"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the tempting, brisk, lovely little thing, that runs about the house with a bunch of keys to its girdle? ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... upon a hill was laid, His dogge to his girdle was tied; He had not slept but a little brayd When Gloria in Excelsis to him was said. Ut Hoy! For in his pipe ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... comparisons, she had given her friend practical advice, and shown her how the thing was to be done. And every night and morning Meg pulled away ruthlessly at her corset laces, and crushed her beautiful little body into narrower space. She had already brought it within a girdle of twenty-one inches, which was a clear saving of two, and she had taken in all ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... number of Gentlemen which hee calleth Amochi, and some are called Nairi: these two sorts of men esteeme not their liues any thing, so that it may be for the honour of their king, they will thrust themselues forward in euery danger, although they know they shall die. These men goe naked from the girdle vpwardes, with a clothe rolled about their thighs, going barefooted, and hauing their haire very long and rolled vp together on the toppe of their heads, and alwayes they carrie their Bucklers or Targets with them and their ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... purse was carried hanging to a girdle round the waist, and great dexterity was requisite to cut and carry it away without the knowledge of the owner. Public executions for theft had so little effect in repressing crime, that thefts were committed in sight of, or ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the purposes of defence, the town had been built originally on the slopes of the hill, under the very shadow of the minster, and round its base the massive old walls yet remained, which had squeezed the city into a huddled mass of uncomfortable dwellings within its narrow girdle. But now oppidan life extended beyond these walls; and houses, streets, villas and gardens spread into the plain on all sides. Broad, white roads ran to Southberry Junction, ten miles away; to manufacturing ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... [His neck will come to your waist] That is, his neck will be tied, like your waist, with a rope. The friars of the Franciscan order, perhaps of all others, wear a hempen cord for a girdle. Thus Buchanan, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... all the memorials of his own hard childhood about him, could not believe his eyes, when he found Sandy established day after day in the Needham Farm kitchen, sucking his thumb in a corner of the settle, and ordering Hannah about with the airs of a three-tailed bashaw. She stuffed him with hot girdle-cakes; she provided for him a store of 'humbugs,' the indigenous sweet of the district, which she made and baked with her own hands, and had not made before for forty years; she took him about ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not have travelled with more precaution. The nephew, with drawn sabre, rode in front; pistols at his holsters, and the usual Spanish gun slung at his saddle. Behind him tramped six men in a rank, with muskets shouldered, and each of them wore at his girdle a hatchet, which was probably intended to cleave the thieves to the brisket should they venture to come to close quarters. There were six vehicles, two of them calashes, in which latter rode the Fidalgo and his daughters; the others were covered carts, and seemed to be filled with household ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... stain on the embroideries on her childish breast. It was as if she were asking herself how it came there and could not understand. Then she picked a fern and a bunch of the thick-growing bluebells and put them in her girdle in such a way that they hid ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... foot wide in front and very narrow behind. Such things have been found in Euboea and in Italy. Mr. Ridgeway mentions examples from Bologna, Corneto, Este, Hallstatt, and Hungary. [Footnote: Early Age of Greece, p. 31 I.] The zoster is now, in Mr. Leaf's opinion, a "girdle" "holding up the waist-cloth (zoma), so characteristic of Mycenaean dress!" Reichel's arguments against corslets "militate just as strongly against the presence of such a mitre, which is, in fact, just the lower half of a corslet.... ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... touched of neither, went a man, naked save for a red girdle and a long red cloak that was fastened round his throat and hung down from his broad shoulders. There was nothing strange about this man, unless it were perhaps the strength that seemed to flow from him and the glance of his icy eyes. He was just ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... on our own hero. Ginx hurried off again, but as the crowd opened before him, he was met, and his mad career stayed, by a slight figure, feminine, draped in black to the feet, wearing a curiously framed white-winged hood above her pale face, and a large cross suspended from her girdle. He ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... covetousness, which is a grievous inner (?) malady. Let it not chance that thou fall thereinto. It setteth at variance fathers-in-law and the kinsmen of the daughter-in-law; it sundereth the wife and the husband. It gathereth unto itself all evils; it is the girdle of all wickedness.[11] But the man that is just flourisheth; truth goeth in his footsteps, and he maketh habitations therein, not in the dwelling ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... Girl was barefooted and barearmed, having rolled the sleeves of her pink gingham up to her shoulders. Around her waist was twisted a girdle of the blood-red roses that bloomed in Aunt Olivia's garden; on her sleek curls she wore a chaplet of them; and her hands were full ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gymnosophists. Natheless, the children of this Francis bid fair to pelt us out of the Church with their snowballs. Tell me now, Clement, what habit is lovelier than the vestments of our priests? Well, we owe them all to Numa Pompilius, except the girdle and the stole, which are judaical. As for the amice and the albe, they retain the very names they bore in Numa's day. The 'pelt' worn by the canons comes from primeval Paganism. 'Tis a relic of those rude times when the sacrificing priest wore the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... tumbled sky. Far to south a rusty haze had gloomed against the sun like a midday fog, mile after mile; and suddenly, as they topped the range and cleared the last low hill, they saw a city in the south spreading away until it seemed to Nick to girdle half the world and to veil the sky in a ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... cushion placed on a common native charpoy, or bed, in the verandah of a courtyard, was the last representative of the Great Mogul dynasty. There was nothing imposing in his appearance, save a long white beard which reached to his girdle. About middle height, and upwards of seventy years old, he was dressed in white, with a conical-shaped turban of the same colour and material, while at his back two attendants stood, waving over his ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... and explained to the children what Mrs. Howard meant: she told them that an equipage was a little case which held a thimble, scissors, a pencil, or other such little matters, and, being either of gold or silver, was hung to the girdle to balance the great watches worn by the grandmothers and great-grandmothers of people ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... squares, busks, bodies, scarfs, necklaces, carcanets, rebatoes, borders, tires, fans, palisadoes, puffs, ruffs, cuffs, muffs, pusles, fusles, partlets, frislets, bandlets, fillets, crosslets, pendulets, amulets, annulets, bracelets, and so many lets, that yet she's scarce dressed to the girdle; and now there is such calling for fardingales, kirtles, busk-points, shoe-ties, &c., that seven pedlars' shops—nay, all Stourbridge fair, will scarce furnish her. A ship is sooner rigged by far, than a gentlewoman ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... plight of old Megan, who was bemoaning the loss of her property on the wrong side of the gorge so many years ago, when there appeared to her suddenly a cowled monk, whose dark face was scarcely discernible, with a rosary hanging to his girdle, and ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... thou with me, mistress of all woe? Say, wilt thou bear me to another land Where thou hast other lovers? Rise and go Where dark the pine trees upon Ida stand, For there did one unloose thy girdle band; Or seek the forest where Adonis bled, Or wander, wander on the yellow sand, Where thy first lover strew'd thy ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... twenty prisoners, one only—a condemned captain of brigands, who was chained about the waist. A similar arrangement of metal proved fatal in another case. On the 9th of October, 1836, on the coast of Italy, a young man was struck by lightning and killed. It was found that he wore a girdle containing gold coins. Undoubtedly, danger or safety depends on properly placing the conducting object. It may convey the current to the vital organs or it may ward off the stroke. Probably any line of metal parallel with the length of the body when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Mr Barstowe. 'Ah, Rossiter, that is the very poetry of motion. I never ride in a motor-car without those words of Shakespeare's ringing in my mind: "I'll put a girdle round about ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... mechanically, took one of the virginally cinctured cigars, and began to undo its wrappings. It was the first time he had ever been privileged to detach that golden girdle, and nothing could have given him a better measure of the importance of the situation, and of the degree to which he was apparently involved in it. "You remember that San Pablo rubber business? That's what they've been raking up," said Mr. ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... out words, not as a sop to the necessity for talk, but as a bait to catch Anne's voice, mentions girdle-cakes, remembers that his old housekeeper used to be famous for the making of them, and wonders if she ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... from his horse, he threw off the large mantle, not unlike the military cloaks of our days, and discovered the knightly armour, which showed to peculiar advantage his powerful limbs. A straight black tunic without sleeves descended to his knees. It was fastened by a silver girdle, from which depended on one side a strong sword, and on the other a dagger, the richly wrought handle of which seemed to declare it of Turkish make. His arms and hands were covered with a steel tissue, sitting close and so flexible ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... herdsman knew not in his earlier days; and albeit his stature was short, and his limbs halted, yet his countenance was grave and high. He only of the tribe wore a garment that swept the ground, and his head was bare and his long black hair descended to his girdle, and rarely was change or human passion seen in his calm aspect. He feasted not, nor drank wine, nor was his presence frequent in the streets. He laughed not, neither did he smile, save when alone in the forest,—and ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and into these the master of the house deposits his gifts to his parish church, and if they are a newly-married couple they tie up presents of food for the musicians in a handkerchief—figs, almonds, &c., which the cymbal-player fastens round his neck or ties to his girdle. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... this day the signal lamp and the red fire of the mariner are as useful as of old. But how much wider is the field of electricity as it creates the telegraph and the telephone! In the telegraph we have all that a pencil of light could be were it as long as an equatorial girdle and as flexible as a silken thread. In the telephone for nearly two thousand miles the pulsations of the speaker's voice are not only audible, but retain their ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... this was not the case: Her dress was many-colour'd, finely spun; Her locks curl'd negligently round her face, But through them gold and gems profusely shone: Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace Flow'd in her veil, and many a precious stone Flash'd on her little hand; but, what was shocking, Her small snow feet had slippers, but ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... in summer the sun is none too hot on this hill-top; and a sheepskin is a garment one must be used to, it appears. Christ, himself, was no better off. He was wearing his crown of thorns, but he had only his night-dress, bound with a girdle, to keep his naked little body warm. An angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath, being of the other sex, had her innate woman's love of finery to make her oblivious to the light sting of the wind, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... my intimacy with Francesco di Filippo; and though I was too much given to pleasure, owing to that accursed music, I never neglected to devote some hours of the day or night to study. At that time I fashioned a silver heart's-key ('chiavaquore'), as it was then so called. This was a girdle three inches broad, which used to be made for brides, and was executed in half relief with some small figures in the round. It was a commission from a man called Raffaello Lapaccini. I was very badly paid; but the honour which it brought me was worth far more than ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Rinaldo, who was nevertheless quick enough to give it a blow on the snout which increased its fury. Returning the knight a tremendous cuff, it seized his coat of mail between breast and shoulder, and tore away a great strip of it down to the girdle, leaving the skin bare. Every successive rent and blow was of the like irresistible violence; and though the Paladin himself never fought with more force and fury, he lost blood every instant. The monster at length tearing his sword out of his hand, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the Arabs. When about to be taken before Omar, the Commander of the Faithful, he arranged himself in his most gorgeous apparel, wearing a crown on his head, and his embroidered silk robe being confined by a splendid jeweled girdle. When his conductors brought him to the mosque he saw Omar stretched on the ground, taking a mid-day sleep. When he awoke he asked their business, and they replied, "We bring you here the ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... his breast and laughed over them, so I hugged him with my trunk, and we agreed that once in every full moon I was to come to Burnt Woods, and wait until he called me with something that he took from his girdle and twirled on a thong. I do not know what it was called, but it had a voice like ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... general, are attached to this composition, with a sort of national fondness, as well as to their oat-meal bread; which is presented at every table, in thin triangular cakes, baked upon a plate of iron, called a girdle; and these, many of the natives, even in the higher ranks of life, prefer to wheaten-bread, which they have here in perfection — You know we used to vex poor Murray of Baliol college, by asking, if there was really no fruit but turnips in Scotland? — Sure enough, I have ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... heard, which was the same thing. To the polite request of Grant, Lee sent the polite reply that his means of resistance were not yet exhausted, and the Union leader took another hitch in the steel girdle. The second morning afterward, Lee made a desperate effort to break through at Appomattox Court House, but crushing numbers drove him back, and when the short fierce combat ceased, the Army of Northern Virginia ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the feet of the saint. Then, with the words of a holy spell, St. George cast a great fear upon the monster, so that it was shorn of all its fury, and durst not lift its body from the dust. Thereupon the blessed knight beckoned to the Princess to approach, and bade her loose her girdle, and, without fear, bind it about the dragon's neck. And when this was done, behold, the beast followed the maid, spellbound, and thus they entered the city. But the people, when they saw the dragon approaching, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... wild.—"Only in the heart of Tartary can the horse be found perfectly in a wild state. One herd in the steppe will consist of 1000 horses; but the keepers of herds will have several. Dressed in leather, with a girdle which contains the implements of his veterinary art; a black lambskin cap on his head, the tabuntshik, or herdsman, eats, drinks, and sleeps in his saddle; has no shelter, and dare not even turn ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the last of the tale, the wind howls in the chimney, and the fleecy fog is coming over Russian Hill from the Pacific, and hiding the ships in San Francisco Bay, and the last sheets from my pen are gathered up by Rajah, wearing in his girdle the kris that ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... die for adultery! No: The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive; ... ... Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women all above; But to the girdle do the gods inherit, Beneath ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... that makes love in the hearts of men," said Krishna, knotting his girdle. "It is but a little time to wait, and ye shall know if ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... wanting, they supplied them by their own actions, as by rending a garment, 1 Kings xi. by shooting, 2 Kings xiii. by making bare their body, Isa. xx. by imposing significant names to their sons, Isa. viii. Hos. i. by hiding a girdle in the bank of Euphrates, Jer. xiii. by breaking a potter's vessel, Jer. xix. by putting on fetters and yokes, Jer. xxvii. by binding a book to a stone, and casting them both into Euphrates, Jer. li. by besieging a painted city, Ezek. ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... turned and slowly bent round again northward, and at last fairly doubled back on itself before it turned again to run westward; so that when, after its second double, it had come to flowing softly westward under the northern crags, it had cast two thirds of a girdle round about a space of land a little below the grassy knolls and tofts aforesaid; and there in that fair space between the folds of the Weltering Water stood the Thorp whereof the tale ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... major," Rupert said. "I will go back to my tent and dress now. I took in my two friends of the Guards, and I think I can pass inspection even by a native." In half an hour Rupert returned in his native get-up, carrying as usual a spear and a sword and two or three knives stuck into his girdle. Major Kitchener was inside his tent, and Rupert squatted down outside and awaited his coming out. When the major issued from his tent ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... allow him to enter. Afterward when at the monastery it was discovered he had gone without a guide, a great search was made for him. Coming down from Mount Olivet he met a girdled Christian, those who are bound to wear a girdle to distinguish them from the Mussulmans; this man, pretending to be very angry, threatened him with a large stick, and approaching, firmly grasped him by the arm. He allowed himself to be led, but the good man once he had hold of him did not let him go. In ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola
... Steinbrenner. It consisted of a short black tunic—in summer made of linen, in winter of wool—open at the sides, with a gorget to which a hood was attached; round the waist was a leathern girdle, from which depended a sword and a satchel. Over the tunic was a black scapulary, similar to the habit of a priest, tucked under the girdle when they were working, but on holydays allowed to hang down. No doubt this garment also served as a coverlet at night, as was the custom of the Middle Ages, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... waters being retained on their level, form a current which moves toward the west. If the earth within the tropics were covered by a universal sea, the result of this movement would be the institution of a current which, flowing under the equator, would girdle the sphere. ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... and rested a little while, and Alaeddin enjoyed himself with joy exceeding and fell to jesting with his uncle and making merry with him as though the Magician were really his father's brother. Presently the Maghrabi arose and loosing his girdle drew forth from thereunder a bag full of victual, dried fruits and so forth, saying to Alaeddin, "O my nephew, haply thou art become anhungered; so come forward and eat what thou needest." Accordingly the lad fell upon the food and the Moorman ate with him ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... enumeration of particulars: Protestant historians mention on this occasion, with great triumph, the sacred repositories of convents; the parings of St. Edmond's toes; some of the coals that roasted St. Laurence; the girdle of the Virgin shown in eleven several places; two or three heads of St. Ursula; the felt of St Thomas of Lancaster, an infallible cure for the headache; part of St. Thomas of Canterbury's shirt, much reverenced by big-bellied women; some relics, an ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... other than his own, but he had sent as his representative Pocahontas's uncle, Opechisco, and many messages of affection to "his dearest daughter." The elderly werowance wore all the ceremonial robes of his tribe: a headdress of feathers, leggings and girdle and a long deerskin mantle heavily embroidered in beads of shell. With him came Nautauquaus and Catanaugh. The two wandered as they pleased through the town, and Nautauquaus, seeing Rolfe arrive in his boat from his plantation Varina, where he had built a house for Pocahontas, ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... deafening noise with the gongs and the drums, while the young girls, richly adorned with pearls and fragrant flowers, await the beginning of the dance. Then appear the men and youths without weapons, but in full war-costume, the girdle freshly marked with the number of slain enemies. [Among the Alfuras it is the man who has the largest number of heads to show who has most chance of winning the object of his love.] They hold each other's arms and form a circle, which is not, however, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from his pockets, and laid before the bright eyes of the three girls—Mary Warren keeping in the back ground, as one who ought not to look on things unsuited to her fortune. Her father had arrived, however, had been consulted, and the pretty watch was already attached to the girdle of the prettier waist. I fancied the tear of gratitude that still floated in her serene eyes was a jewel of far higher price than any my uncle ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... visitors, in recounting and shouting out in public, as they do, what they had got, said that there were eleven pigs, it was supposed that the god had added one. Then they would compare notes, and say: "Oh yes, it must have been that old woman we saw with a dry shrunk leaf girdle." There were other instances of the "devil's ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... the none too frequent arrangement of five aisles, which, following through the transept, continue, with the double pair on each side, to likewise girdle the choir. The splendour of immensity is further enhanced by its large windows, including two rose openings set with old glass, and the general richness of its sculptured decorations. The abside of the choir is ranked among the best Gothic works ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... toward the end of October; the sky a neutral tint of ashy gray; a bitter northeast wind tearing down the yellow leaves from the old elms that girdle the school-close of ——; a foul, clinging paste of mud and trampled grass-blades under foot, that chilled you to the marrow; a mob of two hundred lower boys, vicious with cold and the enforcement of keeping goal through the first football match of the season—in the midst, I, who ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... and all of them had bunches of white feathers stuck in their ears: Thus dressed, and all standing, they received us with great courtesy. I presented the chief with the cloak I had got made for him, with which he seemed so well pleased, that he took his pattapattou from his girdle and gave it me. After a short stay, we took leave; and having spent the remainder of the day in continuing my survey of the bay, with the night returned ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... volcano was, in fact, long regarded as more intimately connected with earthquakes than it, probably, actually is; the association being regarded in a causative light, whereas the connexion is more that of possessing a common origin. The girdle of volcanoes around the Pacific and the earthquake belt coincide. Again, the ancient and modern volcanoes and earthquakes of Europe are associated with the geosyncline of the greater Mediterranean, the Tethys of Mesozoic ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... nymph. But Cyane, before Demeter came to her, had been changed into a spring of water. And now, not being able to speak and tell Demeter where her child had gone to and who had carried her away, she showed in the water the girdle of Persephone that she had caught in her hands. And Demeter, finding the girdle of her child in the spring, knew that she had been carried off by violence. She lighted a torch at Etna's burning mountain, and for nine ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... worked by counting the threads of the fabric, or because the pattern is always treated as a diaper and placed upon the surface without regard to contour. The exception to this rule of direction is when the couching is taken along a stem or the narrow hem of a robe to form the border, or along a girdle, it then follows the direction of the band, this being evidently the most straightforward and satisfactory method ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... of cheek. The lady would wear a shift of linen, "white as meadow flower." Over this was worn a garment of fur or silk, according to the season; and, above all, a vividly coloured gown, all in one line from neck to feet, shapen closely to the figure, or else the more loosely fitting bliaut. Her girdle clipped her closely about the waist, falling to the hem of her skirt, and her feet were shod in soundless shoes, without heels. The hair was arranged in two long braids, brought forward over her shoulders; as worn by those ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... most extraordinary figure, clad from head to heel in monkey skins, his head adorned with a coronet of beads and feathers, a bead necklace round his neck, a living snake encircling his waist as a girdle, and bearing in his hand a red and black wand about ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... whole earth, on which so many lofty mountains rise, and such vast oceans roll. A line extending from side to side through the centre of that resplendent orb, would measure more than 800,000 miles: a girdle formed to go round its circumference, would require a length of millions. Are we startled at these reports of philosophers? Are we ready to cry out in a transport of surprise, "How mighty is the Being who kindled such a prodigious fire, and keeps alive from age to age such an enormous mass ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... exercises. In Limerick it was a Triduum with some reference to Saint Monica. In Cork it was something else, which required much expenditure in blessed candles. In Galway the Confraternity of the Holy Girdle was making full time, and in Westport three priests are laying on day and night in a mission. A few days ago they carried the Corpus Christi round the place, six hundred children strewing flowers under the sacerdotal feet, and the crowds of ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... later she might have been seen, stealing cautiously down a dark, narrow flight of stairs, that led to a little postern, which she opened with a key which she drew from her girdle, and, closing it behind her, stepped out on the stretch of short green turf, which ran along one side of the quaint chapel. It was bright moonlight, but she stole behind one of the buttresses that cast heavy shadows on the grass, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... a very impressive figure, his strong features softened by the somewhat longer hair—though he made me trim it as closely as I knew how; and he wore his richly embroidered tunic with its broad, loose girdle with quite a Henry V air. Jeff looked more like—well, like a Huguenot Lover; and I don't know what I looked like, only that I felt very comfortable. When I got back to our own padded armor and its starched borders I realized with acute regret how ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... which hampered other lands, nature did not impose upon England; the security afforded by her girdle of waves seemed as it were to impel her to strike out into the unbounded, and to look upon every obstacle as a wrong. There is a thread of daring lawlessness running through all England's world-struggles, through all periods of her history, right ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... upon the water out of reach, And praying succour in a silent speech, So piteous were its eyes. Which, when she saw, This woman from her foot her shoe did draw, Albeit death-sorrowful, and, looping up The long silk of her girdle, made a cup Of the heel's hollow, and thus let it sink Until it touched the cool black water's brink; So filled th' embroidered shoe, and gave a draught To the spent beast, which whined, and fawned, and quaffed ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... still he seemed to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced, For all might see the bottle-necks Still dangling at his waist; Thus all through merry Islington These gambols did he play, And till he came into the Wash Of Edmonton ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... first exclamation of the Queen, as she hurriedly snatched the scroll from the table, and forming it into a roll, thrust it into her girdle; "are you ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... p. 215.)—Zero, as is well known, is an Italian word signifying the arithmetical figure of nought (0). It has been conjectured that it is derived from the transposition from the Hebrew word ezor, a girdle, the zero assuming that form. (See Furetiere, vol. iii.) Prof. le Moine, of Leyden (quoted by Menage), claims for it also an Eastern origin, and thinks we have received it from the Arabians, together with ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... dead. She is not beautiful. She has a dark face, burned as if she had travelled much under hot suns. Her long black hair is in disorder and flies all about her in the wind. Her dress is in disorder too, and it is fastened around the waist by a girdle of snake skin, with long ends that hang down to the ground. Everything about her looks wild and terrible. She is a woman whom you would not care to meet on a lonely road after dark and on a horse like this. Yet if ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... shapes—hearts, human fingers, serpents, animals, images of divinities. All these were amulets; and they were probably less valued for the charm of the workmanship than for the supernatural virtues which they were supposed to possess. The girdle-buckle in carnelian (fig. 210) symbolised the blood of Isis, and washed away the sins of the wearer. The frog (fig. 211) was emblematic of renewed birth. The little lotus-flower column in green felspar (fig. 212) typified the divine gift of eternal youth. The "Uat," ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... the girdle of the robe of the god Nu, which shineth and sheddeth light upon that which belongeth to his breast, which sendeth forth light into the darkness, which uniteth the two fighting deities who dwell in my body through the mighty spell ...
— Egyptian Literature
... having made use of them, she has cast them aside and has fallen into a profound revery. As typical of the mistrust which has crept into her heart with avarice and doubt, a bunch of keys is suspended to her girdle; above her is an hour-glass, the emblem of her transitory existence. Nothing could be more admirable than the face of Melancholy, both in the severe beauty of her features and the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... chilled to the bone by their night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded to the village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the room where they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were about to roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too much for them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene of this gross outrage, and at first merely requested that the captive should be released. On the refusal of the two soldiers who were in the front room, high words ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Muses of Mayfair A Bacchanal with unbound hair, And loosened girdle, Would be as purely out of place As Atalanta in a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... way mende, But they waged a cold or payed of ther purse; An if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge, He schulde be right soone i-bid to goo aboute; And if the pore penyless the hireward would have, A hood or a girdle and let him goo aboute. Culham hithe hath caused many a curse I' blyssed be our helpers we have a better waye, Without any ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... sea that fleets about the land, And like a girdle clips her solid waist, Music and measure both doth understand, For his great crystal eye is always cast Up to the moon, and on her fixeth fast; And as she circles in her pallid sphere, So danceth he ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... one of the wonderful nights rarely experienced save under the equator, or very close to the middle girdle of the globe. The luxuriant growths of the jungle seemed to be breathing in long, steady pulsations, so uniform was the lifting and falling of ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... man about forty years old, came to meet them in a palanquin shining with gold and canopied with feather-work. As he descended from it his attendants laid cotton mats upon the ground that he might not soil his feet. He wore the broad girdle and square cloak of cotton cloth which other men wore, but of the finest weave. His sandals had soles of pure gold. Both cloak and sandals were embroidered with pearls, emeralds, and a kind of stone much prized by the Aztecs, the chalchivitl, green and white. On his head he wore a plumed ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... was the next feat set for the hero. This labor was due to the desire of the daughter of Eurystheus for the girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons—a tribe of female warriors. It is said that the girls had their right breasts cut off in order that they might use the bow with greater ease in battle! This, indeed, is the meaning of the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... the same moment with an equal fury, and but for my manoeuvre both had certainly been spitted. As it was, he did no more than strike my shoulder, while my scissor plunged below the girdle into a mortal part; and that great bulk of a man, falling from his whole height, knocked me ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... taken one of Mr. Hersebom's hand's, and was feeling his pulse and he shook his head, sadly and doubtfully; but he would not neglect any of the means which are usually tried in such cases. After taking off a large woolen girdle which he wore around his waist, he tore it in three pieces, and giving one to each of the young men, they rubbed vigorously the body, the arms, and the legs ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... provok'd his Neighbours of the black Girdle, an Order of Priests, of which he had been one, that they resolv'd to suppress him let it cost ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... early Egyptian women show clearly an artificial shape of the waist produced by some style of corset. A similar style of dress must also have prevailed among the ancient Jewish maidens; for Isaiah, in calling upon the women to put away their personal adornments, says: "Instead of a girdle there shall be a rent, and instead of a stomacher ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... one as much as possible. The windows were grated, the doors barred; each room had the name as well as the appearance of a cell; and the very porter who stood at the gate, habited like a jailer, with his huge bunch of keys at his girdle, his forbidding countenance and surly demeanour seemed to be borrowed from Newgate. The clanking of chains, the grating of locks, and the rumbling of bolts must have been music in Jonathan's ears, so much pains did he take to subject himself to such sounds. The scanty furniture of the rooms ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... footfall upon the path which led to the boat-shed, and then an old man, naked but for his titi, or waist-girdle of grass, came out into the moonlight, and greeted us in ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... to right and left the tree-girdle reached out toward the blue distance, thick close and unsundered, save where it and the plain which it begirdled was cleft amidmost by a river about as wide as the Thames at Sheene when the flood-tide is at its highest, but so swift and full of eddies, that ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... California, leaping over its golden sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the homes of one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... Boys, College Students, shout Vive la Nation, and regret that they have yet 'only their sweat to give.' What say we of Boys? Beautifullest Hebes; the loveliest of Paris, in their light air-robes, with riband-girdle of tricolor, are there; shovelling and wheeling with the rest; their Hebe eyes brighter with enthusiasm, and long hair in beautiful dishevelment: hard-pressed are their small fingers; but they make the patriot barrow go, and even force it to the summit ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and the bulk of its merchandise was still carried in sailing ships or Chinese junks. How astounding the progress that has marked the last half-century! The streets that meandered, as it were, among the valleys, or fringed the water's edge, now girdle the hills like rows of seats in a huge amphitheatre; a railway lifts the passenger to the mountain top; and other railways whirl him from hill to hill along the dizzy height. I Trade, too, has multiplied twenty fold. In a commercial report for the year ending June, 1905, it is stated that in amount ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... characteristics of their inhabitants: that the railway made communication easier and quicker year by year; and its tendency was therefore to obliterate local peculiarities. He will describe how at first the carpet-bagger went forth in railway-train and steamboat, rejoicing in his ability to put a girdle round the world in a few weeks, and disposed to ignore those differences of race and region which he had no time to consider and which he was daily softening into uniformity. He will then relate that towards the close ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her greetings, and defended her dog—all, as it were, in one breath—Lady Lydiard sat down by Isabel's side, and opened a large green fan that hung at her girdle. "You have no idea, Miss Pink, how fat people suffer in hot weather," said the old lady, using her ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... can hitch up, cousin;" and Saul pitched in his last log, looking ready to put a girdle round the earth ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... a tender merging of golden twilight into amber and rose and blue, with the sun reappearing within an hour of his setting, kissing the summer sea into sparking sheets of silver and jade. The little green Island with its girdle of creaming surf had never seemed so beautiful as in the early morning of the day Shane and Kayak and Harlan sailed away in search of help. The electricity of adventure, of hope was in the air, and the wind was as soft and balmy as a breath from ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... in sic a hurry, and this is something concerns yourself, an ye wad tak patience to hear't—Yill?—deil a drap o' yill did Pate offer me; but Mattie gae us baith a drap skimmed milk, and ane o' her thick ait jannocks, that was as wat and raw as a divot. O for the bonnie girdle cakes o' the north!—and sae we sat doun and ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... lightning swept Through ranks of foes hard pressed, Now hangs beside Our Lady's shrine, Henceforth in peace to rest,— And soon the penitent's rough, dark robe, His girdle and cowl of gloom, Will replace the soldier's armor bright, And his ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... involved a feint from the eastward, and an attack upon that weakest spot in the girdle of Gueldersdorp's defences, the native stad. The Barala might be incorruptible; the weak spot was the native village, nevertheless. And the business of the man from Diamond Town was to lounge about its neighbourhood, using those sharp light eyes of his to excellent purpose, and storing his ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... blouse, crossed by the black carbine sling, whose big brass buckle Ned could even now see gleaming between the broad shoulders, and gathered at the waist by the old-fashioned "thimble belt" the troop saddlers used to make for field service before the woven girdle was devised. Even more: Harvey in his misery remembered the thrill of joy with which he had noted, as the splendid rider reined in and threw himself from the saddle, the crossed sabres, the troop letter "C," and the regimental number gleaming at the front of his campaign ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... to raise herself to look about the room, but sinks back helplessly. The curtains of the door at the back are parted, and GONERIL appears in hunting dress,—her kirtle caught up in her girdle, a light spear over her shoulder—stands there a moment, then enters noiselessly and, approaches the bed. She is a girl just turning to woman-hood, proud in her poise, swift and cold, an almost ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... are well! They are just going in to matins. You come in good time, my sisters! But who is she whom you bring with you?" inquired the old nun, nodding toward Salome, even while she detached a great key from her girdle, and unlocked the ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Cytherea because she was supposed to have been born of the foam of the sea near Cythera, an island off the coast of the Peloponnesus. Venus was the goddess of love, and her power over the heart was strengthened by the marvellous zone or girdle she wore. ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... walk abroad In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone; And, with no artful coloring on her cheeks, His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw Of Verli and of Vecchio, well content With unrobed jerkin, and their good dames handling The spindle ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... near Framness. There he espied on a shipwreck, Carelessly swinging, a sailor, sporting as 'twere with the billows. Noble of figure, tall in his stature, joyful his visage, Changeable too, like the waves of the sea when they sport ill the sunshine,— Blue was his mantle, golden his girdle and studded with corals; Sea-green his hair, but his beard was as white as the foam of the ocean. Viking his serpent steered thither to rescue the unfortunate stranger,— Took him half frozen to Framness, and there as a guest entertained him. When by ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... women and children, stood the tall, erect figure of an ancient warrior and patriarch with long, snow-white hair that fell over his shoulders. Like the Amazons, he was clad in a jaguar's skin held in place by a golden girdle and clasps studded with jewels, and wore sandals on his feet. A circlet of gold wrought with runic symbols, to the left side of which was attached a raven's wing, encircled his head, while in his right hand ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the same practice, she made her escape with Basilia, and was never found. But Pernil was burnt at Kilkenny, and before her death declared that William above-said deserved punishment as well as she—that for a year and a day he wore the devil's girdle ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... most curious piece in my collection is a gold figure of a man, 7 centimeters in height. The head is ornamented with a diadem terminated on each side with the head of a frog. The body is nude, except a girdle, also in the form of a plait, supporting a flat piece intended to cover the privates, and two round ornaments on each side. The arms are extended from the body; the well drawn hands hold, one of ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... of articles I have sent to The Outlook, to be rejected by Hamilton W. Mabie. There is one man here to-night that has a job cut out for him that none of you would have had—a man whose humor has put a girdle of light around the globe, and whose sense of humor has been an example for all five continents. He is going to speak to you. Gentlemen, you know him best as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... their paper helmets, wadded gowns, and quilted petticoats, with long, clumsy guns over their shoulders; and learned scholars in brown gowns, blue bordered, and golden birds on their caps. The high officers, cousins to the emperor, have the sacred yellow girdle round their waists, and very long braided tails hanging below their small caps. Here and there you may see a high, narrow box, resting on poles, carried by two men. It is the only kind of carriage which you will see in these streets, and in it is a lady going out ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... The mountaineer tightened his girdle, and exchanged his slippers for deer-hide boots. He bowed gravely to the other and slipped out into the darkness of the court. Marker drew forth some plans and writing materials from his great-coat pocket and spread them before ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... She gathered a few wild flowers and some berries in the underwood, inspected some birds' nests with a healthy youthful curiosity, and even took the opportunity of arranging some moist tendrils of her silky hair with something she took from the small reticule that hung coquettishly from her girdle. It was, indeed, some twenty minutes before she emerged into the road again; the vehicle had evidently disappeared in a turn of the long, winding ascent, but just ahead of her was that dreadful man, the "Chicago ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and went ashore. Brace Girdle, an engineer, and I went to the hotel, and the first thing we heard was—that peace was declared! I went back on board ship, and I didn't sleep much—I never was so blue in my life. I knew if they didn't want me that I might as well give ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... dressed in a long loose robe of purple silk, with wide sleeves, and round his waist is a broad golden girdle. His tunic or under-garment is purple and white, his trousers are bright crimson, his shoes are yellow, and have long pointed toes. On his head is a curious high cap with a band of blue spotted with white. He is moreover covered with ornaments: he has gold ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... towards Naples."[269] The brutality and falseness of this reply had no other effect than to embitter Queen Charlotte's hatred against the arbiter of the world's destinies, before whom she and her consort refused to bow, even when, three years later, they were forced to seek shelter behind the girdle ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... were tattooed from toes to ankles with a net-like pattern, and from the ankles to the waistline, where the design terminated in a handsome girdle, there were curves, circles and filigree, all in accord, all part of a harmonious whole, and most pleasing to the eye. The pattern upon her feet was much like that of sandals or high mocassins, indicating a former use of leg-coverings in a cold climate. Titihuti herself, after an ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... crash of their encounter was heard like thunder throughout the camps. And they measured their strength from the morning until the setting of the sun. And when the day was about to vanish, Sohrab seized upon Rustem by the girdle and threw him upon the ground, and kneeled upon him, and drew forth his sword from the scabbard, and would have severed his head from his trunk. Then Rustem knew that only wile could save him. So he opened his mouth ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in bed that vapors play their part. There when a woman has not a headache she has her vapors; and when she has neither vapors nor headache, she is under the protection of the girdle of Venus, which, as you know, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... the Pacific is the island of Tahita or Otaheite,—as fair a gem as the sun ever looked down upon. The soft and balmy air,—the undulating surface, rising to mountains and sinking into deep valleys, luxuriant with tropical verdure,—the distant girdle of coral reefs, which holds the island set in a circlet of tranquil blue waters,—the gentle and indolent temper of the natives,—have all conspired to throw an air of romance around the very name Otaheite. The Christian world is bound to it by another tie. For thither came Protestant missionaries, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... sire of the gods himself, yielded up his beloved. Did not Thetis embrace thee, she most winsome of Nereids born? Did not Tethys consent that thou should'st lead home her grandchild, and Oceanus eke, whose waters girdle the total globe? When in full course of time the longed-for day had dawned, all Thessaly assembled throngs his home, a gladsome company o'erspreading the halls: they bear gifts to the fore, and their joy in their faces they shew. Scyros desert remains, they leave Phthiotic ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... acquaintances needful to success in his venture. His disguise insured him from interruption on the road, dervishes being sacred characters in the estimation of the Faithful, and generally too poor to excite cupidity. A gray-frocked man, hooded, coarsely sandalled, and with a blackened gourd at his girdle for the alms he might receive from the devout, no Islamite meeting him would ever suspect a large treasure in the ragged bundle on the back of the patient animal plodding behind him like ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... recalls the studio of Verrocchio, in the love of beautiful toys, such as the vessel of water for a mirror, and lovely needle-work about the implicated hands in the Modesty and Vanity, and of reliefs like those cameos which in the Virgin of the Balances hang all round the girdle of Saint Michael, and of bright variegated stones, such as the agates in the Saint Anne, and in a hieratic preciseness and grace, as of a sanctuary swept and garnished. Amid all the cunning and intricacy of his Lombard manner this never left him. Much of it there must ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... a girdle—it is a belt," was Dicky Fergus' reply. "The gods gave it to him because he was a favorite. There was a lady called Artemis—she was the last of them. But he went visiting with Eos, another lady of previous acquaintance, down at a place called Ortygia, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... himself back in his chair, and Josip was only mildly surprised to note that the man seemed considerably paunchier than his photos indicated. Perhaps he wore a girdle ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... could stir, or even take the matter in, two great ruffians jumped up, and, seizing the long pincers, thrust them into the heart of the fire, and the woman who had been caressing Mahomed suddenly produced a fibre noose from under her girdle or moocha, and, slipping it over his shoulders, ran it tight, while the men next to him seized him by the legs. The two men with the pincers gave a heave, and, scattering the fire this way and that upon the rocky floor, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... twelve and one of the clock, she being asleep, but myself yet awake, there appeared unto me an ancient man, standing at my bedside, arrayed all in white, having a long and broad white beard hanging down to his girdle-stead, who, taking me by my right ear, spake these words following unto me:-'Sirrah! will not you take time to translate that book which is sent unto you out of Germany? I will shortly provide for you both place and time to do it;' and then he vanished ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... take you back into the house. What have you to do with whether or no we are asked to the next garden-party in Downing Street? You are Ariel and can put a girdle round the earth.... I am almost afraid of you. Can't we run away and become strolling players? You may think I am to be envied but my life has been a very unhappy one.... ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... him in the Mountain of Diamonds, and informed them that the merchants cannot come at the diamonds save by the device aforesaid. So, when I saw the slaughtered beast fall (he pursued) and bethought me of the story, I went up to it and filled my pockets and shawl-girdle and turband and the folds of my clothes with the choicest diamonds; and, as I was thus engaged, down fell before me another great piece of meat. Then with my unrolled turband and lying on my back, I set the bit on my breast so that I was hidden by ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... under the foot, was then tightly drawn several times round the ankle, where it was finally secured. Two strips of leather, about an inch and a half in width, attached to the outer side of each legging, were made fast at their opposite extremities to a strong girdle, encircling the loins, and supporting a piece of coarse blue cloth, which, after passing completely under the body, fell in short flaps both before and behind. The remainder of the dress consisted of a cotton shirt, figured and sprigged on a dark ground, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... were the spark to the magazine. The knife griped by Lone Bear was snatched from his girdle, and he sprang forward, striking with lightning-like viciousness at the chest of the Shawanoe, who avoided him ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... platform at either end, but destined to rattle over the stones like the most vulgar of omnibuses. To complete the oddity of this conveyance, it was under the supervision, not of a conductor, but of a conductress. A fair young woman, with a pouch sus- pended from her girdle, had command of the platform; and as soon as the car was full she jolted us into the town through clouds of the thickest dust I ever have swallowed. I have had occasion to speak of the activity of women in France, - of the way they are always in the ascendant; and here was a signal example of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... thirty young women came out of the woods ... their bodies painted some white, some red, some black, some particolor, but all differing. Their leader had a fair pair of buck's horns on her head, and an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a quiver of arrows at her back, a bow and arrows in her hand. The next had in her hand a sword, another a club ... all horned alike.... These fiends with most hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... care for all connected with him frequently led to. "Let me tell you," he wrote (30th of September), "of a curious dream I had, last Monday night; and of the fragments of reality I can collect; which helped to make it up. I have had a return of rheumatism in my back, and knotted round my waist like a girdle of pain; and had laid awake nearly all that night under the infliction, when I fell asleep and dreamed this dream. Observe that throughout I was as real, animated, and full of passion as Macready (God bless him!) in the last scene of Macbeth. In an ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... foaming jaws, was already within three steps of him, gathering himself to spring upon him; but he had scarcely raised himself from the ground when he fell back with his head shattered. The hatchet which Ivan carried at his girdle had come down upon him like a flash. The terrible animal vainly attempted to rise, rolled writhing in the dust, and breathed out his life with a hoarse and ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... won; And the rough tide of the tempestuous world May dash and rave around these firm-set hills! No wandering wishes more have I to send Forth to the busy scene that stirs beyond. Then may these rocks that girdle us extend Their giants walls impenetrably round, And this sequestered happy vale alone Look up to heaven, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a huge stone, flung it far into the distance, and then leaping, alighted beside it. No sooner had she done this than Siegfried seized the stone, flung it still farther, and lifting Gunther by his broad girdle bounded through the air with him and alighted beyond the stone. Then Brunhild knew that she had ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... wished it. Your mule is tired and would be swept away by the descending flood. You will remain with us for to-night and for as long after it as pleases you—to the end of your probationship and after, if you prove yourself worthy of admission. Meanwhile you will be given a girdle, a white garment and a little axe. You will sleep in one of the outlying huts. Come with me and I will take you round our village. We shall meet on our way some of the brothers returning from their daily tasks, for we all have ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... these murders, the sons of the old man laid an ambush for Mr. Bagenall; who, following them more upon will than with discretion, fell into their hands, and were slain with thirteen more. He had sixteen wounds above his girdle, and one of his legs cut off, and his tongue drawn out of his mouth and slit. There is not one man dwelling in all this country that was Sir George Carew's, but every man fled, and left the whole country waste; and so I fear me it will ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... him. As the wind Tempestuous, falling on some stubble-heap, The arid straws dissipates ev'ry way, So flew the timbers. He, a single beam Bestriding, oar'd it onward with his feet, As he had urged an horse. His raiment, then, Gift of Calypso, putting off, he bound His girdle on, and prone into the sea With wide-spread palms prepar'd for swimming, fell. Shore-shaker Neptune noted him; he shook 450 His awful brows, and in his heart he said, Thus, suff'ring many mis'ries roam the flood, Till thou shalt mingle with ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Chrysothemis to carry an oblation to his grave. Electra counsels her not to execute the commands of her wicked mother, but to put up a prayer for herself and her sister, and for the return of Orestes as the avenger of his father; she then adds to the oblation her own girdle and a lock of her hair. Chrysothemis goes off, promising obedience to her wishes. The chorus augurs from the dream, that retribution is at hand, and traces back the crimes committed in this house to the primal sin of Pelops. Clytemnestra rebukes ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... a depth of at least 800 or 1,000 miles.[884] His argument was, that if it were a mere shell filled with liquid, precession and nutation would be much larger than they are observed to be. For the shell alone would follow the pull of the sun and moon on its equatorial girdle, leaving the liquid behind; and being thus so much the lighter, would move the more readily. There is, it is true, grave reason to doubt whether this reasoning corresponds with the actual facts of the case;[885] but the conclusion ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... ACIAL, two short sticks tied together with whipcord at the end, by means of which the lower lip of the horse, should he prove restive, is twisted, and the animal reduced to speedy subjection. In the girdle of the esquilador are stuck the large scissors called in Spanish TIJERAS, and in the Gypsy tongue CACHAS, with which he principally works. He operates upon the backs, ears, and tails of mules and borricos, which are invariably sheared quite bare, that if the animals are galled, either by their ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... good, or of only having the wish to do good, was a new happiness to her, and as she walked she trolled out a merry little song she had heard Nannette sing in the nursery. When she grew weary, she sat down and made a wreath for her hat; when she was thirsty, she drank from the little cup at her girdle, for there was always a stream at hand, first on one side of the road, then on the other, and the babbling of the brook was like a pleasant voice telling her sweet stories. It seemed to whisper to her how glad her mother ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... abreast of him a little brown hand was thrust out from the curtains, and the bearers and the rabble behind came to a halt. A man in a rough brown homespun cloak, with a beggar's bowl attached to his girdle, came to the side of the litter, and thence went across ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... feet that he had worn to walk in four years before when he came to us. His little linen picture of the five wounds was fastened over his breast with thorns. He carried across his arm the second white-sleeved kirtle that he had, and his burse was on his girdle. He held out two of ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... to-day (360 B.C.) if merely it has escaped without severe use or moth holes. It may be more usual this year to wear one's garments a little higher or a little more trailing than formerly; but THAT is simply a matter for a shifting of the pins or of the girdle. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... a chair. The first wild tumult of rage having more or less spent its force, she began, with a kind of heart-broken curiosity, to ask for the facts. She spoke nervously, beating a palm with a gold tassel of her girdle. "Begin at the beginning. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... vestment longer than the surplice, and with tight sleeves. It is confined at the waist by a girdle, and, when employed in the Eucharist, it is often, though not necessarily, ornamented with patches of embroidery ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... your belt strong?" He pointed to a girdle of yellow leather which caught her tunic around ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... steps and across the marble walk and into her room, and closed the window. Nicanor, kneeling on the slave's chest, gagging him with a wad torn from his own garment, heard the doors shut with a gasp of relief. He tied the old man's arms tightly with his girdle, trussing him as he had trussed the carcasses of sheep to be loaded upon mules. Then, having him bound and helpless, he rose and stood over him, whetting his knife on his hand, with senses keyed to hear footsteps in every stir of leaf and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... great labour and peril, crossed the mountainous neck of land, had seen rolling beneath him the vast Pacific, never before revealed to European eyes, had descended, sword in hand, into the waves up to his girdle, and had there solemnly taken possession of sea and shore in the name of the Crown of Castile. It was true that the region which Paterson described as a paradise had been found by the first Castilian settlers to be a land of misery and death. The poisonous air, exhaled from rank jungle and stagnant ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pardon without ransom. 'Why should we accept the price sent us by the holy Columba? We are not worthy of it. The request of such an intercessor should be granted freely. His blessing will do more for us than any ransom.' And immediately he detached the girdle from his waist, which was the ordinary form in Ireland for the manumission of captives or slaves. Columba had, besides, ordered his penitent to remain with his old father and mother until he had rendered to them the last services. This accomplished, his brothers ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... osiers aside, he drew out the ducks one by one, wrung their necks, and passing their heads through his girdle, made his way again to the coracle. Then he scattered another handful or two of grain on the water, sparingly near the mouth of the creek, but more thickly at the entrance to the trap, and then paddled back again by the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... San Nicolo—the bell with that wonderful voice of melody—was ringing softly, as for vespers; continuously, as if the people had not answered to the call. Yet many a low-voiced "Ave" responded to the chime as now and again some toil-worn hand lifted the rosary that hung from a girdle, or clasped a ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... than with the Hebrew. The Arabic being a smaller hand than the Hebrew, a dot was used instead of the circle for marking the "place" at which the hiatus of any "denomination" occurred. If we obtained our cipher from this, it would be made hollow (a mere ceinture, girdle, or ring) to save the trouble of making a dot sufficiently large to correspond in magnitude with our other numerals as we write them. Either is alike possible—probability must be sought, for either over the other, ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... was above common rank from the extraordinary number of trinkets she wore. Pendants hung from her ears like the pendulum of a clock. She had a double necklace of polished bear's claws and around her waist was a girdle of agates, which to me proclaimed that she was of a far-western tribe. In the girdle was an ivory-handled knife, which had doubtless given as many scars as its ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... overlaid with metal across chest and abdomen, and embossed with bronze designs of ancient pattern and workmanship. The hem of the white tunic showed below the leathern pendants that hung a foot down from his girdle; the greaves were ornamented at the knees with lions' heads; an armour-bearer carried his master's bronze helmet with its crest ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne |
