"Needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was still but the flimsiest of trial sketches and discovery scarcely beginning. No one seems to have been afraid of science and its possibilities. Yet now where there had been but a score or so of seekers, there were many thousands, and for one needle of speculation that had been probing the curtain of appearances in 1800, there were now hundreds. And already Chemistry, which had been content with her atoms and molecules for the better part of a century, was preparing herself for that vast next stride that was to revolutionise the whole life ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... attractions it would, indeed, be remarkable, if they did not meet with great attentions from the travellers who occasionally are resident in Athens. They sit in the eastern style, a little reclined, with their limbs gathered under them on the divan, and without shoes. Their employments are the needle, tambouring, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... alone in her old room. The candles were lighted on her work-table, her embroidery frame stood beside it, the needle carelessly stuck in; a fire of logs was flaming up the wide black chimney. Anne was not working, but wandering restlessly up and down the room. Once she went to a window and dragged it open; the moonlight flowed in, and with it a soft rough blast that blew the candles ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... result of this was, that many a rent had to be concealed from mothers and husbands, so that at this time there was more to be made by mending than by selling laces. From her first attempt, Bathilde did wonders; her needle seemed to be that of a fairy. Nanette received many compliments on the work of the unknown Penelope, who did by day what was undone by night. Thanks to Bathilde's industry, they began to have much greater ease in ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... teach those ignorant little creatures. Half of them are foreigners, and never touch a needle in their homes. It's every thing to give them some ideas beyond their own ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... pity you haven't something worse to complain of than a button off your shirt. If you'd SOME wives, you would, I know. I'm sure I'm never without a needle and thread in my hand. What with you and the children, I'm made a perfect slave of. And what's my thanks? Why, if once in your life a button's off your shirt—what do you cry 'OH' at?—I say once, Mr. Caudle; or twice, or three times, at most. I'm sure Caudle, no man's buttons in the ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... indicates the apparatus of our experiment. When we close the switch, S, the battery starts a stream of electrons from a towards b. Just at that instant the needle, or pointer, of the current instrument moves. The needle moves, and thus shows a current in the coil cd; but it comes right back again, showing that the current is only momentary. Let's say this again in different words. ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... body, and having less area of surface exposed to the air will not dry so quickly in the pen; but this is more than offset by the liability of the ink to flow over the crook at A, and cause the pen to draw a thick ragged line. The pen-point must be slightly inclined toward the needle-point, to the end that they may approach each other close enough for drawing very small circles, but it should also stand as nearly vertical as will permit that end to be attained. As this pen is for drawing small circles ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... defence. Those about to plead guilty and throw themselves upon the mercy of the court abandoned their honest purpose and devised some perjury instead. Criminals almost persuaded that honesty was the best policy changed their minds. The barometer of crime swung its needle ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... two Martin children Curlytops. It was because their hair was so tightly curling to their heads. Once Grandma Martin lost her thimble in the hair of one of the children, and their locks were curled so nearly alike that she never could remember on whose head she found the needle-pusher. ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... living in humble lodgings. The father was in his dotage, the mother was a paralytic, and Charles with his pen, and his sister Mary with her needle, worked to support the family. They both overworked themselves fearfully, and lived in apprehension of the doom which hung over them. They were very fondly attached to each other, and the only pleasure they had in their cheerless youth was their ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... orchard," proposed Fanny. "Somebody else can work on these silly old hearts, if they want to. My needle sticks ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... from the scarlet bowl Of Gray Cloud's pipe with willow bark supplied. Winona's thrifty mother came and went, Her form with household cares and burdens bent, Fresh fuel adds, and stirs the boiling pot. Meanwhile the young Winona, half reclined, Plies her swift needle, that resource refined For woman's leisure, whatsoe'er her lot, The kingly palace ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... and warmth of the coals. But after a few weeks he began to ail; possibly because the study was a small one, and he could not get in it the exercise that he needed; more probably because of the draughts. My friend's wife, who was very clever with her needle, made for the swallow a little jacket of red flannel, and sought to divert his mind by teaching him to perform a few simple tricks. For a while he seemed to regain his spirits. But presently he moped more than ever, crouching nearer than ever ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the warm afternoon grew oppressive in the drowsy obscurity made by the closed shutters, and the silence of the house seemed more profound than before. She set apart some little waists, she sewed on some tapes with slow-moving needle, and gradually she fell into a reverie in the warm deep peacefulness of the room, in the midst of the glowing heat outside. Her thoughts first turned to her pastels, the exact copies and the fantastic dream flowers; she said to herself ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... the other four convicts were in doubt as to which of the two plans they should lend their support to. "Are you sure we'll catch 'em, Cap?" inquired one, doubtfully, "there are so powerful many forks to this river, it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... I sarcastically. "And so have I. A six-inch, double-edged knife, sharp as a razor and pointed like a needle. They didn't have sense enough to search us, and we didn't have sense enough to realize it. I can feel mine under me now ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... morals, civilization, and refinement, is in proportion to the elevated or degraded position in which woman is placed in society; and the same instructive volume will enable us to perceive, that the fanciful creations of the needle, have exerted a marked influence over the pursuits and ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... little parlour in his home he found his nephew sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying her needle with an earnestness that contrasted with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... he thought how he had taken Hanada to his room after that boy's battle and had attempted to sew up the cut with an ordinary needle. He smiled grimly as he thought of the fight and how he had resolved to win or die. ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... fisticuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her, but Miss would not yield in the least point; but even when Master had got her down, she would scratch and bite like a tiger; when he gave her a cuff on the ear, she would prick him with her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to tie her to the bedpost, for which affront Miss aimed a penknife at his heart. In short, these quarrels grew up to rooted aversions; they gave one another nicknames, though the girl was ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... journey? It was cruel. She forgot the poor children, and, throwing herself down, she thought she would go no farther. Her staff was still in her hand, and as she fell it seemed to draw her gently up again, just as a magnet picks up a needle; it led her to a little cave or grotto, merely a nook under great rocks, but in it was a heap of leaves which would serve her as a place of repose, and she would be sheltered from the approaching storm, which, now that the wind had arisen, was swaying ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... the influence of the valves of one's own veins may be shown; the movements of respiration may be observed; while the wonderful phenomena of sensation afford an endless field for curious and interesting self-study. The prick of a needle will yield, in a drop of one's own blood, material for microscopic observation of phenomena which lie at the foundation of all biological conceptions; and a cold, with its concomitant coughing and sneezing, may prove the sweet uses of adversity by helping one to a clear conception ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... was lost or was wasted, I know not how, so that my poor mother had but a hard time of it; and when I was just turned of twenty-one and was free of my apprenticeship, she had but little to live upon but what I could bring home, and what she could earn by her needle. This was no grief to me, for I was fond of my trade, and I had learned it well. My old master was fond of me, and would trust me with work of a good deal of responsibility. I neither drank nor smoked, nor was I over-fond of the amusements ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... silent musing, during which she had bit her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Khan attacked and plundered the house of Peer Khan, in Khanseepoor in Deogon, and bound and carried him off with his two brothers, Ameer Khan and Jehangeer Khan. He had them beaten with sticks, and caused small iron spikes to be driven up under their nails, and their eyelids to be sewn up with needle and thread, and their beards to be burned, till he extorted from them a ransom ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... unright of Fortune may by me in part be amended, which, where there is the less strength to endure, as we see it in delicate ladies, hath there been the more niggard of support, I purpose, for the succour and solace of ladies in love (unto others[1] the needle and the spindle and the reel suffice) to recount an hundred stories or fables or parables or histories or whatever you like to style them, in ten days' time related by an honourable company of seven ladies ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... tailor who received her work, and who examined it as carefully as if the material had been silk or cambric, instead of the coarse fabric which constitutes the staple of such establishments. I thus learned, at a very early age, to know something of the duties of needle-women, as well as of the mortifications and impositions to which their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... uneasily.} Maybe if you'd a piece of a grey thread and a sharp needle—there's great safety in a needle, lady of the house—I'ld be putting a little stitch here and there in my old coat, the time I'll be praying for his soul, and it going up naked ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge
... chaff mixed with the grain, and he used no winnowing machine. His simplicity and transparent honesty induced him to include everything, in fact he seemed to glory in the number of false trails he laboriously followed. He was one who might be expected to find the proverbial "needle in a haystack," but unfortunately the needle was not always there. Delambre says, "Ardent, restless, burning to distinguish himself by his discoveries he attempted everything, and having once obtained a glimpse of one, no labour was too hard for him in following ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... is at the posterior end in the superficial cytoplasm a disc-shaped mass of darkly staining granules, while the fertilised nucleus is in the middle of the egg. When the protoplasm containing these granules was killed with a hot needle, development in some cases took place and an embryo was formed, but the embryo contained no germ cells. Here no injury had been done to the zygote nucleus, but these particular granules and the portion of protoplasm containing them were necessary ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... to its economy why this practice should not die out. The tearing up into strips of old garments, and the tacking of their ends together with needle and thread is work eminently suited for children, and one in which they take great pride, as it gives them a share in the creation of a useful and ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... the basket; that he brought it in that manner, by a preconcerted arrangement between him and Cleopatra, and that, when she received it, she placed the creature on her arm. Others say that she had a small steel instrument like a needle, with a poisoned point, which she had kept concealed in her hair, and that she killed herself with that, without producing any visible wound. Another story was, that she had an asp in a box somewhere in ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... was born, in 1847, telegraphy, upon which he was to leave so indelible an imprint, had barely struggled into acceptance by the public. In England, Wheatstone and Cooke had introduced a ponderous magnetic needle telegraph. In America, in 1840, Morse had taken out his first patent on an electromagnetic telegraph, the principle of which is dominating in the art to this day. Four years later the memorable message "What hath God wrought!" was sent by young Miss Ellsworth over his circuits, and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... /S/alagram. Although present everywhere, the Lord is pleased when meditated upon as dwelling in the heart. The case is, moreover, to be viewed as analogous to that of the ether. The ether, although all-pervading, is spoken of as limited and minute, if considered in its connexion with the eye of a needle; so Brahman also. But it is an understood matter that the attributes of limitation of abode and of minuteness depend, in Brahman's case, entirely on special forms of contemplation, and are not real. The latter consideration disposes also of the objection, that if Brahman ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... removed, you could not have taken to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... divided the flowers equally, and when putting theirs in the window, so that they might still see some of the blue sky, as she expressed it, she looked across the Court towards Lizzie Stevens' home. Yes, there she was, Pollie could see, busy plying her needle, and there were the violets also, in a broken jam jar close by her as she sat at work; and raising her pale face towards them, as though they were old friends returned to her, she caught sight of little Pollie arranging her bouquet ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... domestic life, and rural retirement; the laureate of the fireside, the tea-table, the evening lamp, the garden, the green-house, and the rabbit-coop. He draws with elegance and precision a chair, a clock, a harpsichord, a barometer, a piece of needle-work. But Cowper was an out-door as well as an in-door man. The Olney landscape was tame, a fat, agricultural region, where the sluggish Ouse wound between plowed fields and the horizon was bounded by low hills. Nevertheless Cowper's ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... a knitting needle playfully at Kate. "Sit down and take your breakfast," she commanded. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman—even Robert and Amelia. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... work, "if you have any more mending to do—I never liked work till I worked with you. I won't forget my thimble or my scissors," she added, laughing—"though I used to forget them when I was a wilder girl. I assure you I am clever with my needle now—try me." ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... let her thrust her out from the only place she could call her home—sought for work and was fortunate enough to obtain sewing from two or three families, and was thus enabled to pay a light board for herself and children. But incessant toil with her needle, continued late at night and resumed early in the morning, gradually undermined her health, which had become delicate, and weariness and pain became the constant companions of ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... upon their heads curious shakos, made of the finest down, not fur. Both displayed a heavy silken braid looped from one shoulder. Each carried a spear-like weapon, of some shining black material, straight-tapered to a needle-point; but no other arms. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... first; then the tightening of the line would fix it cross-wise in the quarry's, stomach or gullet and so the capture would be assured. The device still lingers in France and in a few remote parts of England in the method of catching eels which is known as "sniggling." In this a needle buried in a worm plays the part of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... neatest shell-hole you ever saw. It went straight through the shaft of the chimney, in at one side and out at the other, for all the world like two windows opposite each other. The fabric of the chimney remained secure. Needless to say, this eye was put into the needle of the chimney because it had been used as a Belgian observation- post. We soon got out of our car and walked across the fields to the old railway embankment, which was now being used as the bank of the inundation. On the land side of it the ground was marshy, but it was terra ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... not indicate the true north in all parts of the earth, the needle varying in the North Atlantic Ocean from thirty degrees east to nearly thirty degrees west. There is an imaginary line, extending in a north-westerly direction, through a point in the vicinity of Cape Lookout, called the magnetic meridian, ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of Welwyn, Hertfordshire, was the last place of residence of Dr. Young, author of "Night Thoughts," where he was rector. His pious lady employed her leisure hours with her needle, in the completion of a most elegant altar-piece, which now embellishes the sacramental table in the church; and, through the care of the parish clerk, this specimen of the indefatigable mind of Mrs. Young has been surprisingly preserved. The words ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... of several cotyledons of both these plants were rubbed or slightly scratched with a needle during 1 m. or 2 m.; but they did not move in the least. When, however, the pulvini of six cotyledons of M. pudica were thus scratched, two of them were slightly raised. In these two cases perhaps the pulvinus ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... one evening at Costecalde the gunmaker's, where Tartarin was engaged in showing several sportsmen the working of the needle-gun, then in its first novelty. The door suddenly flew open, and in rushed a bewildered cap-popper, howling "A lion, a lion!" General was the alarm, stupor, uproar and tumult. Tartarin prepared to resist cavalry with the bayonet, whilst ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Kneading-trough knedujo. Knee genuo. Kneecap genuosto. Kneel genufleksi. Knell mortsonorado, funebra sonorado. Knife trancxilo. Knife-blade trancxanto. Knight kavaliro. Knit triki, trikoti. Knitting-needle trikilo. Knob butono. Knock frapi. Knock down disjxeti, dejxeti. Knot ligtubero. Knot (bow) banto. Knot (in wood) lignotubero. Knout skurgxo. Know scii. Know (to be acquainted with) koni. Knuckle artiko. Kopeck kopeko. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... blood with sudden rush first to my heart and then to my brain; a small piece of iron, invisible in an ordinary light, had been driven into the framework of the compass, close to that part of the card marked "W," thereby deflecting the needle to the point in question, so that ever since our departure from Quipai, we had been steering due west, instead of north by west, as I intended and believed. The dodge might not have deceived a seaman, but it had certainly ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... regained the little parlour, he found his nephew sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying her needle with an air of earnestness and quiet, very unlike her usual playful and cheerful vivacity. There was evidently a cloud over the groupe; the good Lester regarded them with ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... surrounding it with unnatural and preternatural dangers. There is a wanton unreason embodied in the life of woman now; the present 'virtue' is a morbid unhealthy plant. Nature and God never poised the life of a woman upon such a needle's point. The whole modern idea of chastity has in it sensual exaggeration, surely, in part, remaining to us from other times, with what was good in it ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... pluck to make good her bluff. And if she did so? He dropped the extinguished match upon a plate. Did he care? He glanced at the girl, who was smiling at an acquaintance on the other side of the room. Fortune's wheel spins upon a needle point. By an artistic performance occupying less than two minutes, but suggesting that Rita possessed qualities which one day might spell success, she had decided her fate. Her heart was beating like a hammer in her breast, but she preserved an attitude of easy indifference. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... some demon's jaws. As we struck into them they swept over us like combers on the beach in a great storm. It seemed to me here and at other similar places that we went through some of the waves like a needle and jumped to the top of others, to balance half-length out of water for an instant before diving to another trough. Being in the very bow the waves, it appeared to me, sometimes completely submerged me and almost took my breath away with the sudden impact. At any rate it ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Mine, I believe to be more tender than many infants of a month old. Indeed I have remarked in myself, from my earliest recollection, a delicacy or effeminacy of complexion, which but for a spice of the devil in my temper would have consigned me to the distaff or the needle." ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... transformation scene. When the keeper began the sentence, the Coast Guard station had been a scene of peace and comfort with a group of men lounging around a hot fire, some reading, some playing dominoes and others plying needle and thread. But, before the sentence was over, almost every man was in his oilskins, some were just pulling on their long boots, while others, even more nimble, had reached the boat and the apparatus-cart. They were standing ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... adventure. For the incongruities, what did they matter to her? She wished to probe life, to live it, to race the whole gamut of inquiry, experiences, follies, loves, and sacrifices, to squeeze the orange dry, and then to die while yet young, having gone the full compass, the needle pointing home. She was as broad as sumptuous in her nature; so what did a gaucherie matter? or a dash of the Oriental in a citizen of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... conceded at this day that the "nervous influence" is probably electric. There are some alleged facts, and other certain facts, which go far to sustain this view. It is said that if we transfix, with a steel needle, a large nerve of a living animal, as the great ischiatic, and let it remain in that condition a suitable time, the needle becomes permanently magnetized. So, too, if the point of a lancet be held for some length of time between the severed ends of ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... their attitude whether or not the sympathies of the officers of the Corps Expeditionnaire were honestly with their Austrian allies. Strangely enough, the news had been received by them as though it involved no serious warning to France. The full significance of the new mode of warfare, of the needle-gun and other new implements of war, was obscured in their eyes by their naive Jingoism. The French officers in those days underrated all other nations; and even the superior armament and discipline of the Germans, as exhibited in that short campaign, failed ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... her departure with her young ones, who were already asleep. The little festival was over, and had ended in melancholy—even in weeping. Our hostess sate in her accustomed seat by her lamp and her worktable; but, neglecting her needle, she was having perpetual recourse to her pocket-handkerchief, and uttering ejaculations of pity between the intervals of her gushes of tears. Madame de Florac was in her usual place, her head cast downwards, and her hands ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my servants. They declare that the glasses are broken in the cupboards at night. The footman accuses the cook, who accuses the needle woman, who accuses the other two. Who is the culprit? A clever person, to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... unpleasantly, and but for her girlish prettiness, he might have felt himself almost repelled. As it was he merely glanced appealingly at his mother, who intervened with a gesture of her knitting needle. "She writes stories," explained the old lady, appearing to transfix her subject on the ivory point; "it ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... and rather clawlike fingers flew in and out of the embroidery hoop as she plied her needle, and while Mrs. Toomey adroitly selected the stockings which needed the least darning from her basket of mending, the latter came nearer really liking Priscilla Pantin than she had since she ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... frills under the stag's horn, and when she went to meet Julien in the late afternoon, she had the frills still in a parcel. "What is that?" he asked, as she unfolded the parcel in the empty Cathedral, and began to thread her needle. ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... spirit of God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan. And Satan's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips. Europe is to-day only nominally Christian. In reality it is worshipping Mammon. 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom.' Thus really spoke Jesus Christ. His so-called followers measure their moral progress by their material possessions. The very national anthem of England is anti-Christian. Jesus who asked his followers ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the perverse weapon—swerving from her control—inflicted a deeper stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... small hole in it, moving it in front of the light so as to throw the latter only upon the portions needing the extra printing. Still another modification is where a portion only needs holding back. Here we use a small piece of paper or cardboard stuck on a knitting needle, moving the latter so that it will not intercept the light too long at ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... described contained eggs, in most of which (judging by opacity) incubation was far advanced, while in several were young birds, some newly hatched, others apparently ready to depart from their gloomy, foul-smelling quarters. These latter clung so determinedly to their nests with needle-like toes that the force necessary to remove them would ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... winter. The indicator is pivoted by a large screw to the centre, C, of the face, so that it can be turned round like the hand of a clock. At the upper end of the indicator a little pointer is fastened directly over the scale of hours and minutes. A needle, or a pin with the head cut ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... unpleasant. Here we are tranquil, undisturbed and undisturbing. Can life, he often says, he more innocent than ours, or happiness more inoffensive? He works in his garden, or studies English and mathematics, while I write. When I work at my needle, he reads to me; and we enjoy the beautiful country around us in long and romantic strolls, during which he carries under his arm a portable garden chair, lent us by Mrs. Locke, that I may rest as I proceed. He is extremely fond, too, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... broad. His body is short and thick and square; his legs even thicker, and his feet turn out too much; the general effect is almost pyramidal. Again, take this one," and he indicated a gentleman coming down the steps, "you could thread his legs and body through a needle's eye, but his head would defy you. Mark his boiled eyes, his flashing spectacles, and the absence of all hair. ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... any thing of real value; and, at last, wearied with the philosophical twaddle, I resolved to make a new search for the criterion. I confess it, to my shame, this folly lasted for two years, and I am not yet entirely rid of it. It was like seeking a needle in a haystack. I might have learned Chinese or Arabic in the time that I have lost in considering and reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to the summit of an induction as to the top of a ladder, in inserting a proposition between the horns of a dilemma, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... the Sewing-Woman, and let the ladies behold the unfortunate seamstress who died from pricking her finger with a needle while sewing on Sunday. You see that the work which she holds is stained with gore, which drips from her finger onto the floor. (Which is poetry!) This forms a sad and melancholy warning to all heads of families immediately ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... told you, he says leave him lyin' a minute, he says, and he runs. Then back he comes with the apoarthecary—him with the red light—and they rips the guv'nor's sleeves up, spilin' his coat. And they prokes into his arm with a packin'-needle. Much use it done! And then they says, it warn't the fog, and I called 'em a liar. 'Cos it's a clearin' off, they says. It warn't, not much. I see the perambulance come, and they shoved him in, and I hooked it off, and heard 'em saying where's that young ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... may have his little affairs of the heart, and a cock-salmon his gamble. But I can ride as straight as you can. I can break any horse to harness you choose to put me behind. I can sail a boat and handle an axe. I can turn my hand to most practical things—except a needle. I own I always have hated a needle worse—well, worse than the devil! And I can organise, and can speak fairly well, and manage business affairs tidily. And have I not even been known—low be it spoken—to beat you at lawn tennis, and Lord ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... that just as the blunt end of a bit of charcoal is many, many times larger than the point of an etching-needle, so are its resources for fine lines and minute dots and scratches just that much reduced. It is the flat of the piece of coal that is ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... they cut with an axe near a fire, or stick a knife into a burning stick, or touch the fire with a knife, they will "cut the top off the fire." The Sioux Indians will not stick an awl or a needle into a stick of wood on the fire, or chop on it with an ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... and, above all, the hobby-horse. This animal was made of pasteboard, painted a sort of pink color, and propelled by a man inside, who made him perform various tricks not common to horses, such as threading a needle and holding a ladle in his mouth ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... won't stay, I am afraid. It is falling down again," said Leonore regretfully. "We ought to have a ribbon. If I only had one and a thread and needle!—but perhaps we could ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... will give you two memorable instances. Was there ever a girl in this world but herself that cheated and snapped her fingers at that awful Inquisition, which brooded over the convents of Spain, that did this without collusion from outside, trusting to nobody, but to herself, and what? to one needle, two hanks of thread, and a very inferior pair of scissors? For, that the scissors were bad, though Kate does not say so in her memoirs, I knew by an a priori argument, viz., because all scissors were bad in the year 1607. Now, say all decent logicians, from a universal to a particular valet ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... instruction. It was forbidden to accept gold and silver but the order might possess parks and monasteries and receive offerings of food and clothes. The personal possessions allowed to a monk were only the three robes, a girdle, an alms bowl, a razor, a needle and a water strainer[541]. Everything else which might be given to an individual had to be handed over to the confraternity and held in common and the Vinaya shows clearly how a band of wandering monks following their teacher from place to place speedily grew into an influential ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... could cut a man's frock-tail coat. These young people don't know nothin' 'bout that. Grandma was a milliner. She could make anything you used a needle to make. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... settled, and Miss Penstock went home two hours before her time, 'so stirred up, somehow,' as she said, 'to think of those blessed children's coming to live in my house, I couldn't see to thread a needle.' After tea Mr. Maynard came again: Aunt Abby saw him alone. When she came up-stairs she had been crying, but her lips were closed more rigidly than I ever saw them. Aunt Abby could be as determined as Mr. Maynard. ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... from her. Yet, oh horror! a wild impulse to kiss her took possession of him. In vain he struggled; he tried to step backwards, and instead went forwards, he tried to turn his head away, but those glowing eyes held and drew him as a magnet draws a needle. And as the needle rolls across the table ever more quickly towards the magnet, so did the unwilling Godfrey gravitate towards Madame Riennes. And now, oh! now her stout arm was about his neck, and now—he was impressing a fervent embrace upon ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... handkerchief, an end of wax candle, a flushed apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors in a sheath more expressively describable as promising young shears, a handful or so of loose beads, several balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet collection of curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles she entrusted individually and separately to Britain to hold, - is of ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... the boy, his brow wrinkling with the effort, attempted with his bandaged hand to stay the needle in the ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... gradually develop and advance to the maturity of those conscious powers, the exercise of which furnishes indubitable evidence of our immortality. We are pervaded with invisible influences, which, like the needle of the compass trembling on its pivot, point us to immortality as our ultimate goal, where in the sunny clime of Love, even in a spiritual realm of joy and happiness, we may eternally reign with Him ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the two lovers—one might say, the two betrothed— were seated upon the verdant bank. The limpid Vaar murmured a few feet below them. Suzel quietly drew her needle across the canvas. Frantz automatically carried his line from left to right, then permitted it to descend the current from right to left. The fish made capricious rings in the water, which crossed ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... night before to the poor beggars. He laid them in the scale containing the good works, which instantly fell, while the other rose, and the two scales remained level. The beam dropped neither to right nor left, and the needle marked the exact ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... alone at the far end of this hall, beneath the window-plate, clad in her white robes of office, richly broidered with emblems of the moon. Her women, most of whom were employed in needle-work, though some whispered idly to each other, were gathered at the lower end of the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... for today and tomorrow. There came in still further today 1l., from an orphan-box at Barnstaple 1l., and by the profit of work, done by a sister, 5s. There was likewise given a little box, containing the following articles: a lady's bag, a pair of gloves, a silver fruit knife, a gold seal, a needle book with two farthings, a purse containing two-halfpence, 41/2 francs, and a copper coin; a little tortoiseshell box containing two old sixpences, two fourpenny pieces, a shilling, a sixpence, and a pebble; a silver vinaigrette, a seal, two ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... touch of the control switch and he stayed at the new level, collecting himself. The lemak, puzzled and angry, wheeled up to see what had become of the victim that did not descend, and found instead a searing needle of heat which burnt through its broad right wing. Then, screaming with pain and in a frenzy to escape, it went with a rush into the ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... buried in Monzievaird Churchyard, and old people still recall the extraordinary storm of thunder and rain which signalised his funeral day. His widow prepared the massive monumental obelisk of granite, said to be exactly similar to Cleopatra's Needle, since struck by lightning in 1878, and badly rent, but now restored. It required foundations broad and deep. Most of the stones of the old castle had gone to form dykes in the neighbourhood. The workmen, thinking they had ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... animals, bees are afflicted with parasitic worms which induce disease and sometimes death. The well-known hair worm, Gordius, is an insect parasite. The adult form is about the size of a slender knitting needle, and is seen in moist soil and in pools. It lays, according to Dr. Leidy, "millions of eggs connected together in long cords." The microscopical, tadpole-shaped young penetrate into the bodies of insects ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... in blistering your wife, or giving her, with a mental needle, a prod whose violence is such as to make ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the truth, the Reverend Frederick Thomasson had so keen a scent for Gold Tufts or aught akin to them, that it would have been strange if the instinct had not kept him at home; as a magnet, though unseen, attracts the needle. The same prepossession brought him, as soon as he heard of his visitor's approach, hurrying to the head of the stairs; where, if he had had his way, he would have clasped the baronet in his arms, slobbered over him, after the mode of Paris—for that was a trick of his—and perhaps ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... admit this, and of course Hafrydda's fair cheeks were crimsoned when the youth, accidentally looking up, caught the princess accidentally gazing at him; and, still more of course, the king, who was sharp as a needle in such matters, observed their confusion and went into a loud laugh, which he declared was only the result of merry thoughts that were simmering in ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... the course of which the competitors had to pick up and set in order a prostrate deck chair, correctly add up a column of figures, unravel a knotted rope, and skip with it for fifteen or twenty yards, thread a needle, and hop over the remaining portion of the course; while Dorothy, who held a stick poised in her hand, called out in threatening tones, "You would pluck me in arithmetic, would you? Take that!" and let fly with such ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... stab with the needle, impaling one of her fingers, and continued her work. There was a long silence, faintly punctuated by the bark of a distant dog. Again ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... either," remarked Mrs. Barry, drawing the fine needle in and out of her work. "He is of some importance, ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... remove the mountains, or to empty the sea, or to tell the drops of rain that have fallen from heaven until this day, or to tell what there is most of in the world; yea, and as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, even so impossible it is for thee, Faustus, and the rest of the damned, to come again into the favour of God. And thus, Faustus, hast thou heard my last sentence, and I pray thee, how dost thou like it? But know this, that I counsel thee to let me be unmolested ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... sat was close by the turf-hut which I have already described. At every shifting of a needle she would send a new glance all over her world, a glance to remind one somehow of the sweep of a broad ray of sunlight across earth and sea, when, on a morning of upper wind, the broken clouds take ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... herculean efforts to lift himself. There was another man who received with perfect gravity the chaffing statement of a comrade, to the effect that he had shot a wood-pigeon at the North Pole, and that the bird had fallen on the needle on the top of the Pole, and had frozen so hard that it was impossible to ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... mind to put my limbs into fetters again, and in my youthful inexperience I determined to find something to do. The difficulty was the "something," and I spent various shillings in agencies, with a quite wonderful unanimity of failures. I tried fancy needle-work, offered to "ladies in reduced circumstances," and earned 4s. 6d. by some weeks of stitching. I experimented with a Birmingham firm, who generously offered every one the opportunity of adding to their incomes, and on sending the small fee demanded, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... proud and selfish nature. You would expose the self-love of another with a hatchet, but you shrink if your own is attacked with a needle." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... danger—" But here Mademoiselle Diane again touched his sleeve. "Yes, yes, to be sure, we will not weary our friend just now. We will cure him first; and while he is mending, you shall look out a new uniform from the stores and set your needle to work to render it as like as you can contrive to the Bearnais. Nay, sir, to her enthusiasm that will be but a trifle. Remember that you come to us crowned with laurels, and with news for which we welcome you as though you brought a message from the General himself." A sudden thought ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as did her husband on the farm, was rather kind in an absent, offhand way to the shrunken little old woman, and it was through her that Mehetabel was able to enjoy the one pleasure of her life. Even as a girl she had been clever with her needle in the way of patching bedquilts. More than that she could never learn to do. The garments which she made for herself were the most lamentable affairs, and she was humbly grateful for any help in the bewildering business ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... one must know the scale and also where the North is. This is always indicated by an arrow pointing either to the magnetic North or the true North. If to the magnetic North the needle will have but one barb away from the true North. The angle between the magnetic and the true North ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... value of cow-pox over small-pox, so the peasant women of Poland had learned that the annoying skin disease from which they suffered was caused by an almost invisible insect, and, furthermore, had acquired the trick of dislodging the pestiferous little creature with the point of a needle. From them a youth of the country, F. Renucci by name, learned the open secret. He conveyed it to Paris when he went there to study medicine, and in 1834 demonstrated it to his master Alibert. This physician, at first ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... but not without Stella's permission; for I remember she is a virtuoso. Shall I buy it or no? 'Tis not the great bulky ones, nor the common little ones, to impale a louse (saving your presence) upon a needle's point; but of a more exact sort, and clearer to the sight, with all its equipage in a little trunk that you may carry in your pocket. Tell me, sirrah, shall I buy it or not for you? I came home ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... beaten into hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew eagerly. It was ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... you mean," she admitted with no abasement of spirit, "but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has not been carried out." Her smile broke into a little laugh as she stuck her needle into her work. "I'm thinking of Henry," she let drop ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... much infatuated with her daughter, like any other silly mother, did not perceive the officer's lack of enthusiasm, and strove in low tones to call his attention to the infinite grace with which Fleur-de-Lys used her needle or ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... was turned, for the bridal party was advancing. Slowly down the aisle came M'haley, in the pink chiffon gown from Paris. Mom Beck's quick needle had altered it considerably, for in some unaccountable way the slim bodice fashioned to fit Lloyd's slender figure, now fastened around M'haley's waist without undue strain. The skirt, though turned "hine ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... times Rosanna's breadth. It was quite terrifying. Then she heard an awed gasp from Helen followed by a shriek of laughter, and ran over to see what was left of Helen in a mirror that had drawn her out to the thickness of a needle. Together the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... Aunt Sukey would draw her knitting needle from its sheaf, roll up the half-finished stocking, and put it away in a workbag hanging on a hook, near ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... close of the war better men than he sought and accepted gratefully such a livelihood as he disdained—that women in whose veins ran good old English blood left their wasted homes to teach in public schools, or turned their delicate hands to the needle for support. He was ashamed of his past ambition—of his vaunted aspiration—and he was ashamed of Jerry Pollard ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... observations, which referred chiefly to the magnetic needle, with all the tranquillity of a doctor in his study, Gay-Lussac descended to the earth between Rouen and Dieppe, ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... many old stories of characters similar to Tom Thumb. A certain man was so thin that he could jump through the eye of a needle. Another crept nimbly to a spider's web which was hanging in the air, and danced skillfully upon it until a spider came, which spun a thread round his neck and throttled him. A third was able to pierce a sunmote with his head and pass his whole body through it. A fourth ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... chair, takes off coat and hat, hangs hat on end of wardrobe, and puts coat inside; notices old slipper in front of dresser and one on the extreme right, and with impatience picks them up and puts them in the wardrobe drawer. Then crosses to dresser, gets needle and thread off pincushion, and mends small rip in glove, after which she puts gloves in top drawer of dresser, crosses to extreme end of dresser, and gets handkerchief out of box, takes up bottle containing purple perfume, holds it up so she can see there is only a small quantity left, sprinkles ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... transformed. Patricia, who was the smallest of the three nieces, though not especially slim, had quickly altered one of her own pretty white gowns to fit the child, and as she was deft with her needle and the others had enthusiastically assisted her, Tato now looked more like a fairy ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... fill into the fish. Sew the opening with a stout string and a darning needle. Pat the flour into the fish. Place in a baking pan and bake in a hot oven for one hour. Baste every fifteen minutes with one cup of boiling water. Now, if you place a strip of cheesecloth under the fish you will be able to lift it ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... pale, and could no longer guide her needle—in the fond transport of her heart she imagined that his love for her, was among the sensations to which he alluded. She was too much embarrassed to ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... Cleopatra's Needle he saw a man leaning over the parapet, and as he came nearer the man looked up, the gas-light falling full ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... our way back to the beach, and then, plunging into the undergrowth, began our search for the missing man. As we did not know where to search, it was like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, but presently one of the hands remembered having seen him descending the hill, so we devoted our attentions to that side. For nearly two hours we toiled up and down, but without success. Not a sign of the old gentleman was to be seen. Could he have mistaken his way ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... interchanged. The king was conducted to his apartment, and was informed that he could no longer be permitted to hold any communication whatever with the other members of his family. He contrived, however, by means of a tangle of thread, in which was inclosed a piece of paper, perforated by a needle, to get a note to the queen, and to receive a few words in return. He, however, felt that his doom was sealed, and began from that hour to look forward to his immortality. He made his will, in which he spoke in most affecting terms of his wife, and his children, and his enemies, ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... your knitting-needle," said Margaret. "Look! it was in my tent, just the end of it sticking out of a crack in the floor. If I had not tidied up, in the way you reprobate, Bell, you might never ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... white and yellow slaves were busy with needle, shuttle and spindle, vying with each other as they worked at the garments for the expected infant. Laeta stretched out her hand and took a little cap which an old slave laughingly offered her. She placed it on her closed hand and laughed ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... entered his chamber and slyly crept to the door, only half closed, which separated his room from that of the housekeeper? "How!" screamed Gammer Gurtoh, "you silly raga muffin, you wish to make me believe that it was the cat that ran away with my sewing-needle, as if my sewing-needle were a mouse and smelt of ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... enough to take the wheel for an hour or two, or even for a watch, but when it comes to be for every alternate four hours, it is utterly wearisome. We set our black men to steer, showing them which arm of the compass needle was to be kept towards the vessel's head, and soon three of them could manage very well, and they only needed watching. In going up the East Coast to take advantage of the current of one hundred miles a day, we would fain have gone into the Juba or Webbe River, the mouth of which is ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... sticks to the burn, do not try to remove it, but cut around it. Prick blisters at both ends with a perfectly clean needle, and remove the water by gentle pressure, being careful not to break ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... made any more, at last the day came when he had nothing left but two shillings, and he had to leave the beautiful rooms in which he had been living, and go into a little attic under the roof, and clean his own boots, and mend them with a darning-needle. None of his friends came to visit him there, for there were too ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... white lawn that reposed upon the very bottom of the trunk was overruled in favor of a betucked and beflounced creation of red calico in which Ma Watts had beamed upon the gay panoply of the long remembered "circust." An hour's work with scissors and needle reduced the dress to approximately the required size. When the task was completed Watts appeared with the information that he reckoned the wagon would run, and that the "young-uns" were out in ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... lot she had voluntarily incurred. That every little accomplishment she had acquired in happier days had been put into requisition for this purpose, and directed to this one end. That for two long years, toiling by day and often too by night, working at the needle, the pencil, and the pen, and submitting, as a daily governess, to such caprices and indignities as women (with daughters too) too often love to inflict upon their own sex when they serve in such capacities, as though in jealousy of the superior intelligence which they are ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... argument before Caleb could convince those shy and suspicious people that his errand was an honest one. Eventually they did come to believe him; they led him, a-foot, another half mile up the timber-fringed stream, to a log cabin set back in the balsams upon a needle carpeted knoll. And they stood and stared in stolid wonder at this portly man in riding breeches and leather puttees, when he finally emerged from that small shack, "Old Tom's" tin box under his arm, and, with lips working ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... since I have been here. I know that this feeling of apprehension which existed when I came away, has been constantly increasing in my State since; and even last night I received letters from members of the Convention now in session in Richmond; gentlemen who are as true to this Union as the needle to the pole, informing me that every hour of delay in this Conference was an ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... round of festivities common to an Indian Hill season had passed her by; and she was content to have it so. Between her canvas and her unpractised needle, between the companionship of Michael, and of the Desmonds—while they were 'up'—her days had gone softly, yet pleasantly and profitably in more respects than one. For it is in the pauses between times of activity and stress that the still small voice of God ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... cracks it knew between the boards. It came out, flicked its whiskers, and then darted in again like lightning. Jane Anne, rinsing out the big teapot in the scullery, frightened it. Presently she came in softly, put the lamp ready for her mother's needle, in case of need later, gave a shy queer look at 'Mr. Rogers' and her father, both of whom nodded absent-mindedly to her, and then went on tip-toe out of the room. She was bound for the village shop to buy methylated spirits, sugar, blotting-paper, and—a 'plaque' of Suchard ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... and powder. Mustard. A pocket case of instruments containing scissors, knife, dressing forceps, etc. Syrup of ipecac. Glycerin. Tincture of iodine. Package of ordinary baking soda. Peroxid of hydrogen. Absorbent cotton. Needle and thread. Lime water. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... prisoner. The latter evidently had found the face for which he was looking, for his eyes seemed glued to a certain spot. Occasionally he would shift them for a moment, but invariably, with each new interrogatory, they would turn to that particular spot, as the needle to the pole, not through any volition of his own, but drawn by some influence against which he was ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... pretty needle-book, a tiny pincushion, and an emery bag like a big strawberry. Then from her own scanty stock she added needles, pins, thread, and her only pair of small scissors, scoured to the last ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... youth replied, "O Prince of True Believers, an thou desire to hear my tale order me a cushion to be placed on my right hand, and deign lend unto me three things, to wit, thine ears and thine eyes and thy heart, for verily my adventure is wondrous and were it graven with needle-gravers on the eye-corners it would be a warning to whoso would be warned and a matter of thought to whoso would think. Learn, O Commander of the Faithful, that my father was a jeweller man, a connoisseur ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Naani set that ancient Compass to bear; for, as he made explanation to us through the Instrument, so great a power of the Earth-Current must be ours that, perchance it was our force which did affect the pointer from steadfastness. For, indeed, the needle did swing in an arc, as we heard, that held between the North and the South; within the Westward arc; but this it had done ever with them, and so was a very helpless guide; save that, maybe, as we had thought, the force ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... coloring extended from his neck to the hip on the left side, as though he wore half of a blue shirt. The tahuna who had done the work seemed to have drawn outlines and then blocked in the half of his torso. But remembering that every pin-point of color had meant the thrust of a bone needle propelled by the blow of a mallet, I realized that Kahauiti had endured much for his decorations. No iron or Victoria Cross could ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... hard carved wood. But Clarice's sheets were simple "cloth of Rennes," while those of her mistress were set with jewels. Her mattress was stuffed with hay instead of wool; she had neither curtains nor fly-nets, and her coverlet was of plain cloth, unwrought by the needle. In the matter of blankets they fared alike except as to quality. But in the bower-maidens' chamber, where all the girls slept together, there were no basins of any material. Early in the morning a strong-armed maid came in, bearing a tub of water, which she ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... something, for she made and baked all the oatmeal cakes, which saved Alice a good deal of time and trouble in watching them. It was astonishing how much the children could do, now that there was no one to do it for them; and they had daily instruction from Jacob. In the evening Alice sat down with her needle and thread to mend the clothes; at first they were not very well done, but she improved every day. Edith and Humphrey learned to read while Alice worked, and then Alice learned; and thus passed the winter away so rapidly, that, although they had been five months at the cottage, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... or pies, the bones in the piece of meat to be broken up for the soup pot. The filet is then to be prepared by the cook in this manner: Remove all skin and fat; fold the thin end under and skewer in place; the upper side must present a smooth surface for larding; with a larding needle lard the filet of beef in regular and even rows, with strips of firm, fat pickled pork one-quarter of an inch square and about two and one- quarter inches long. The lardoon should be about one-third of an inch under the surface and come out about three-quarters of an inch from where it ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... the Druidic temple from Jersey erected. How dull will the world be, if constant pilgrimages are not made thither! where, besides the delight of the scenes, that temple, the rude great arch, Lady Ailesbury's needle-works, and Mrs. Damer's Thames and Isis on Henley-bridge, with other of her sculptures, make it one of the most curious spots in the island, and unique. I want to have Mr. Conway's comedy acted there; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta, who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady caught the fleurette upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly, and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, have long since discovered, are ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... remember now. We had to apologize, the doctor set her head as well as he could. We gave them gingerbread from the cabin, to console them, and got them off without a fight. But the next morning when I cast off from the floe, it proved the beggars had stolen the compass card, needle and all. ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... of membranes are generally divided into acute and dull pains. The former are generally owing to increase of extension, as in pricking the skin with a needle; and the latter generally to defect of extension, as in cold head-aches; but if the edge of a knife, or point of a pin, be gradually pressed against the fibres of muscles or membranes, there would ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... than 'twas worth. But as he got it freely, so He spent it frank and freely too. For Saints themselves will sometimes be 495 Of gifts, that cost them nothing, free. By means of this, with hem and cough, Prolongers to enlighten'd stuff, He cou'd deep mysteries unriddle As easily as thread a needle. 500 For as of vagabonds we say, That they are ne'er beside their way; Whate'er men speak by this New Light, Still they are sure to be i' th' right. 'Tis a dark-lanthorn of the Spirit, 505 Which none see by but those that bear it: A light ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... diamonds sparkle amid the profuse ruffles on the bosom. The collar is turned down over a black silk riband, knotted a la Byron; but a tropic sun has more to do with this fashion than any desire to imitate the sailor-poet. Over this shirt stretch silk braces elaborately needle-worked, and still further adorned by buckles of pure gold. A hat of the costly grass from the shores of the South Sea crowns his well-oiled locks, and thus you have the "bar-keeper of the boat." His nether man need not be described. That is the unseen portion of his ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... thank you for the Epipactis. For the chance of your liking to look at what I have found: take a recently opened flower, drag gently up the stigmatic surface almost any object (the side of a hooked needle), and you will find the cap of the hemispherical rostellum comes off with a touch, and being viscid on under-surface, clings to needle, and as pollen-masses are already attached to the back of rostellum, the needle drags out much pollen. But to do ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... furrowed in all directions by deep ravines, with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to the sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail and narrow that they seem likely to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero |
