"Bodkin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inches), Saturn a nectarine or greengage (1 inch), Uranus a red cherry (3/4 inch), and Neptune a white cherry (barely 1 inch in diameter). By putting the sun and planets in a row, and drawing a contour of the whole, we obtain the figure of a dirk, a bodkin, or an Indian club, in which the sun stands for the knob (disproportionately big), the inner planets for the handle, and the outer for the blade or body. Again, the average density of the inner planets exceeds that of the outer by nearly five to one, but the mass of any ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... Mamma, it's just like you. And here's a thimble fits me exactly! and an emery-bag! how pretty! and a bodkin! this is a great nicer than yours, Mamma yours is decidedly the worse for wear; and what's this? oh, to make eyelet-holes with, I know. And oh, Mamma! here is almost everything, I think ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cord or other draw-string for the bag. Putting a double draw-string in the bag, so that it can easily be drawn up. Use of the bodkin. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... making just the interesting impression he meditated. He was a good deal surprised, then, when Miss Lake said, and with quite a cheerful countenance, and very quickly, but so that her words stung his ear like the prick of a bodkin. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sure if you laid a thing out of your hand, you never would find it in the same spot where you left it, if Violetta were in the room. She would run off with your scissors, your bodkin, your needlebook, and your spool of cotton; she would stuff your handkerchief in her pocket by mistake; she'd break the strings of your bag, trying to open it; she'd try your spectacles on to her kitten, and tie your new tippet on ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... found him in a miserable, damp cellar, scarcely furnished; and when my poor friend went in, there sat poor Jack near the fire, and what did he, think you? why he sat and mended his wife's stockings with the bodkin; and as soon as he saw his old friend at the door-post, he tried to hide them. But Joe, that is my friend's name, had seen it, and said: "Jack, what the devil art thou doing? Where is the missus? Why, is that thy work?" and poor Jack was ashamed, and said: "No, I know this is not my work, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... 2 the tailor's tools—shears, goose, and bodkin—are clear enough, and I was told that the figures on the stone in the lower left-hand corner (No. 3) are locally recognized as the shuttle and some other requisite of the weaver's trade. Inverness had spinning and weaving ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... prince said, taking a small and beautifully tempered weapon from his belt. "It is but a bodkin, but it is of famous steel. It was sent me by Philip of Spain, at a time when he was trying to cajole my mother, and is of ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... for him and gave him a five-pound note; but he says he'd rather see yourself back again than twice as much. They killed near the big turnip-field, and all went down to see where you leaped Badger over the sunk fence,—they call it "Hammersley's Nose" ever since. Bodkin was at Ballinasloe the last fair, limping about with a stick; he's twice as quiet as he used to be, and never beat ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... day on Ballylynch Lake (where, with a brown fly and a single hair, I killed fourteen salmon, the smallest twenty-nine pounds weight, the largest somewhere about five stone ten), my young friend Blake Bodkin Lynch Browne (a fine lad who has made his continental tour) and I adjourned, after dinner, to the young gentleman's private room, for the purpose of smoking a certain cigar; which is never more pleasant than after a hard day's sport, or a day spent in-doors, or after a good dinner, or a ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... That patient merit of the unworthy takes; When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death— The undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns—puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... in circulation after her arrival, he went to the 'Grog-shop' as long as he had money; but, finding that he had no credit, he could no longer endure the loss of character which he thought attached to it; and though he did not 'make his quietus with a bare bodkin,' yet he found a convenient rope that put him out of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... window, and what should he see sitting on the sill outside but a little woman tapping the pane with a golden bodkin. ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... tell; but it stirs me more than all your court-curls, or your spangles, or your tricks: I affect not these high gable-ends, these Tuscan tops, nor your coronets, nor your arches, nor your pyramids; give me a fine, sweet-little delicate dressing with a bodkin, as you say; and a mushroom for all ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... the judge, "I am going to hold the bodkin, of which the eye is sufficiently large, to put this thread into it without trouble. If you do put it in, I will take up your case, and will make Monseigneur ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourne No traveller returns, puzzles the will: And makes ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... a chair; and, with the trencher in his lap, was using his own jack-knife on the dilapidated fragment of the ox, with something of that nicety with which the female ghoul of the Arabian Tales might be supposed to pick her rice with the point of her bodkin. The captain drew a seat nigh the cockswain; and, with a familiarity and kindness infinitely condescending, when the difference in their several conditions is considered, he commenced ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... who picks up Gainsboroughs for a tenner, or unearths lost masterpieces of TURNER on a clue supplied by an old letter. The young man in question was Hugh Limner, and in his off moments he fulfilled perfunctorily the duties of hero of the story. But I can't help thinking that Mr. M. MCD. BODKIN, his creator, liked him best as an expert. Certainly I myself did. Hugh, as I say, found his buried Turner on the authority of an autograph letter from the artist, which in its turn he had found in a volume entitled "Turner's Poems," that proved to have belonged to RUSKIN, the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... me—Monsieur Doltaire not at all. Those two either hate each other lovingly, or love hatefully, I know not which, they are so biting, yet so friendly to each other's cleverness, though their style of word-play is so different: Monsieur Doltaire's like a bodkin-point, Captain Moray's like a musket-stock a-clubbing. Be not surprised to see the British at our gates any day. Though we shall beat them back, I shall feel no less easy because I have a friend in the enemy's camp. You may guess who. Do not smile. He is old enough to be my father. He ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... course. The big mare, hearing the yelling, and recognising that she was once more on a race-track, suddenly caught hold of the bit, and came sweeping up the straight full-stretch, her great legs flying to and fro like pistons. Alick, who was sitting bodkin between the ladies, simply remarked, "Let her head go!" as she went thundering into the crowd, hurling Doyles and Donohoes into the air, trampling Kellys under foot—and so out the other side, and away at a 2.30 ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... whole story over to thee, who cares no more for it than if it were the slaying of half a dozen sheep, he must needs go and pay frequent visits to Ingeborg and to Halgerda of the Foss—and—and—But I know it is all out of spite, and that he does not care a bodkin for either of them, yet I cannot bear it, and I won't bear it, so he had better look to himself. And yet I would not for the best mantle in the dale that he knew I had ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... is little larger than a pin hole," he said. He took from his pocket a general utility knife and slipped out a thin steel needle. "Pipe cleaners may be very useful," he said, and pressed the long slender bodkin into the aperture. Instantly, and without sound, the ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... isolation; some remain in the world, mocking the ways of men and treating all life as an ugly jest; some refuse to think at all, and drag themselves into oblivion; while some take one frantic sudden step and leave the world altogether by help of bullet or bare bodkin. A man of light mind who endeavoured to reconcile all the things suggested to him by the coming of Christmas would probably become demented if he bent his entire intellect to solve the puzzles. Thousands—millions—of books have been written about the Christian theology, and half of European ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, 125 Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins; Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and Pomatums shall his flight restrain, While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain; 130 Or Alum styptics with contracting pow'r Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flow'r: Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... life, anger darkening into malignity, and spleen fermenting into venom,—were carelessness of style, inequality, and want of condensation. Compared to the satires of Pope, Churchill's are far less polished, and less pointed. Pope stabs with a silver bodkin—Churchill hews down his opponent with a broadsword. Pope whispers a word in his enemy's ear which withers the heart within him, and he sinks lifeless to the ground; Churchill pours out a torrent of blasting invective which at once kills and buries his foe. Dryden was his favourite ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... soul of my child?' Postage-stamps and postmarks and an old envelope! The triviality of the things as compared with the importance of everlasting life made her feel that they were unworthy to be even noticed. It did not occur to her that the presence of a bodkin might be ample evidence of murder. Post-marks indeed,—when her daughter's everlasting life was the matter in question! Then they told her of Dick Shand. She, too, had heard of Dick Shand. He had been a gambler. So she said,—without much truth. He was known for a drunkard, a spendthrift, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... crevice, loophole, interstice, gap, spiracle, vent, bung, pothole, manhole, scuttle, scupper, muset, muse; cave, holt, den, lair, retreat, cover, hovel, burrow. Antonyms: imperforation, closure. Associated words: auger, drill, gimlet, bodkin, bore, bit, puncture, perforate, pink, awl, stylet, imperforable, imperforate, punch, wimble, pierce, eyeleteer, dibble, plug, spigot, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... I think he has a patten to take up all the shields ith countrey. Hang me, if thou wantst worke heeres for Navar, the earle of Pembrok and Cavaliero Bowier. [Fight.] A thousand pound to a Taylors bodkin this fellow has a familiar; but howsomever, thou mayst thank my ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... search the vitals of a whale with a bodkin-who may reach his jackknife through the superposed bubber? Pachyderm, thy name is Woman! All the king's horses and all the king's men shall not bend the bow that can despatch a clothyard shaft through thy pearly hide. The male and female women who nightly howl their social and political grievances ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... She had covered her white dress with a mantle of brown linen and over her head she wore a wimple of the same material. Her hair had been coiled and secured with a bodkin. When she put her hand under the wimple and drew it across her mouth, only her fair skin and blue eyes distinguished her from any other Egyptian lady dressed for ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Hamlet's father hard upon the murder of her mother, she would have made short work of her vengeance. No fine scruples would have delayed her; she would not have had a moment's question whether she had not better kill herself; she would have out with her bare bodkin and ended the doubt by first passing it through her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mistaken: the abbe picked it up, and observing that all the sediment had remained at the bottom, he gathered together on a silver bodkin all that had coagulated on the sides of the glass and all that had sunk to the bottom, and presenting this ball, which was about the size of a nut, to the marquise, on the end of the bodkin, he said, "Come, madame, you must swallow ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... First my bodkin I must place With my needles in their case; I like to put them by with care, And then I ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... those days in which the Republic was brought to an end. On the rostra was stuck up the head and the hands as a spectacle to the people, while Fulvia specially avenged herself by piercing the tongue with her bodkin. That is the story of Cicero's death as it has ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... my wife, instead of using her hand as everybody does, pulled a little case out of her pocket, and took out of it a kind of bodkin, with which she picked up the rice, and put it into her mouth, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... hours; but he insisted upon having them, alive or dead, as he had to go down the same afternoon to dine with my Lord Duke, no less. I convinced him, that if I was to sit up all night, he could get them by five next morning, if that would do, as I would also keep my laddie, Tammy Bodkin, out of his bed; but no—I thought he would have jumped out of his seven senses. "Just look," he said, turning up the inside seam of the leg—"just see—can any gentleman make a visit in such things as these? they are as full of holes as a coal-sieve. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... endured great loss. How patiently hot irons they did take, In crooked trannels[215] crispy curls to make. I cried, "'Tis sin, 'tis sin, these hairs to burn, They well become thee, then to spare them turn. Far off be force, no fire to them may reach, Thy very hairs will the hot bodkin teach." 30 Lost are the goodly locks, which from their crown, Phoebus and Bacchus wished were hanging down. Such were they as Diana[216] painted stands, All naked holding in her wave-moist hands. Why dost thy ill-kembed tresses' ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... Villeroi was impeached for, and fully committed for trial on the charge of having feloniously aided and abetted Victorine de Villeroi, (late Montespan,) in wilfully and maliciously causing the death of her late liege husband, Herbert de Montespan, by thrusting a long pin, or bodkin of gold into his right ear, well knowing that the same entering into his brain, would cause his instantaneous dissolution. Master Nicolais, it appeared, in sawing open the skull of the deceased with anatomical science and precision, had found a pin or Golden Bodkin like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... you search for anything, that it may be under your nose. That is the place to look, not off at the clouds—and nothing is too insignificant to escape investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin piece of paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a bodkin, and weave it into a rug, curtain, quilt, and so forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack in the floor. A favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making them appear to have been ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... consumed him that he became quite a skeleton, notwithstanding every remedy which he had tried. At length he tried a sympathetic remedy: he took an egg, and having boiled it hard in his own urine, he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in different parts, and then buried it in an ant-hill. As the ants wasted the egg he found his strength increase, and he soon was completely cured. A daughter of a French officer was ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... letter just as he was about to leave Castle Morony for the meet at Ballytowngal, the seat, as everybody knows, of Sir Nicholas Bodkin. Ballytowngal is about two miles from Claregalway, on the road to Oranmore. Sir Nicholas is known all through the West of Ireland, as a sporting man, and is held in high esteem. But there is, I think, something different in the estimation which he now enjoys from that ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... his men that, if it should be taken, he would divide its treasures equally among them. After this, he bethought him of his brother and wept sore; and his tears ceased not to flow, till his body was wasted with grief, as it were a bodkin. But the Vizier Dendan came in to him and said, "Take comfort and be consoled; thy brother died not but because his hour was come, and there is no profit in this mourning. How ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... and making many friends, whom she had the tact to retain through life. When articles of dress or ornament are named for one, it is an unfailing sign that they have attained notoriety, if not fame, and the bodkin used for fastening the "back hair" was called "Glorvina" in her honor. Like many attractive women of decided character, she had her full share of faults and foibles. Superficial, conceited, sadly lacking in spirituality and refinement, a cruel enemy, a toady ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the handle which brought him to his knees. He stumbled and fell at the threshold of the maids' chamber. And, by my sooth, the Lady Ysolinde stooped and poignarded him as featly as though it had been a work of broidering with a bodkin. Too late, Helene wept and besought her to hold her hand. He was, she said, some one's son or lover. It was deucedly unpractical. But, 'twas my Little Playmate. And after all, I suppose, the crack he got from me in the way of business ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... throbbing, and man saith, 'Be still!' How can I be still, unless I were still in death? And man reckoneth I shall be a-paid for my lost sword with a needle, and for my broken sceptre he offereth me a bodkin!" ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... shown. You must remember that there isn't a doubt about that. The hounds were all astray when we joined them. It's a great question whether they brought their fox into that first covert. There are they who think that Bodkin was just riding across the Puckeridge country in search of a fox." Bodkin was Mr. Fairlawn's huntsman. "If you admit that kind of thing, where will you be? As a hunting country, just nowhere. Then as a sportsman, where are you? It is necessary to put down ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... better, but still dim and groggy. To-night I go to the governor's; such a lark - no dress clothes - twenty-four hours' notice - able-bodied Polish tailor - suit made for a man with the figure of a puncheon - same hastily altered for self with the figure of a bodkin - sight inconceivable. Never mind; dress clothes, 'which nobody can deny'; and the officials have been all so civil that I liked neither to refuse nor to appear in mufti. Bad dress clothes only prove you are a grisly ass; no dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of respect. I wish ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with peasants (nine, perhaps, ranged three abreast)—treason to the gallant animal that, tossing its little head, bravely struggles with the cruel load. A priest is stuck in bodkin among his flock—a priest who leers and jests between pinches of snuff, and who, save for his seedy black coat, knee-breeches, worsted stockings, shoe-buckles, clerical hat, and smoothly-shaven chin, is rougher than ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... lord of himself, and that having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it. Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a canon set, which some men still ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... with a brace of good pistols, which I was fully determined to use against any person who should presume to lay violent hands upon me, except my lord, for whom a less mortal weapon would have sufficed, such as a bodkin or a tinder-box. Nothing could be farther from my intention than the desire of hurting any living creature, much less my husband: my design was only to defend myself from cruelty and oppression, which I knew, by fatal experience, would infallibly be my lot, should he get me into ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... tearing off the strings. She unfastened and stepped from the skirt of her calico dress. With one apron string she tied shut the band and placket. She pulled a wire pin from her hair, stuck it through the other string, and using it as a bodkin ran it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a large bag. She put several branches inside to which the moths could cling, closed the mouth partially and held it ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... forget you," said Emlyn, "and when we come back with the King and Prince, and drive the Roundhead ragamuffins out of Bristol, then I'll bring Stead a protection for Croppie and Daisy and all, a silver bodkin for you, and a Flanders lace collar for Patience, and a gold chain for Stead, and—But oh! wasn't that a trumpet? Stead! Stead! We must go, or we shall miss them." Then as she hugged and kissed them, "I'll tell Sir Harry and my lady how good you have been to me, and get my lady to make you ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... patches. Airs, languid airs, breathe around;—the atmosphere is perfumed with affectation. A toilette is described with the solemnity of an altar raised to the goddess of vanity, and the history of a silver bodkin is given with all the pomp of heraldry. No pains are spared, no profusion of ornament, no splendour of poetic diction, to set off the meanest things. The balance between the concealed irony and the assumed gravity, is as nicely trimmed as the balance of power in Europe. The little ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was not particularly pleased with Jack, and grandma continued to grumble over his misdemeanors, especially when he would rummage in her work-basket, and carry off her silver thimble or bright steel bodkin. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... of Minas Cottage!" exclaimed Peter Bodkin, who had ridden over to give Tom Daly some comfort in his solitude, if ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... a stout bodkin with a long wooden handle, the implement used by the secretaries for piercing parchments that were to be joined by a cord bearing the leaden seals of the Republic. He opened a desk, and rummaging in it, found ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... spirit-stirring song, whose theme was national glory. To him the bygone days of his country's history were dear, made more familiar by many an antique relic which hung around his own room in his father's house. Celt and sword, and spear-head of Phoenician bronze, and golden gorget, and silver bodkin, and ancient harp, and studded crosier, were there; and these time-worn evidences of arts, and arms, and letters flattered the affection with which he looked back on the ancient history of Ireland, and kept alive the ardent love of his country with which he glowed—a love too deep, too pure, to be ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... be verily evil work in the cape, and a witch's bodkin hath pierced these cunning eyelets. It goeth so fast now that erelong every guileless, senseless thing in our houses, down to the tinder-box and the candle-stick, will find hinges and turn into a gate, whereby witchcraft can enter. ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... they appear in rocks a foot above water. There are also in some places great store of mussels and cockles. There is also a fish called a stingray, which resembles a skate, only on one side of his tail grows out a sharp bone like a bodkin about four or five inches long, with which he sticks and wounds other fish and then preys ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... mostly artificial, the fond is sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and people." Even in "Charles O'Malley," what a true, dark picture that is of the duel beside the broad, angry river on the level waste under the wide grey sky! Charles has shot his opponent, Bodkin, and with Considine, his second, is making his escape. "Considine cried out suddenly, 'Too infamous, by ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... or AM'INES (3 syl.), the beautiful wife of Sidi Nouman. Instead of eating her rice with a spoon, she used a bodkin for the purpose, and carried it to her mouth in infinitesimal portions. This went on for some time, till Sidi Nouman determined to ascertain on what his wife really fed, and to his horror discovered that she was a ghoul, who went stealthily ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despisd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death,— The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns,—puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the poore? The widow being oppress'd, the orphan wronged, The taste of hunger, or a tyrants raigne, And thousand more calamities besides, To grunte and sweate under the weary life, When that he may his full quietus make, With a bare bodkin, who would this indure, But for a hope of something after death? Which pushes the brain and doth connfound the sence, Which makes us rather beare those evilles we have, Than flie to others that we know not of. I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of us all. Lady in thy ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... impotence, long absence, and monastic profession, were allowed to rescind the matrimonial obligation. Whoever transgressed the permission of the law, was subject to various and heavy penalties. The woman was stripped of her wealth and ornaments, without excepting the bodkin of her hair: if the man introduced a new bride into his bed, her fortune might be lawfully seized by the vengeance of his exiled wife. Forfeiture was sometimes commuted to a fine; the fine was sometimes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... life of every man, and no woman, there comes a moment when he learns suddenly that he is held eligible for marriage. A girl gives him the jag, and it brings out the perspiration. Of the issue elsewhere of this stab with a bodkin let others speak; in Thrums its commonest effect is to make the callant's body take a right angle to his legs, for he has been touched in the fifth button, and he backs away broken-winded. By and by, however, he is at his work—among ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... pay, as "Stonewall" of Company C argued, but for the "freedom of our kin." Nobly did they do this, not only at Wagner, as we have seen, but in the battles on James Island, Honey Hill, Olustee and at Bodkin's Mill. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... "Dear old Harold Bodkin. I know him well. In fact, I've a standing invitation to go down there and stay as long as I like. Harold is one of my best pals. Harold is a ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... situation almost appalling. He opened his eyes, and although a brave and callous man he lay still, paralysed with the fear which forbids motion. The dim light of a candle, recently lit, flashed upon the bodkin-like dagger held at his throat. He gazed at the thin line of gleaming steel, fascinated. Already his skin had been broken, a few drops of blood were upon the collar of his pyjamas. The hand which held that deadly, assailing weapon—small, slim, very feminine, curving from somewhere ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the litter in which he was being carried. His head was taken to Rome, and set up in front of the rostrum, "from which he had so often addressed the people with his eloquent appeals for liberty." It is told that Fulvia, the wife of Antony, ran her gold bodkin through the tongue, in revenge for the bitter philippics it had uttered against her husband. The right hand of the victim—the hand that had penned the eloquent orations—was nailed ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... I had not time to examine the sunshine, or see whether it might not be some gilt Birmingham counterfeit; for you know, men of Birmingham, that you can counterfeit—such is your cleverness—all things in heaven and earth, from Jove's thunderbolts down to a tailor's bodkin. Therefore, the gloom is to be charged to my bad luck. Then, as to the noise, never did I sleep at that enormous Hen and Chickens [2] to which usually my destiny brought me, but I had reason to complain that the discreet hen did not gather her vagrant flock to roost at less variable ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of the Destinies, and English man of men, arrived at last in the fulness of time, is—who think you? Ye worlds, the Ithuriel javelin by which, with all these heroisms and accumulated energies old and new, the English People means to smite and pierce, is this poor tailor's-bodkin, hardly adequate to bore an eylet-hole, who now has the honor to"—Good Heavens, if it were not that men generally are very much of the canary-bird, here, are reflections sufficient to annihilate any man, almost ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... have run my finger through with my bodkin sooner than have made such a fool of myself,' returned Nan. 'And to make it worse, what should come rolling to my poor brother's feet but three or four of our pearls? The pearls of Ribaumont! That was the way she kept them when she had ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eagerly. It contained a small shagreen case, which in its turn proved to contain a pair of scissors of antique and curious form, an ivory tablet, yellow with age, a silver bodkin, and a silver fruit-knife, all fitting neatly in their places; the whole case closing with a spring. "It is the prettiest thing I ever saw!" cried Hildegarde. "See, Cousin Wealthy, isn't it delightful to think of that poor old dear—But what have you, Rose-red? You must be ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... "With a bare bodkin"—broke in the excited girl. "Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat beneath a weary life, but that the thought of something after death—the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns—puzzles the will, ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the ruffle you are making. The mesentery is a delicate, narrow membrane about twenty feet long. We will compare it to the ruffle. Folded in it at one edge are the small intestines, just as I can run this bodkin into the hem of this ruffle. The other edge of the mesentery is gathered up as you have gathered the ruffle. It is gathered into a space of about six inches in length, and is fastened up and down the spine in the region ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... crimson velvet, a velvet hood lined with white satin, a girdle of gold and pearls, crimson stockings, white satin slippers, a lace rebato, and a pearl necklace. Oh, how charming you would look! You would not know yourself. Then I should put a gold bodkin in your hair, and a head-drop of pearls set round a diamond, and bracelets instead of these lawn cuffs, and a fan; and wash your face in distilled waters, and odoriferous oils for ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... fine-grained level] interpenetration; permeation; infiltration. [interposition by one person in another's affairs, at the intervenor's initiative] intervention, interference; intrusion, obtrusion; insinuation. insertion &c 300; dovetailing; embolism. intermediary, intermedium^; go between, bodkin^, intruder, interloper; parenthesis, episode, flyleaf. partition, septum, diaphragm; midriff; dissepiment^; party wall, panel, room divider. halfway house. V. lie between, come between, get between; intervene, slide in, interpenetrate, permeate. put between, introduce, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... (bos longifrons), pig, red deer, goat, dog, and hare or rabbit were found near it. One of the bones had evidently been bitten by teeth. The pit dwellers also practised some domestic industries, as Dr. Stevens found a needle, an awl or bodkin, and fragments of pointed bone, probably used for sewing skins together. A rude spindle-whorl shows that they knew something of weaving, and two bored stones were evidently buttons or dress-fasteners. A large supply of flint implements, scrapers, and arrow-heads, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... with an iron bodkin, as they did on the other substances we have noticed. The stylus was made sharp at one end to write with, and blunt and broad at the other, to efface and correct easily: hence the phrase vertere stylum, to turn the stylus, was used to express ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... cocked hats. When dreaded baldness appears, rosettes of false hair patch the temples, and plaits of purchased wigs are interwoven to increase the bulk: the last resources of all are wigs and toupets of stained pine-apple fibre. The comb is unknown, its succedaneum being a huge bodkin, like that which the Trasteverina has so often used as a stiletto. This instrument of castigation is made of ivory or metal, with a lozenge often neatly carved and ornamented at the handle. The hair, always somewhat ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... to be well pleased with Mr. Bodkin, the Secretary for the Society for the Suppression ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... "And sit bodkin between Hugo and Mr. Withells or on one of those horrid little folding-seats—no, thank you! When I go to see my poor little papa I shall go by train by myself. I'll choose a day when their dear father can help you with ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... conceit, As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin[1] Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell, King!" [Footnote 1: In Hamlet's famous soliloquy the pin is a "bodkin."] ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... and the Indian bark canoe aroused his special admiration. He says they also made dishes of bark, both large and small, sewing them so nicely with slender rootlets of fir that they retained water. They used in their sewing a pointed bodkin of bone, and they sometimes adorned their handiwork with porcupine quills and pigments. Their kettles used to be of wood before the French supplied them with those of metal. In cooking, the water was readily heated to the boiling point by the use ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... of her touch behold Transformed at once the warlike aims of old! The mighty falchion to a penknife shrinks, The mailed meshes from the purse's links; The sturdy lance a bodkin now appears, A bunch of tooth-picks once a hundred spears; A painted toy behold the keen-edged axe! See men of iron turned ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... course is finished, you are going to be put through a viva voce examination. Sit down in front of the work-basket, and answer without any shuffling or trying to escape. Now then! Distinguish between a darning-needle and a bodkin." She nipped up Mrs Trevor's spectacles from a side-table, as she spoke, perched them on the end of her nose, and stared over them with an assumption of ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Kubbeling had answered me no, Uhlwurm said once more, or ever his master had done speaking, "Gone!" in his deep, mournful voice, and again swept away crumbs, as it might be, in the air. Hereupon so great a fear fell upon me that meseemed a sharp steel bodkin was being thrust into my heart; but Kubbeling had seen me turn pale, and he turned upon Uhlwurm in high wrath, and to the end that I might take courage he cried: "No, no, I say no. What does the old fool know about it! It is only by reason that the galley tarried for Junker Schopper and weighed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the shot. Electrify the shot, and the ball will be repelled to the distance of four or five inches, more or less, according to the quantity of electricity. When in this state, if you present to the shot the point of a long, slender, sharp bodkin, at six or eight inches distance, the repellency is instantly destroyed, and the cork flies to the shot. A blunt body must be brought within an inch and draw a spark to produce the same effect. To prove that the electrical fire is drawn off by the point, if you take the blade ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... of debtor and creditor between you and the Company?" He does no such thing. There lies a suspicion in his breast that Mr. Hastings must have taken some money in some irregular way, or he could not have made those payments. Mr. Larkins begins to suspect him. "Where did you lose this bodkin?" said one lady to another, upon a certain occasion. "Pray, Madam, where did you find it?" Mr. Hastings, at the very moment of his life when confidence was required, even when making up his accounts with his accountant, never told him one word of the matter. You see he had no confidence ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and, as far as he could see, there was not a place where he could have hidden away a bodkin, let alone the weapon ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... she drew a long bodkin Frae out her gay head-gear, And strake Fair Annet unto the heart, That ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... offerings from various of the older girls. The immemorial trifles that women exchange. A bottle of eau de cologne. The inevitable six handkerchiefs. A silver bodkin for running ribbon through lingerie. And from the booking department, a silk umbrella suitably engraved. She ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... was afraid and shockd at so loathsome a Spectacle. She stepped back, swollen with Rage, to see if I had the Insolence to repeat it. I did, with this Addition, that her ill-timed Passion had increased her Ugliness. Enraged, inflamed, distracted, she snatched a Bodkin, and with all her Force stabbed me to the Heart. Dying, I preserv'd my Sincerity, and expressed the Truth, tho' in broken Words; and by reproachful Grimaces to the last I mimick'd the Deformity of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... his numerous daughters, judging by the interchange of gifts between them. Eleanor, the eldest, who as princess could only give a gold ring, when Duchesse de Bar brought as a Christmas-gift a leathern dressing-case, containing a comb, a mirror silver-gilt, and a silver bodkin, so much valued by the King that he kept them with him as long ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... an Inch and a half of dry Powder for the Bounce, but if you are to place the fore-mention'd things on the Head of a great Rocket, you must close down the Paper or Paste-board very hard, and prick two or three holes with a Bodkin, that it may give fire to them when it Expires, placing a large Cartoush or Paste-board on the head of the Rocket, into which you must put the Stars or small Rockets, Paper-Serpents, or Quill-Serpents; of which I ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... compartments and secretary; carved mother-of-pearl paper-knife, gold seal, gold pencil, case full of fancy writing paper; made in Paris 1 bula work-box, elegant; inlaid 125 with silver and lined with ci-satin, fitted with gold thimble, needle, scissors, pen-knife, gold bodkin, cotton winders; outside to match French piano 1 long knitting-case to match the 40 above, fitted with needles, beads and silk of every description 1 papier-mache work-box, and 5 fitted up 1 morocco work-bag, ornamented 3 with bright steel; fitted ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... warn't she? Well, I guess I know Miss Jane Cobden. She and Bart was hunched up that close you couldn't get a bodkin 'tween 'em. She had that red cloak around her and the hood up ever her head. Not know her, and she within ten feet o' me? Well, I guess I got my eyes left, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... thereby (being made of white Glass, which cools much quicker then green Glass, and is thereby made much brittler) acquire a very porous and very brittle texture: so that if with the point of a Needle or Bodkin, the inside of any of them be rubbed prety hard, and then laid on a Table, it will, within a very little while, break into many pieces with a brisk noise, and throw the parts above a span asunder on the Table: Now though the pieces are not ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... France, when I came from that famous assembly of the Estates at Blois, I had a little before seen a maid in Picardy, who to manifest the ardour of her promises, as also her constancy, give herself, with a bodkin she wore in her hair, four or five good lusty stabs in the arm, till the blood gushed out to some purpose. The Turks give themselves great scars in honour of their mistresses, and to the end they may ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... and flashing coming along it, but some way off; yet was not sure, for her eyes were dizzy with the swiftness of her flight and the hot sun and the hurry of her heart. Then she looked about a moment confusedly, for she called to mind that in her nakedness she had neither knife, nor scissors, nor bodkin to let her blood withal. But even therewith close to hand she saw hanging down a stem of half-dead briar-rose with big thorns upon it; she hastily tore off a length thereof and scratched her left arm till the blood flowed, and stepped lightly first to stem and then to stern, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... fools. The biggest I know is Orige Enville. And in good sooth, that is much to say! She is past old Doll, at Crowe, that threw her kerchief over the candle to put it out. Blanche may be a step the better; methinks she is. But for all that, she is Orige Enville's daughter. I would as soon fetch my bodkin and pierce that child to the heart, as I would send her to the Court, where her blind bat of a mother would fain have her. 'Twere the kindlier deed of the twain. Lack-a-daisy! she would make shipwreck of life and soul in a month. Well, ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... "whether I, If you refuse my suit, shall die." (Now pray don't let this hurt you!) Although the time be out of joint, I should not think a bodkin's point The sole resource of virtue; Nor shall I, though your mood endure, Attempt a final Water-cure Except against my wishes; For I respectfully decline To dignify the Serpentine, And make hors-d'oeuvres for fishes; But if you ask me whether I Composedly can ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... was difficult, indeed, for the poor tailor to bear what he felt; it is true he bore it as long as he could; but at length he became suicidal, and often had thoughts of "making his own quietus with his bare bodkin." After many deliberations and afflictions, he ultimately made the attempt; but, alas! he found that the blood of the Malones refused to flow upon so ignominious an occasion. So HE solved the phenomenon; ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... the case of a physician whose wan face betokened a marasmus, and who was induced to try a method not unlike the sympathetic cures. "He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own warm urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places, and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg, he found his distemper to abate and his strength to increase, insomuch that his disease ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... rules laid down was that when the seconds disagreed and resolved to exchange shots, they should stand at right angles with the principals and all fire together. A duel of this nature took place near Glinsk, the seat of Sir J. Bourke, between that gentleman and a Mr. Bodkin, when the old family steward and other servants brought out the son, then a child, and held him on men's shoulders to see papa fight! Professed duelists were called "fire-eaters," and the first two questions always asked as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... forbade his slaves to fight for him, but stretched out his throat for the sword, with his eyes full upon it. His head was carried to Antonius, whose wife Fulvia actually pierced the tongue with her bodkin in revenge for the speeches it had made ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the 12th instant, Dionysius Haggarty, Esq., of H.M. 120th Foot, to Jemima Amelia Wilhelmina Molloy, daughter of the late Major Lancelot Gam, R.M., and granddaughter of the late, and niece of the present Burke Bodkin Blake Molloy, Esq., Molloyville, ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... woman appeared with twenty brightly polished daggers and swords," we read in the Irish Tain Bo Cuailgne of the Badhbh or Banshee who appeared to Meidhbh, "together with seven braids for the dead, of bright gold, in her right hand; a speckled garment of green ground, fastened by a bodkin at the breast under her fair, ruddy countenance, enveloped her form; her teeth were so new and bright that they appeared like pearls artistically set in her gums; like the ripe berry of the mountain ash were her lips; sweeter was her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ordinary forms of female beauty. She did not appear to notice how closely she was observed; but, as if acting under an irresistible impulse, derived from the sounds to which she seemed to listen, she undid the bodkin round which her long tresses were winded, and flinging them suddenly over her slender person, as if using them as a natural veil, she began to dance, with infinite grace and agility, to the tune which the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... make clothes of skins as soon as we get enough," said Hector.—"Louis, I think you can manufacture a bone needle; we can pierce the hole with the strong thorns, or a little round bone bodkin that can ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... chatelaine made of finely-fretted silver. The customary thimble, scissors and other useful and feminine trifles dangled there, but there was also added a delicately-chased case that might have been expected to hold a bodkin, but contained indeed a very ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... removing by skilful blows the edges of flint knives, the fingers and thumb being placed in the two opposite depressions during the operation. Among the bone instruments were arrows without barbs, and other tools made of reindeer horn, and a bodkin formed out of the more compact horn of the roedeer. This instrument was well shaped, and sharply pointed, and in so good a state of preservation that it might still be used for piercing ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... for of that they have little or none; but on a Talli-pot leaf with an Iron Bodkin, which makes an impression. This leaf thus written on, is not folded, but rolled up like Ribbond, and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... known to all that profess courtship, by these presents (from the white satin reveller, to the cloth of tissue and bodkin) that we, Ulysses-Polytropus-Amorphus, master of the noble and subtile science of courtship, do give leave and licence to our provost, Acolastus-Polypragmon-Asotus, to play his master's prize, against all masters whatsoever, ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... not spare their coin, But thus their love is shown; Young Richard will buy a bodkin fine And give it honest Joan. There's Nancy and Sue with honest Prue, Young damsels both fair and gay, Will give to the men choice presents again For the honor ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... this country have come from the Swiss mountain villages. No doubt some of our readers have come across the old pin poppets which boys and girls carried with them to the village school half a century or more ago. The girls filled them with pins and needles, bodkin and stiletto, and the boys with pencils and pens. In Fig. 75 two curious old pin boxes are illustrated. The pins shown on the same page are, however, of much older date; they are, in fact, merely thorns; these interesting ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... would not suffice, for they would be gods too) they certainly possessed it; and yet one of them, who styled himself "Lord and God of the Earth," could not tell how to pass his whole day pleasantly, without spending constant two or three hours in catching of flies, and killing them with a bodkin, as if his godship had been Beelzebub. One of his predecessors, Nero (who never put any bounds, nor met with any stop to his appetite), could divert himself with no pastime more agreeable than to run about the streets all night in a disguise, and abuse the women and affront the men whom he met, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... penetrating wounds.—These, for many reasons, are the most serious of all kinds of wounds.—Treatment. The same as that for lacerated wounds. Pus (matter) often forms at the bottom of these wounds, which should, therefore, be kept open at the top, by separating their edges every morning with a bodkin, and applying a warm bread poultice immediately afterwards. They will then, in all probability, heal up from the bottom, and any matter which may form will find its own way out into the poultice. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... scientific fact that that which is sharp is penetrating and moves quickly; that which is blunt is non-penetrating and of necessity moves slowly. The needle darts through the cloth more quickly than the bodkin. The greyhound is swifter than the bulldog. The stiletto does quicker work than the bludgeon. This, of course, is only a symbolism which may make vivid the truth that the convex man works more ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... the rocks at low-water a species of limpet which contains a liquor very curious for marking fine linen," says our seventeenth-century authority, and he gives directions for breaking the mollusc "with one sharp blow," and taking out "by a bodkin" the little white vein that lies transversely by the head—a somewhat delicate operation. "The letters and figures made with this liquor on linen," he continues, "will appear of a light green colour, and, if placed in the sun, will ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... day every month, the grim old man waylays him and compels him to disgorge his wages, allowing him so much grain and spices as will keep him in condition till next pay day. In a word, Mukkun is a slave. Yet he does not jump into the garden well, nor his quietus make with a bare bodkin. No, he plods through life, eats his rice and curry with gusto, smokes his cigarette with satisfaction, oils his lovelocks, borrows money from the cook to buy a set of silver buttons for his waistcoat, and when he tires of them, pawns them to pay for a velvet cap on which ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... of Moor-lane and Lancaster-road. It is a small, strong, hard-looking building; seems as if it would stand any amount of rain and never get wet through, any quantity of heat and never have a sunstroke; it is stoical, cold, firm, and very stony; has a bodkin-pointed spire, ornamented with round holes and circular places into which penetration has not yet been effected; and its "tout ensemble" is in no way edifying. It is neither ornate nor colossal. Strength, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... instrument, Med. Lat. brocca, cf. the Latin adjective brochus or broccus, projecting, used of teeth), a word, of which the doublet "brooch" (q.v.) has a special meaning, for many forms of pointed instruments, such as a bodkin, a wooden needle used in tapestry-making, a spit for roasting meat, and a tool, also called a "rimer," used with a wrench for enlarging or smoothing holes (see TOOL). From the use of a similar instrument to tap casks, comes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... enough to be still entertained by these mischievously whimsical and yet portentously moral comedies. It appears however that the civilization for which Rabelais and Voltaire wrote, is less willing to acclaim as an extraordinary genius one who has the wit to pierce with a bodkin the idolatries and illusions of such pathetically ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... occasion the applicants use no speech, but give up their supplications in writing, being upon long slips of the leaves of a tree, a yard long and about two inches broad, written with a pointed iron or stile like a bodkin. He who gives in his application, stands at some distance carrying a present. If his application is to be complied with, his present is accepted and his request granted; but if his suit be denied he returns home ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... had gone into the hall to buy a bodkin; she had just broken hers. In giving her change, the peddler took out of his pocket, with some halfpence, the very box which Cecilia had sold to him. Leonora did not in the least suspect the truth, for her mind was above suspicion; and ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... This was the acre of ghosts. Tale after tale I had heard, sitting on the knee of the old grey negro Clabe, about the horrors of this haunted "bend" in the Gauley. There, when I was a child, had lived old Bodkin in a stone house, now a ruin, by the river,—a crooked, mean old devil with a great hump, and eyes like a toad. He came to own the land through some suspicious will about which there clung the atmosphere of crime, as men said. When I saw him first, I was ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... Louisa! Louisa! Fallen, perhaps already lost, daughter! Treasure in thy heart the solemn counsels of a father! I cannot eternally watch over thee! I may snatch the dagger from thy hands; but thou canst let out life with a bodkin. I may remove poison from thy reach; but thou canst strangle thyself with a necklace. Louisa! Louisa! I can only warn thee. Wilt thou rush boldly forward till the perfidious phantom which lured thee on vanishes at ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... chooses to swear at a lady of my years in that ojous vulgar way—in that ojous vulgar way I repeat—I don't see why my friends should be inconvenienced for him. Let him sit on the dicky if he likes, or come in and ride bodkin." It was quite clear that my Lady Drum hated her grandson-in-law heartily; and I've remarked somehow in families that this kind of hatred is by ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at Marlborough Street police court, with Mr. Bingham sitting as Magistrate. Mr. Clarkson conducted the prosecution, and Mr. Bodkin appeared for ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... ladies," says Shaw, "take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have tinged their hair and edges of their eyelids with the powder of lead ore. Now, as this operation is performed by dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids over the ball of the eye, we shall have a lively image of what the Prophet (Jer. iv. 30) may be supposed to mean by rending the eyes with painting. This practice is no doubt of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... or Pears and prick them full of holes with a bodkin, & lay them in sweet wort three or four dayes, then lay them on a sieves bottom, till they be dry in an Oven, but a drying heat. This you may do to ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... nevertheless, flattered himself that it would enable him to achieve great deeds in battle and deal death among the Peruvians. Ten months afterwards I met this hero on a march among the mountains of Peru. He had, girded on, a light little sword, like a tooth pick or a bodkin compared with the formidable weapon he had discarded, and which a sturdy negro was carrying behind him. I could not refrain from asking the officer whether the trusty broad-sword had not done good service in the battle of Yungay; but he candidly acknowledged that he had not attempted ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... single stroke of genius, inspired by the diplomacy inherent in a sex whose chief concern has been the making of matches, she transfixed his imagination as skilfully as she might have impaled a butterfly on a bodkin. While he stared at her she could almost see the iridescent wings of his fancy whirling madly around the idea by which she had arrested their flight. Trifle with Virginia! Trifle with that radiant vision ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... down,' as Jawleyford declared. Horses fall with their masters, servants throw them down. What a happiness it is when people can send their servants on errands by coaches or railways, instead of being kept on the fidget all day, lest a fifty-pound horse should be the price of a bodkin or a basket ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... scarf-end illustrated on page 97, and as represented, the corner is only one-half its actual size. The kerchief itself is about twenty-two inches square and is very dainty in effect. The stars which fill in the central portion are very simple to make, and the eyelets in each are punched with a bodkin and then worked once around in point de Bruxelles or button-hole stitch. The kerchief is made of fine Brussels net and the darning is done ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.
... away at the crowded store in a frantic effort to catch the State assistant's eye. Oh, it was a happy epoch in our lives—an epoch during which vows were registered against being "let in" for such happiness again, or against living it through while a 'bare bodkin' was left unconfiscated. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... said,—"right there to that tree under which you are sitting, Jacky Bonhomme." Jacques incontinently shifted his position. "He chains him there, with one chain around his neck, one around his waist, and one around his ankles. Then he sticks me a bodkin through his tongue." A groan of admiration from his audience. "Then they dig, before his very eyes, a grave,—shallow enough they make it, too,—and they put into it, uncoffined, with only a long white shroud upon him, the man he murdered. Then they cover the grave. You're sitting on it now, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... He had forgotten a good deal; and every other word was linked with distracting memories: his mother leaning from her embroidery frame to follow the line with her bodkin; his mother, erect and stern, bidding Brother Ambrose bear him away and flog him for his idleness; his mother hearing his lesson with one arm around him and the other hand holding the sweetmeat she would give him if he succeeded. He did not notice that Rolf's eyes were gradually closing, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz |
