of the tawdriness and shabbiness which pervaded them all, of the coarse faces of the priests, and the rank odor of the incense.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE FROM THE CHASE Here on this verdant spot, where nature kind, With double blessings crowns the farmer's hopes; Where flowers autumnal spring, and the rank mead Affords the wandering hares a rich repast; Throw off thy ready pack.

What she said to me sounded such rank nonsense that I jumped in a hansom and went straight back to my rooms.

They were some two hundred yards away, across a field where the telephone wires stretched over the old plow furrows and through the rank meadow grass, like springs to catch woodcock.

Shell-fire did not disturb them much, and they would nibble at any rank stuff growing on the hillsides to supplement the rations which did not always reach their lines at regular intervals.

On the march, in the charge or pursuit or retreat, it is a senseless, clogging, spirit-shackling incubus, a rank absurdity, and an utter impossibility.

Why, it's rank folly!"

The course apparently is, that the tree should send out its rank shoots, and then that you should prune them, rather than that by some repressive means you should prevent the rank shoots coming forth at all.

The murderers arose, and took their way directly across the prairie: for all the rank herbage being now reduced to ashes, they were no longer obliged to follow the winding course of the buffalo track.

Schiff poured out a cloud of rank smoke.