"Grinder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... daughter made him answer: "I have not the time, my father, 490 I must clean the largest cowshed, Tend our herd of many cattle, Grind the corn between the millstones, Through the sieve must sift the flour, Grind the corn to finest flour, And the grinder ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... that he had made one very great step towards success. The idea had been presented to Mr Butterwell's mind, and had not been instantly rejected as a scandalously iniquitous idea, as an idea to which no reception could be given for a moment. Crosbie had not been treated as was the needy knife-grinder, and had ground to stand upon while he urged his request. "I have been so pressed since my marriage," he said, "that it has been impossible for me to keep ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... powerful friend to afford you the decent support which is your due. WHAT do such facts matter to a man or to men to whom the insulting of an orphan is an offence allowed? Such fellows are not men at all, but mere vermin, no matter what they think themselves to be. Of that I am certain. Why, an organ-grinder whom I met in Gorokhovaia Street would inspire more respect than they do, for at least he walks about all day, and suffers hunger—at least he looks for a stray, superfluous groat to earn him subsistence, and is, therefore, a true gentleman, in that he supports himself. To beg alms he would ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... version of the affair, the narrative deposes that Harringay went into his studio about ten o'clock to see what he could make of the head that he had been working at the day before. The head in question was that of an Italian organ-grinder, and Harringay thought—but was not quite sure—that the title would be the "Vigil." So far he is frank, and his narrative bears the stamp of truth. He had seen the man expectant for pennies, and with a promptness that suggested genius, had ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... was now getting farther along the base of the bluff, and I saw that he would escape us. My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last chance had fled! But Copple's big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had reloaded. Some of these hit close to our quarry. The old grizzly slowed up, and looked ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... tears, as it were, of all bereaved maternity, in the very bend of Niobe's body and yearning gesture, to the abandon gleaming from every muscle of the Dancing Faun,—from the stern brow of the Knife-grinder, and the bleeding frame of the Gladiator, whereon are written forever the inhumanities of ancient civilization, to the triumphant beauty and firm, light, enjoyable aspect of Dannecker's Ariadne,—from the unutterable joy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... article is sent to the ware-room. It is this minute subdivision of labour, together with the saving and efficiency that inure to a business conducted on an immense scale under a single manager, that bids us believe that the factory has come to stay. To be sure, a weaver, a potter, or a lens-grinder of peculiar skill may thrive at his loom or wheel at home; but such a man is far from typical in modern manufacture. Besides, it is very questionable whether the lamentations over the home industries of the past do not ignore evil concomitants such as still linger in the home industries ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... by the longer or shorter angle into which the flap is drawn out. The grinding teeth of the two elephants differ very markedly, but one must see these in a museum. The grinders are very large and long (from behind forwards), coming into place one after the other. Each grinder occupies, when fully in position, the greater part of one side of the upper or of the lower jaw. They are crossed from right to left by ridges of enamel, like a series of mountains and valleys, which gradually wear down by rubbing against those of the tooth above or below. The biggest grinder of ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... passionately fond of music; and I believe the safest way to travel in those wild countries would be to play the cornet, if possible without ceasing, which would insure a safe passage. A London organ-grinder would march through Central Africa followed by an admiring and enthusiastic crowd, who, if his tunes were lively, would form a dancing escort of the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... grinds smalt should do it on plates of tempered steel with a cone shaped grinder; then put it in aqua fortis, which melts away the steel that may have been worked up and mixed with the smalt, and which makes it black; it then remains purified and clean; and if you grind it on porphyry the porphyry will work up and mix with the smalt and spoil it, and aqua fortis will ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... perfection as only the artist's soul can conceive of, nay, even dream of. The ecstasy remained, but my unrest gave way to an indescribable and wordless bliss. I drew with the red chalk, and mixed the colors with the grinder, and all the while I could not feel the painful sense of painting a corpse. If she were slumbering, she had fallen asleep with bright images in her memory. I even fancied again and again that her lips moved ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on one edge; sharp on the other. The grinder sharpens it on a huge stone which goes round and round. The blades are polished before being put into the handles, as ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... thrust in their pockets, Jasper slackened his pace, and breathed freer. Before him seemed to be the little brown house; it was the first time he had seen Mrs. Pepper—and they had just finished their long talk, when the mother had thanked him for rescuing Phronsie from the organ-grinder. The five little Peppers were begging him to come over again to see them, but Mrs. Pepper laid her hand on his arm. "Be sure, Jasper," she warned, "that your father is willing." He could see her black eyes looking down into his face. What would she ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... knife-grinder! whither are you going? Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order— Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't, ...
— English Satires • Various
... to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a work, fine and ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... was going through the last village, there stood a scissors-grinder with his barrow; as ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... snow Divines depart and April comes; Examinations nearer grow After the melting of the snow; The grinder wears a face of woe, The waster smokes and twirls his thumbs; After the melting of the snow Divines depart and ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... kindred thrill of interest in each one of them. Now a Syrian peddler woman, squat and swarthy, bending heavily beneath her pack amid a flurry of dust from the sun-baked roads her feet had wearily padded for days; now a sleepy negro on a load of hay, an organ grinder with a chattering monkey or a clumsy bear, another sleepy negro with another load of hay, and a picturesque minstrel with an elaborate musical contrivance drawn by a horse. Now a capering Italian with ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... conclusion of this farce, all things were at last to be compromised between Jupiter and Juno; Amphitryon was to be comforted in the birth of so mighty a son; Ixion, for his presumption, instead of being fixed to a torturing wheel, was to have been fixed to a vagrant monotroche, as knife-grinder, and a grand chorus of deities (intermixed with "knives, scissors, pen-knives to grind," set to music as nearly as possible to the natural cry,) would ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... think I did—rather," exclaimed Lawless, forgetting his company manners in the interest of the subject. "Why, I have seen more foxes run into in the fields round Saworth than in any other parish in the country. Whenever the meet is either at Grinder's End or Chorley Bottom, the fox is safe to head for Saworth. Oh! I see you're up to the whole thing, Mrs. Fairlegh; we shall have you showing all of us the way across country in fine style to-morrow. 1 expect there'll be some pretty stiff fencing though, if he should take the line you imagine, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Even executions are hidden from men's eyes, and if, upon occasion, we will cruelty, we demand that it shall be accomplished away from our eyes, and that we shall not be confronted with the details. Here, where such gory things were done, if one of us saw an organ-grinder threatening a monkey with a knife we should leap to ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... grinder had wakened from his after-dinner sleep, and finding out that his monkey had been into mischief, concluded that it was best to be off. He was not seen ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... it in turns to watch the house and drive away organ-grinders. We told them they must not play in front of that house, because there was an Australian lady who had to be kept quiet. And they went at once. This cost us expense, because an organ-grinder will never consent to fly the spot ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... "The organ-grinder said I was to give this to the gentleman," he said, and handed me a small object. It was a brass baggage-check issued by the New York Central Railway, from Cleveland to New York, and bore the number 18329. I passed it to Indiman, ran to the window, ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... was also used as a drill-ground; and yet later, two or three men were given billets de logement upon the observatory; but I should not have known of the latter occurrence, had not Delaunay told me. I believe he bought the men off, much as one pays an organ-grinder to move on. In one of our walks we entered the barricade around the Hotel de Ville, and were beginning to make a close examination of a mitrailleuse, when a soldier (beg his pardon, un citoyen membre de la Garde Nationale) warned us away from the weapon. The densest crowd ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... history of an insane medical student in Dublin who extirpated both eyes and threw them on the grass. He was in a state of acute mania, and the explanation offered was that as a "grinder" before examination he had been diligently studying the surgery of the eye, and particularly that relating to enucleation. Another Dublin case quoted by the same authority was that of a young girl who, upon being arrested and committed to a police-cell in a state of furious drunkenness, tore out ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... last village, he saw a scissors grinder, with his wheel, working away, and singing. Hans stood looking for a while, and at last said, "You must be well off, master grinder, you seem so happy at your work." "Yes," said the other, "mine is a golden trade; a good grinder never ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... she exclaimed, "and the big coffee-grinder. And there's our table, and the hole Mart burned in it." She took a long look at this. "Oh, how I wish I could see our pump!" she said, and ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... the curb toward the edge of the flagging, A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife, Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee, With measur'd tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but firm hand, Forth issue then in copious golden jets, Sparkles ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... then as to stories, mine amounts to the knife-grinder's, with nothing at all for a catastrophe. A bird in a cage would have as good a story. Most of my events, and nearly all my intense pleasures, have passed in my thoughts. I wrote verses—as I dare say many have done who never ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... I'm a school girl, always up to some trick or other, and—yes, see here—why in one of my tricks I disclose that the pretended count who's in love with you is only an organ grinder! Oh, that will be fun," and she ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... toward the door some belated organ-grinder, in an adjacent street, began to play the weird refrain of that song which has touched the hearts of so many ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... The organ-grinder The signs of an approaching storm The arrival of the train Mail-time at the village post office The crowd at the auction The old fishing-boat A country fair (or a circus) The inside of a theater (or a church) The funeral procession ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Evil." At the foot of a street in New York, stood an Italian organ grinder, with his organ. A number of boys had gathered round him, but they were more anxious to have some fun than to hear music. One of them ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... fully made up my mind to become a huckster, an auctioneer, a scissors-grinder, a peanut-vender, an editor, an artist, a book-keeper, etc. My natural selection being always something that I thought would ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... at the dirty, unkempt creature, jerked her into the warm hall, and calling over her shoulder to the organ-grinder on the walk, "Go on playing, old man, she'll be back pretty soon!" she slammed the door shut, pushed the child into a chair by the glowing grate, and turned to Allee with the command, "Go ask Gussie for something to eat. ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Provinces; this is to give Notice, that Kidney, Keeper of the Book-Debts of the outlying Customers, and Observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that Employment, is succeeded by John Sowton; to whose Place of Enterer of Messages and first Coffee-Grinder, William Bird is promoted; and Samuel Burdock comes as Shooe-Cleaner in the Room of the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Mozart's Masses, or from one of the finales of some one of his or Beethoven's Operas. And then at times he would fill up the harmonies with his voice, true and resonant almost to the last. I have heard him say, "Did you never observe how an Italian organ-grinder will sometimes put in a few notes of his own in such perfect keeping with the air which he was grinding?" He was not a great, but he was a good composer. Some of his songs have been printed, and many still remain in manuscript. Then what pleasant talk I have had with him about ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... slow music of the organ-grinder Smites the ear feebly at the noon of day, He doffs his hat, as if for a reminder, To those who wish him far enough away; And noisy babes at variance and play Join in the jangle of the grocery vendor, ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... extension of the franchise as has been given to us. The reason for our having the franchise, as I want presently to show, lies somewhere else than in our personal good qualities, and does not in the least lie in any high betting chance that a delegate is a better man than a duke, or that a Sheffield grinder is a better man than any one of the firm he ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... She's going to sell her Nelson to that organ-grinder's monkey from Corsica?" he roared. "Because if you'll tell me that, I'll tell ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... blind, and the Bat was blinder, And they went to take tea with the Scissors-grinder. The Scissors-grinder had gone away Across the ocean to spend the day; But he'd tied his bell to the grapevine swing. The Bat and the Beetle heard it ring, And neither the Beetle nor Bat could see Why no one offered them any tea. So, polite and patient, they're ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... commanded all the celestials thus, had taken his birth in the race of Yadus and that foremost of all perpetuator of races, having sprung from the line of the Andhaka-Vrishnis on earth was graced with great good fortune and was shining like the moon herself among stars. Narada knew that Hari the grinder of foes, whose strength of arm was ever praised by all the celestials with Indra among them, was then living in the world in human form. Oh, the Self-Create will himself take away (from the earth) this vast ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... good Irish was by singing "Rory O'More" in a fashion which made the old stone arches ring with a volume of music that could have given odds to an entire brass band. Poor Dennis! Only the other day I heard an organ-grinder grinding forth "Rory O'More," and the memory of the last time I heard Dennis sing that song, and of what heroic stuff that merry-hearted rough fellow then showed himself to be made, came suddenly over me, and there was a choking in my throat, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... invited to another little party which took place on the day after the one we have just left. The scene was Mr Sweater's office. Mr Sweater was seated at his desk, but with his chair swung round to enable him to face his guests—Messrs Rushton, Didlum, and Grinder, who were also seated. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Wildney, "that's rather good! No, Eric, it's too late for you to turn 'grinder' now. I might as well think of doing it myself and I've never been higher than five from lag ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... addition to the government which was sadly deficient in debating power; he had, however, been particularly bitter in his attacks on Pitt, with whom he had fought a duel in 1798, and had provoked the sarcastic wit of Canning, in whose well-known parody, "The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder" (1798), the original illustration by Gillray depicted the friend of humanity with the features of Tierney and laid the scene in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... among Mr. Pitman's lodgers as "Norfolk Island"—is neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing thoroughfare. Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of love. The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. An occasional organ-grinder wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. In holiday-time the street is the arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and the house-holders have an opportunity of studying the manly art of self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of machine tools were greatly enhanced during this period, although, with the exception of the centerless grinder, no significant new types of tools appeared. The machines that were made with machine tools increased in complexity and, with the introduction of ideas that made mass production of complex mechanical products economically feasible, there was an accelerating increase in quantity. ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... himself out of the half trance with an effort. His body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, and it was almost impossible to think with the fog in his head. After minutes of deliberation he figured out that the medikit was what he needed. The easy-off snap was very difficult and the button release didn't work. He finally twisted his arm around until it was under the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... Wegg, yielding to his honest indignation. 'Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and grinder, sir, turns into the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial tool of his own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, "What do you want here, young man? This is a private yard," he pulls out a paper from Boffin's other blackguard, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... that same gentleman was coming across the street with the policeman he had summoned. A few words passed between them, and almost before the children knew what was happening, the policeman had the organ-grinder by the arm, and was marching him off down the street. The gentleman who had caused the arrest followed with the poor ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... size who had come to quench their thirst at the stream, but none were actually seen, and it was evidently not in this part of the forest that the peccary had received the bullet which had cost Pencroft a grinder. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... in her person prodigality of colours with a fine disregard of taste. Beautiful she undoubtedly was, with the black-browed, dark-eyed beauty of a Cleopatra, for there was some Italian blood in her veins. It was given out occasionally by the Press that she had been a theatre-dresser, an organ-grinder, and fifty other things; but nevertheless, illiterate, common and ill-bred, she had yet achieved fame—or rather, perhaps, notoriety—-by her dancing ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... to any tribe or nation. We observed last evening, on North Clark street, a crowd shaking hands in turn with an organ-grinder's monkey. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... not a story about myself. Like Canning's organ-grinder I have none to tell. It is the story of Paragot, the beloved vagabond—please pronounce his name French-fashion—and if I obtrude myself on your notice it is because I was so much involved in the medley of farce and tragedy which ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... or, as they were styled, "hedge-tearers," were, about 1584, set in the stocks two days in the open street, with the stolen wood before them, as a punishment for a second offence.[38] Vagrants were in former times often put in the stocks, and Canning's "Needy Knife-Grinder" was taken for ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... heard that the Gipsies have a queer kind of language of their own; and then, if you have any Rommany yourself at command, he will perhaps rakker Rommanis with greater or less fluency. Mr Simeon, in his "History of the Gipsies," asserts that there is not a tinker or scissors- grinder in Great Britain who cannot talk this language, and my own experience agrees with his declaration, to this extent—that they all have some knowledge of it, or claim to have it, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... street that the old knife-grinder was slowly propelling his apparatus, which was fitted to two large light wheels. A very neat and comprehensive apparatus it was. There was the well-poised grindstone, with its fly-wheel attached; a very bright oil-can, and ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... summarily set fire to! For approximate justice will strive to accomplish itself; if not in one way, then in another. Jews, and also Christians and Heathens, who accumulate in this manner, though furnished with never so many parchments, do, at times, 'get their grinder-teeth successively pulled out of their head, each day a new grinder,' till they consent to disgorge again. A sad ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the curtain upon seen 2nd. It is rarely seldum that I seek consolation in the Flowin Bole. But in a certain town in Injianny in the Faul of 18—, my orgin grinder got sick with the fever and died. I never felt so ashamed in my life, and I thought I'd hist in a few swallers of suthin strengthnin. Konsequents was, I histed so much I didn't zackly know whereabouts I was. I turned my livin' wild ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... of which is, that it has become the outward and audible sign of patriotism in every part of Poland; just as the Marseilles March and la Parisienne are in France and the Netherlands the signals of liberalism. During Mr. Pitt's administration an organ grinder was committed to Newgate for playing "Ah! ca ira" in the streets. This was a silly step; but the fellow excited little commiseration, for the tune was the war-whoop of a few savages who were at that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... latter (1798) was the first true poem written in modern hexameters. From Germany, Southey imported that and other classic metres into England, and we should be grateful to him, at least, for having given the model for Canning's "Knife-grinder." The exotic, however, again refused to take root, and for many years after we have no example of English hexameters. It was universally conceded that the temper of our language was unfriendly ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... breakfast the next morning, when they were talking about the bear scare in the night, along came a man, who looked like an Italian organ-grinder. He said he had a pet, tame bear, who had broken away from where he ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... see, my dear; just keeping company, that's all. Well, I don't blame yer; of course, 'e is a furriner; but I'm not one to say as furriners ain't no class. I was in love with an I-talian organ-grinder myself, when I was a girl, and I might 'ave married 'im for all I know, ef 'e 'adn't got run in for knifin' a slop what was always a aggravatin' 'im, poor chap. And I don't say but what I shouldn't be as well off as what I am now, for ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... Canaan from Pisgah-height was no luxury to the taxi-driver, and he hustled his coffee-grinder till he reached Rosslyn once more, crossed the Potomac's many-tinted stream, and rattled through Georgetown and the shabby, sleeping little shops of M Street ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... musical instrument except the organ, so Miss Lessing and I bundled one up on a jinrikisha and trudged along beside it through the street. I got almost hysterical over our absurd appearance, and pretended that Miss Lessing was the organ grinder, and I the monkey. But oh! Mate when we got to the hospital all the silliness was knocked out of me. Thousands of mutilated and dying men, literally shot to pieces by the Russian bullets. I can't talk about it! It was ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... it pleased Sterne to anticipate the knife-grinder's innocent confession, "Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir!" in a sardonic paraphrase of half a score of volumes, he actually possessed the narrative faculty in an extraordinary degree. He does not merely show this in his famous ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... have had enough of it. Now he felt responsible to his wife for Ned's safety: Ned, whose chief reason for turning rebel, he suspected, was that a facetious trooper had once dubbed him "Eytalian organ-grinder," and asked him where he kept ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... lose some film of its thickness; some film of it, frayed away by tear and wear, must be brushed off into the Ashpit, into the Laystall; till by degrees the whole has been brushed thither, and I, the dust-making, patent Rat-grinder, get new material to grind down. O subter-brutish! vile! most vile! For have not I too a compact all-enclosing Skin, whiter or dingier? Am I a botched mass of tailors' and cobblers' shreds, then; or a tightly articulated, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... luck to all purchasers, while they flourish their scissors with one hand, and thrust the sheet of printed numbers in your face with the other, ready to cut any desired ticket or portion of a ticket. The day proves equally propitious for the omnipresent organ-grinder and his ludicrously-dressed little monkey, a la Napoleon; the Chinese peddler; the orange and banana dealer; and the universal cigarette purveyor. Still, the rough Montero from the country, with his long line of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... would have been simply bored to death. Amusement, social obligations, the duties we owe to society, do not belong to my mother's creed at all. If I might borrow a word from a renowned novelist, I would call her 'a charitable grinder,' for she grinds from morning till night at a never-ceasing wheel of committees, meetings, and Heaven knows ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Bey (A Younger Turk: the very cream And essence of the New Regime) Dispelled this Oriental dream By granting him a place at Court, High Coffee-grinder to ...
— More Peers Verses • Hilaire Belloc
... be prepared from crusts and small pieces of bread. Dry the bread in a slow oven or in a warming oven. Crumb it by rolling on a pastry board or putting it through a meat grinder. If fine crumbs are desired, sift the crushed bread. Place the fine and coarse crumbs in separate jars. Cover the jars by tying a piece of muslin over each. (The muslin covering can also be conveniently secured by means of a rubber band.) If each jar is tightly covered ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... same, yer honour," protested the other, as grave as a judge. "Me fayther came over here harvestin' last summer, sor, an' turned organ-grinder; an' now, sure, ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the conversation to the crime on Panuelas Street; a jealous organ-grinder had slain his sweetheart for a harsh word and the hearers were excited over the case, each offering his opinion. The meal over, Senor Ignacio, Leandro, Vidal and Manuel went out to the gallery to have a nap while the women remained ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... us, but the firm claims that while it uses the true corundum emery of Naxos, the American article is only a refractory iron ore, which soon loses its sharpness and becomes inefficient. This is a question of efficiency or of veracity which we leave to the trade. The machine adapted as a tool-grinder has six emery-wheels for varying characters of work. Four are assorted for gauges of different radii, for moulding-irons, etc. One has a square face for plane-irons, chisels, etc. One is an emery hone to replace ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... he wer a jolly soul, A grinder o' the best o' meal, Bezide a river that did roll, Vrom week to week, to push his wheel. His flour wer all a-meaede o' wheat; An' fit for bread that vo'k mid eat; Vor he would starve avore he'd cheat. "'Tis pure," woone woman cried; "Aye, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... organ-grinder, tramping with an equally tired monkey along the dusty roads, had to be bought off in a similar manner,—though he only cost sixpence. He gave me a Southern smile and shrug of comprehension, as one acquainted with affairs of ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... morning till night, and worked many a night. Yet he did not find that in the routine which satisfied his intellect. He knew himself to be a machine; not a creative machine—there is no such thing—but a reconstructive instrument. He was a meat-grinder, a fanning-mill, after that a phonograph—nothing more. Yet, from sheer physical and superficially mental activity he was, in a measure, satisfied with his lot. He derived satisfaction from a comparison of his working ability ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... row indeed furnished an inspiration for our plot. It was the arrest of a make-believe Italian female organ-grinder, whose offence appeared to be that she was carrying about in a cradle attached to the organ an infant that did not belong to her. And as the infant brought her in much more money than her music did, she protested in very strong ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... incredible rapidity, but there are limitations. Anything that pushes the balance too far will be fatal. You can lose a hand or even an arm without serious harm; the missing member will be regrown. But if you were to fall into a large meat-grinder—" ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... second act I disguise myself. I'll come on as an organ-grinder, sing a song in broken English, then as a policeman, or a young swell about town. Give me plenty of opportunity, that's the great thing—opportunity to be really funny, I mean. We don't want any of the old ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... of Roxmouth Castle!" he said—"Some grinder of bones or maker of beer will purchase it, and perhaps point out the picture of the founder of the house as being ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Polly Toodle, the plaintive Wickham, and the awful Pipchin, each with her duty in the starched Dombey household so nicely appointed as to seem born for only that; simple thoughtful old Gills and his hearty young lad of a nephew; Mr. Toodle and his children, with the charitable grinder's decline and fall; Miss Tox, obsequious flatterer from nothing but good-nature; spectacled and analytic, but not unkind Miss Blimber; and the good droning dull benevolent Doctor himself, withering even the fruits of his well-spread dinner-table ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Canning in the "Anti-Jacobin," in which he lampooned the French democrats and their British well-wishers. Under the thin disguise of "the Friend of Humanity" he satirized Tierney in the poem, "The Knife-Grinder," a parody, in form, of Southey's "Widow," and, in meaning, of Tierney's philanthropic appeals. In a play, "The Rovers," he sportfully satirized the romantic drama of Schiller, "The Robbers." In one of the incidental poems he represented the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of the next year; in June they declared themselves a national assembly, and commenced work upon a constitution under the direction of Sieyes, who well merited the epithet, "indefatigable constitution-grinder," applied to Paine by Cobbett. Not long after, the attempted coup d'etat of Louis XVI. failed, the Bastille was demolished, and the political Saturnalia ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Sir, I've suggested it to him myself, but he protested there was hardly a margin left. However, since you name it, Sir, I'll see what I can do with him. (Aside.) Ruthless old grinder, that's his game, is it? Wants a few "extra" pounds to play with, and means squeezing them out of PUDDICOMBE. Poor PUDDICOMBE, I've already put the screw on him pretty tightly. However, I must give ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... time the small, unconscious guide toddled along, making slow progress toward the sound of a hand-organ which her ear had caught yet which was still out of sight. Arrived, they joined the group of children gathered about the grinder and his monkey, and created a profound sensation ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... more upon the company, and, applying his left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with his right hand: thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime (then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was familiarly denominated 'taking a grinder.' (Imagine a modern solicitor's clerk ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... I am writing— Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting About thy frozen spine! Or thou thyself art eating whale, Oily, and underdone, and stale, That, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Their living didn't cost much. They fed mostly at the back door of an east side quick-lunch place. For domicile they shared a basement with a drunken janitor, an Italian organ-grinder, and a monkey. The monkey got shoved off a second-story window ledge by some Christian person who probably resented the Darwin theory and died several days later of internal injuries. Smokey nursed him, while Jimmy and the organ-grinder worked harder and raised enough money ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... come to the village, there stood in the street a scissors-grinder with his truck. His wheel hummed, and he ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... ignorant, and was equally ready to learn from any one who could teach him anything. It is said that on one occasion, when Alexander was in his studio, and talked of art, Apelles advised him to be silent lest his color-grinder should laugh at him. Again, when he had painted a picture, and exposed it to public view, a cobbler pointed out a defect in the shoe-latchet; Apelles changed it, but when the man next proceeded to criticise the leg of the figure, Apelles replied, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... right behind a crowd from planets not in our astronomy; next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other worlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and Confucius; next a lot from systems outside of ours; next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster, and a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt; then there is a long string, and after them, away down toward the bottom, come Shakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named Marais, from the back ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... found myself reduced to my present occupation, which is that of grinding points on pins. By this I procure my bread, coffee, and tobacco, and sometimes potatoes and meat. One day while I was hard at work, an organ-grinder came into the street below. He played the serenade from 'Trovatore' and the familiar notes brought back visions of old days and old delights, when the successful writer wore good clothes and sat at operas, when he looked into sweet eyes and talked of Italian airs, ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... a scissors grinder came and worked under his window. After listening attentively, Poll tried to imitate the sound with his throat, but could not succeed. He then struck his beak against the perch; but his quick ear discerned a difference. ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... know. It has been dark all day, though the lamp has only been lit half an hour. The music of the day has been, first the atrocious arias, which last in the Corso till near noon, though certainly less in virulence on rainy days. Then came the wicked organ-grinder, who, apart from the horror of the noise, grinds exactly the same obsolete abominations as at home or in England,—the Copenhagen Waltz, "Home, sweet home," and all that! The cruel chance that both an English my-lady and a Councillor from one of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... travels—round and round the world, round and round the world. And Wooden-leg Larsen, who in winter is quite the well-to-do pensioner, in blue pilot-coat and fur cap, leaves his pretty, solidly-built cottage when the Spring comes, and sallies forth into the world as a poor organ-grinder—he tells them of the Zoological Gardens on the hill, and the adventurous Holm-Street, and of extraordinary beings who live upon the dustbins in ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a glorious night, despite the oppressive heat and the almost intolerable biting of mosquitoes and sandflies. In the wake of the departing trap flew a solitary beetle, making a noise exactly like a scissor-grinder at work. Soft and silent moths—some as big as small birds—went past my face, I fear to the hanging lamp behind me. Passing footfalls echoed bluntly from the wooden pavement, and in the far-away distance the bull-frogs croaked monotonously. And down below, as I looked upon the trees, I could ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the earliest stage in the process, there would be two men in the outer Hut grinding plasmon biscuit into powder. One would turn away for dear life and the other smash the biscuit with a hammer on a metal slab and feed continuously into the grinder. The atmosphere would be full of the nauseous vapours of blubber arising from dishes on the stove where seal meat was drying for the dogs. Ninnis and Mertz superintended in this department, in careless moments allowing the blubber to frizzle ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... of Knockimdowny, and fought successively up to the other end, then back again to the spot where they commenced, and afterwards up to the middle of the town, right opposite to the market-place, where my grandfather, by the same a-token, lost a grinder; but he soon took satisfaction for that, by giving Mucldemurray a tip above the eye with the end of an oak stick, dacently loaded with lead, which made the poor man feel very quare entirely, for the few days ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... organ-grinder began to play outside the inn. Our friend the dog lifted up his voice and howled. I am sure it was with pleasure. If he had disliked the music he would have gone away. He was not at all the kind of person who would stay a concert out if he did not ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... very numerous in the interior of Africa, but they appear to be a distinct species from those found in Asia. Blumenbach, in his figures of objects of natural history, has given good drawings of a grinder of each; and the variation is evident. M. Cuvier also has given in the Magazin Encyclopedique a clear account of the difference between them. As I never examined the Asiatic elephant, I have chosen ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... brighten with pleasure. A street-musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder church and pours forth his strains to the busy town—a melody that has gone astray among the tramp of footsteps, the buzz of voices and the war of passing wheels. Who heeds the poor organ-grinder? None but myself and little Annie, whose feet begin to move in unison with the lively tune, as if she were loth that music should be wasted without a dance. But where would Annie find a partner? Some have the gout in their toes or the rheumatism in their ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... A belated Italian organ-grinder stopped beneath us and played a tune from I Lombardi, called "La mia letizia." Leah's hair was done up for the first time—in two heavy black bands that hid her little ears and framed her narrow chinny face—with a yellow ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... at this commencement, and Corker juniors instantly began to keep time to Sharpe's delivery in the organ-grinder's fashion. But Sharpe toiled remorselessly on. He compared Biffen's house to a water lily growing in a muddy pond, and again as a Phoenix risen from the ashes; and he gave us, with circumstantial details, every round of the footer housers, their two eleven caps, ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... that they can afford to dispense with 'plot;' their humour, their pathos, and their delineation of human nature are amply sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; whereas our too ambitious young friend is in the position of the needy knife-grinder, who has not only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up his coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'—the evidence of his desperate and ineffectual struggles with literary composition. I have known such ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... thus promenading, and I was trying to look like a prize St. Bernard, and the old man was trying to look like he wouldn't have murdered the first organ-grinder he heard play Mendelssohn's wedding-march, I looked up at him and said, in ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Wildney, "that's rather good! No, Eric, it's too late for you to turn 'grinder' now. I might as well think of doing it myself, and I've never been higher than five from ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... her tho' nowise sick or sorry, * Straitens my hapless heart and makes my head sore ache; An thou repent not, Soul! I'll punish thee with kissing[FN385] * Her lower face that shall mine every grinder break!' ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... landscape changed. No more paths, or trees, or pastures. Gloomy, denuded slopes, great boulders of rock which he scaled on his knees for fear of falling; sloughs full of yellow mud, which he crossed slowly, feeling before him with his alpenstock and lifting his feet like a knife-grinder. At every moment he looked at the compass hanging to his broad watch-ribbon; but whether it were the altitude or the variations of the temperature, the needle seemed untrue. And how could he find his bearings in a thick yellow fog that hindered him from seeing ten steps about ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... and his daughter the instant they appeared on the balcony, but he gave no hint of it until they were in the path of his monotonous march. He was nerving himself for Mrs. Whitney as one nerves himself in a dentist's chair for the descent of the grinder upon a sensitive tooth. Usually she got no further than her first sentence before irritating him. To-day the very sight of her filled him with seemingly causeless anger. There was a time when he, watching Matilda improve away from her beginnings as the ignorant and awkward daughter ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... be unable to reconstruct its skull or its limbs. It is only when the tooth or bone presents peculiarities, which we know by previous experience to be characteristic of a certain group, that we can safely predict that the fossil belonged to an animal of the same group. Any one who finds a cow's grinder may be perfectly sure that it belonged to an animal which had two complete toes on each foot and ruminated; any one who finds a horse's grinder may be as sure that it had one complete toe on each foot and did not ruminate; but if ruminants and ...
— The Rise and Progress of Palaeontology - Essay #2 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... quern-stones, from which the grinder could grind out whatever he wished; but he had no one strong enough to turn them until he bought in Sweden two bondmaids of giant-race, Menja and Fenja. He set them to grind at the quern by day, and by night when all slept, and as they ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... used to fling stones at Grinder Queery because he loved his mother. I never heard the Grinder's real name. He and his mother were Queery and Drolly, contemptuously so called, and they answered to these names. I remember Cree best as a battered old weaver, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... abloom; in the shadow of my room Glows a vase of golden jonquils like a star amid the gloom; But the sign that's sure and certain is the children's merry feet Dancing round the organ-grinder at the ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... against the wall in a wagon like Pierre's. He had been sharpening Saint-Paul-du-Var's scissors and knives. We confided in him, and asked if he thought the hotel-restaurant would give us a good dinner and a good bed. The scissors-grinder wrinkled his nose and twinkled his eyes. "The last tram from Vence to Cagnes stops over there at eight-ten," he said decisively. "You have five minutes to catch it. Get off at Villeneuve-Loubet, and go to the Hotel Beau-Site. The proprietor ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... Michelangelo more than a sermon from Brother Ambrose, and after an interval of compliments a servant was sent to find him. It chanced that Buonarroti was walking with the man whom Francis of Holland calls "his old friend and colour-grinder," Urbino, in the direction of the Thermae. So the lackey, having the good chance to meet him, brought him at once to the convent. The Marchioness made him sit between her and Messer Tolomei, while Francis took up his ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds |
