"Plumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... straight along the line and ploughed back again. Then he reploughed. The boys then began to dig, making a ditch three feet deep right through the land. In order to get the right level they used a home-made device and plumb-line which can be made as follows: Nail the ends of two six-inch boards ten feet long, so as to make a right angle; then across the open end of the triangle, nail another six-inch board having the lower edge about a foot from the ends of the boards. ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... them, as they deserve. And to go to Seventh street on a Sunday or on a week-day, for that matter, the sight is heart sickening! There Sambo and his woman, dressed to death, strut along with heads erect, looking as important as though they owned the city, or, astride their bicycles, they'll ride plumb over you. But we have put a stop to Nigger high-stepping for a while at least, thanks to our true and patriotic men, blue-blooded Southern gentlemen." "And our boys, who did so nobly!" chimed in Mrs. Engel. "Yes! ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... mine to this extent. I'll make you sick of this day's work all right before I'm through with you. Get that? Plumb sick." His eyes traveled around the half-circle till they met those of Yeager. "You'll get yours too, my friend. Believe me. Get it a-plenty. You're going to sweat blood when I git ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the axle, while you see what ails that cussed motor. Good golly! We'll be here all night at this rate. And if we keep on hopping over this field like a lame crow, we'll be plumb outa gas. For a mechanic that can make a motor, Bland, you sure ain't ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... bound to come sometime, Bound to come, I suppose. 'Tis a poor thing For us, to fall plumb in the chance of it; But, now or another time, 'twas bound to be.— I have been thinking back. When I was a lad I was delighted with my life: there seemed Naught but things to enjoy. Say we were bathing: There'ld be the cool smell of the water, and cool ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... eat a prickly pear offa bush of cactus, and got her tongue full uv stickers. Said she always heard tell them cactus apples wuz good eatin'. I propped her mouth open with a glove so she couldn't bite none, and I picked cactus stickers till I wuz plumb weary." ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... bakin' any othah time o' yeah. De bacon smell ez callin'-like, de kittle rock an' sing, De same way in de wintah dat dey do it in de spring; Dey ain't no use in mopin' 'round an' lookin' mad an' glum Erbout de wintah season, fu' hit's des plumb boun' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Cheswardine, who had a black beard, simply came along and married the little thing. She fluttered down on to his shoulders like a pigeon. She adored him, feared him, cooed to him, worried him, and knew that there were depths of his mind which she would never plumb. Woodruff, after being best man, went on loving, meekly and yet philosophically, and found his chief joy in just these suppers. The arrangement suited Vera; and as for the husband and the hopeless admirer, they had always ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... could And won't: But horny-handed sons of toil, Who now purvey our meats and drinks, Our gardens devastate, and spoil Our sinks, Shall seldom condescend to take That inconsiderable sum For which they daily butch, and bake, And plumb; Such humble votaries of trade No more shall follow arts like these; Since most of them will then be ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... Earth falls to our Share! Natural Historians tell us, that no Fruit grows Originally among us, besides Hips and Haws, Acorns and Pig-Nutts, with other Delicates of the like Nature; That our Climate of itself, and without the Assistances of Art, can make no further Advances towards a Plumb than to a Sloe, and carries an Apple to no greater a Perfection than a Crab: That [our [2]] Melons, our Peaches, our Figs, our Apricots, and Cherries, are Strangers among us, imported in different Ages, and naturalized ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... thoughts. "I've gone all out over this case. I saw, the minute they briefed me, that one tiny flaw, his neglect to take up that option—you remember, I told you—right down at the bottom of the whole tangle, and I went plumb down for it and hung on to it and fought it up like, like a diver coming up ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... first turn to the right from his house, going west. It's an unused bye-road and it runs plumb into my cabin. There's a frying pan there ... and some flour ... and bacon ... tell you what ... it's been broken into several times. I'll consider it worth while if you go and live there, and I get no rent from you for it nor the room upstairs ... you'll be alone, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... a bullet straight as a plumb line an' quick as lightnin'," he had said to Preston. "It's as nat'ral fer him as drawin' his breath. That ere chap may git bored 'fore he has time to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... said. "Everybody's ridiculous in March. You're ridiculous, I'm ridiculous, he"—she nodded along the corridor—"he's plumb ridiculous." ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... hanged, With voice so piercing shrill he twanged The word of luckless sound, His beast sprang forward at the cry, And plumb the priest dropped down from high Into ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... here, Allen. If you think you can marry Morton Bassett's daughter with that kind of a scandal in your pocket, I tell you you're mad—you've plumb gone insane! Great God, boy, you don't know the meaning of the words you use. You handle that thing like a child with a loaded pistol. Don't you see what that would mean—to Marian, to Blackford, to Mrs. Bassett—to Aunt Sally! ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... booze, he's as strong as a railway engine," returned Jim, "and he goes plumb daffy. Murder or anything else doesn't matter a hill of beans to him at a time ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... with all his strength jerked it toward him. A square in the floor opened as the trap was flapped back upon its hinges, and through the opening the haltered form shot straight downward to bring up with a great jerk, and after that to dangle like a plumb-bob on a string. Under the quick strain the gallows-arm creaked and whined; in the silence which followed the hangman was heard to exhale his breath in a vast puff of relief. His hand went up to his forehead to wipe beads of sweat ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... subtle ineradicable longing For tender comradeship? It is because I cannot all at once, Through the half-lights and phantom-haunted mists That separate and enshroud us life from life, Discern the nearness or the strangeness of thy paths Nor plumb thy depths. I am like one that comes alone at night To a strange stream, and by an unknown ford Stands, and for a moment yearns and shrinks, Being ignorant of the water, though so quiet it is, So softly murmurous, So silvered by the ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... gave me this, general, ter take ter you, an' she would hev it, though I told her she'd no business ter be botherin' yer with sich plumb foolishness." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Evvybody tried to out wuk de others, and if de job hadn't been finished 'fore night, dey kept right on at it by moonlight. One man wuked so hard tryin' to beat de others dat when he went to de spring for some water, he tuk one drink, raised his haid quick lak, and died right dar. He was plumb daid when ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the sheriff, as the applause of murmurs fell off. "And from yarns like that one you wouldn't never figure it that I was the son of a minister brung up plumb peaceful. Now, ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... folks down there plying a nefarious trade, a plumb dangerous trade," he mused, digging for the tobacco and brown papers in the pocket of his shirt. "I reckon they're carrying on in direct defiance ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... across the torrent's course, Their work withstands its mighty force, So damming it from shore to shore, That, gliding smoothly o'er, In even sheets the waters pour. Their work, as it proceeds, they grade and bevel, Or bring it up to plumb or level; First lay their logs, and then with mortar smear, As if directed by an engineer. Each labours for the public good; The old command, the youthful brood Cut down, and shape, and place the wood. Compared with theirs, e'en Plato's model state Were but the work of some apprentice pate. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... motive is, and you've suffered your share of punishment, too. It's the right of every man to begin afresh. Avoid mud and give yo' horse a firm take-off, and he'll leap as clean as a whistle for you. Lawd, Ah'm getting plumb religious," he ejaculated, ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... bet! Just you try it on, only once, Miss Sweetheart, that's all! She has all she can eat and can order it herself—lots of horses and riding—a gun—cricky, I only wish I had her chances! Think of it—just oblige me by thinking of it—secret passages to come and go by, night and day, right plumb in the wall under your nose, mysterious priests, Jesuits, Jacobites, and things. Why, it's nearly as good as Crusoe's Island, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... then with a sudden change of humor, "and now I'll do a little talking. I've listened to you just as long as I'm going to. I have Radway's contract in that safe and I live up to it. I'll thank you to go plumb to hell!" ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... so you'll know what to expect. So you'll get out of town and stay out. Because, shore as yo're a foot high, you won't live a minute longer than is plumb necessary if you don't." ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... of craftsmen that did not need sharp looking after Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things Not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth Notion of private property in truth Only condition of peace in this world is to have no ideas Opinions Out of plumb when they sit side by side Overestimate of our special individuality Pathological piety Perpetual insult to mediocrity Plenty of praying rogues and swearing saints in the world Presumption in favor of any particular belief Pseudo-science ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... which lead down from the high points to the sea. Here and there, though rarely, these slopes centre in a basin which is occupied by a lake or a dead sea. On the deeper ocean floors, so far as we may judge with the defective information which the plumb line gives us, there is no such continuity in the downward sloping of the surface, the area being cast into numerous basins, each ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... nights. The whole game was up for me. I was worse than ruined. I had half a crown in my pocket. I had ten or twelve pounds in the bank—and they wouldn't let me overdraw a farthing. I tell you, I was just plumb busted. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... y'rself," retorted Shaky, sullenly. "Mebbe young Dave Steele as come back from ther' with a hole in his head that left him plumb crazy ever since till he died, 'cos o' some racket he had wi' Jake—mebbe that's out of a dime fiction. Say, you git right to it, an' kep on sousin' whisky, Slum Ranks. You ken do that—you can't tell me ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a plumb wicket. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... pay a woman's bills; I enjoyed seeing her garments lying about on my chairs. In time that exultation wore off. But I was not unhappy, I didn't expect much, I was always so sure that no woman could ever plumb ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... diatribe against Jesuitism in the Latter-Day Pamphlets,[20] one of the most unfeignedly coarse and virulent bits of invective in the language, points plumb in the same direction. It is grossly unjust, because it takes for granted that Loyola and all Jesuits were deliberately conscious of imposture and falsehood, knowingly embraced the cause of Beelzebub, and resolutely propagated it. It is one ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... difficult was, that the walls here were lined completely with small flat bricks, and looked much the same all round. I examined these bricks as closely as I might, and took course by course, looking first at the north side where the plumb-line hung, and afterwards turning round in the bucket till I was afraid of getting giddy; but to little purpose. They could see my candle moving round and round from the well-top, and knew no doubt what I was at, but Master Turnkey grew impatient, and shouted down, 'What are you doing? have ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... nervous should screw their courage to the sticking-place, and give grave attention to that awful moral lesson, for all of us have a little of Barry in our composition. Thackeray's sudden inspiration enabled him to plumb the deeps of the scoundrel nature, and he saw with the eye of genius that the very quality which makes a bad man dangerous is his belief in his own goodness. If you look at the appalling narrative of Lyndon's life in this country, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... of whom he could ask shelter and subsistence for his old age; and having looked and searched thoroughly all around, he found himself actually destitute and RUINED. For, "to let a man's self fall plumb down, and from so great a height, it ought to be in the arms of a solid, vigorous, and fortunate friendship. They are very rare, if there be any." Speaking in such a manner, we perceive that La Boetie had been some time dead. Then he felt that he must after all rely ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... fellers," he said, "I plumb forgot what I come over here for. They's goin' to be a dance over to town, an' I come to tell you about it. O' ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... "that New York is a plumb dead town; but I'll go. I can take a whirl in San Antone for a few days on my way and ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... And,—what is completely analogous,—in Amos vii. 1-3, the prophet beholds the approaching divine judgment under the image of a swarm of locusts, just as, in ver. 4, under that of a fire, and in ver. 7, under that of a plumb-line. All these three images are in substance identical; their meaning is expressed in ver. 9 by the words: "The high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be destroyed." The locusts denote destroying hostile armies; ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... don't mean Y.D.'s daughter I don't mean anybody, and you can take that from me. You bet it's Zen. Say, Linder, I didn't think I could go silly over a girl, but I'm plumb locoed. I bought the biggest old sparkler in this town and sent it out with Y.D., if he didn't lose it through the lining of his vest—he handled it like it might have been a box of pills—bad pills, Linder—and I've got an architect figuring how much expense he can put on a house—he ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... folks can see. An'—an', mind yer, toot that old horn good an' loud, so as everybody'll know we're a-comin'." As the automobile moved away he beamed with proud satisfaction. "Some swells we are—heh? Skinny an' Chuck an' the gang'll be plumb crazy when they see us. Some class, I'll tell ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... the former expedition to Peru, acting in conjunction with one to Lapland, which was sent out for the same purpose in the eighteenth century, it had been noticed that the attraction of the mountainous regions deflected the plumb-line of the large instruments seven or eight seconds from the perpendicular, and, consequently, greatly impaired the enterprise. At the Cape, on the contrary, there was a magnificent table-land of vast expanse, where this difficulty could not occur. Accordingly, on the 4th of September, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... only the low-born, deform'd and old, Think glory nothing but the beams of gold; The first young lord, which in the mall you meet, Shall match the veriest huncks in Lombard-street, From rescu'd candles' ends, who rais'd a sum, And starves to join a penny to a plumb. A beardless miser! 'tis a guilt unknown To former times, a scandal all our own. Of ardent lovers, the true modern band Will mortgage Celia to redeem their land. For love, young, noble, rich, Castalio dies: Name but the fair, love swells into his eyes. Divine Monimia, thy fond fears lay down; No ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... spread for flight, and, in the surging smoke Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft. That fury stayed— Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea, Nor good dry land—nigh foundered, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... critter!" he said, contemptuously. "I hain't goin' to hurt him, Uncl' Gabe, but he must be a plumb idgit, a-talkin' 'bout folks to thar face, 'n' him so puny ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... at the sweet, concerned face of Genevieve Cooper. From the intentness with which she hung upon my every action and change of expression, I knew that she was trying to plumb the farther depths and learn the trend of the hidden currents of this drama, which was of such vital moment to her. I was glad that I could still offer her the encouragement ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... candy sucker from a baby. 'Curly' let go of that 'six' like he was plumb tired of it, and the kid welted him over the ear just oncet. Then he turned on the room; and right there my heart went out to him. He took in the line up at a sweep of ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... study natur' a bit, before we turns back. An' thinkin' it's safe t' do so, I lets go o' Bull's halter. An' while I'm studyin' an' takin' a nip from a flask I happens t' have in my jeans, I forgets Bull for a minit, an' when I looks up, he's plumb absent. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... did not stand up, "go ahead; but you'll stop in the light; and if you feel like sending any of your partners to work a traverse round this bunch of fern, you can remember that I've got the forehead plumb on—you." ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Ararat," replied Pinzon. "You sat upon the deck until we ran plumb into an island, after floating about for three months, and then you couldn't tell it from a continent, even when you had it right before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told his family that he discovered a roof garden as for you to go back to Spain telling ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... a tragic hand towards the engine, and Evan saw for himself what had happened. The main shaft on the port side had broken clean through. The sudden shifting of the strain had thrown the walking-beam out of plumb, and the connecting rods had snapped off and threshed wildly about. The ruin was complete, but fortunately, all ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... didn't I tell you I shook hands with this boy an' was plumb glad to meet him?" demanded Laddy, with considerable heat. Manifestly he had been affronted. "Tom Beldin', he's a gentleman, an' he could lick you in—in half a second. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Mayberry, as she watched the expedition wend its way down the white Road in the direction of the Bolivar pike, "the way the Deacon do love the children is plumb beautiful, and sad some too. I don't know what he would do without Jem or they without him. Seeing 'em together reminds me of that scraggy, old snowball bush in full bloom, leaning down to the little ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down. ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... to himself, with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. "Smoke, we'll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so it ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... we kind of misused the fellow for being stingy—for which we ought to have been smashed with logs—that we have a kind of a claim on 'em, as 'twere, and they on us. And we must get 'em out of that yonder before they freeze plumb solid." He stopped inquiringly. ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... "When the community needs him a man's got to come through or be a yellow hound. But you've got no right to toss away yore life plumb foolishly just because you've got a tender heart." Billie stopped again, then threw away any scruples he might have on the score of friendship. "Jim is goin' to be what he is to the end of the chapter. You can't change him. Nobody can. In this ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... could say? Certainly nobody knew or was likely to know; for the Master of Saint Bede's was a person, the depth of whose nature could not be fathomed easily with any line. Possibly because, old as he was, it happened, as does happen in some lives, that the right plumb-line, by the right hand, had never been ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... when they eats persimmons, an' so, o' course, jest nacher'ly the trees 'll spring up where the niggers git planted. So they'd be ha'nts like's not. But I hain't superstitious—not a mite. Mr. Sutton, he said such things as ha'nts an' witch-doctors an' such was all plumb foolishness. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... disastrous gambit: whereas if, in well-nigh obsolete fashion, you confess the universe to be a weightier matter than the contents of your skull, and your wits a somewhat slender instrument wherewith to plumb infinity,—why, then you will recall that it is written God is love, and this recollection, too, is conducive ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... nature austerely smiling, the heavens of a cold blue, and sown with great cloud islands, and the mountain-sides mapped forth into provinces of light and shadow. A short walk restored me to myself, and renewed within me the resolve to plumb this mystery; and when, from the vantage of my knoll, I had seen Felipe pass forth to his labours in the garden, I returned at once to the residencia to put my design in practice. The Senora appeared plunged in slumber; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wretched, allegoric machinery; (2) at the transmogrification of the fanatic virago into a modern novel-pawing proselyte of the "Age of Reason,"—a Tom Paine in petticoats; (3) at the utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead plumb-down of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle, and sinew ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... facades and interiors of these buildings arrests the observer's attention, and, indeed, fills him with amazement, as does their construction in general. What instruments of precision did a rude people possess who could raise such walls, angles, monoliths, true and plumb as the work of the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... of appreciation, believe me. But I've a young lady here who is 'plumb crazy' over posies and, coming along on the steamer, I promised her a glimpse of some of Yarmouth's garden 'cosy corners.' I know none lovelier than your own; and as for your window-plants—I'm afraid if we don't take her away from temptation she'll break the glass and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... admired very much, for they were both spacious and well-situated—on the side of the promenade nearest to the bath. Diphilus had placed the columns out of the perpendicular, and not opposite each other. These, of course, he shall take down; he will learn some day to use the plumb-line and measure. On the whole, I hope Diphilus's work will be completed in a few months: for Qesius, who was with me at the time, keeps a very ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... be a fool as you see me," Gordon contended stubbornly; "and the few liars that get my money may laugh. But there's this, there's this, Simmons—I'm not cursed by the dispossessed and the ailing and the plumb penniless. I don't go to a man with his crop a failure on the field like, well—we'll say, Cannon does, with a note in my hand for his breath. I've put a good few out of—of Cannon's reach. Did you forget that I know how it feels to hear Ed ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... "are you plumb daft to stickle for little niceties now? I tell you I just helped to pick up Judge Amidon and his son, murdered in their own hayfield not three miles from here, the boy as full of arrows as a cushion of pins. This isn't ancient history, man, but took place this very day. ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... my young cousin's—you know, young Will Henderson, of Barnriff; he's a trapper now—education on my hands. Just as things were good and dollars were coming plenty the enterprise bust. I was out—plumb out. I hunched up for another kick. I had a dandy patent that was to do big things. I got together a syndicate to run it. I'd got a big car built to demonstrate my patent, and it represented all I had in the world. It was to be on the ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... holy war. I'm hell bent for peace. I'm going to stop him. I'm not arguing that point, for it won't bear arguing, and I'm not trying to convert you. But you're in my power, and though I sure would hate to inconvenience a lady, I'm that plumb remorseless I'd separate you from Ali Higg for ever unless you helped me ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... the fact. "Why don't you marry him, Aunt Minerva, so's he could live right here with us? An' I could learn him how to churn. I s'pec' he 'd make a beautiful churner. He sho' is a pretty little fat man," he continued flatteringly. "An' dress? That beau was jest dressed plumb up to the top notch. I sho' would marry him if I's you an' not turn up my nose at him 'cause he wears pants, an' you can learn him how to talk properer'n what he do an' I betcher he'd jest nachelly take to a broom, an' I s'pec' he ain't got nobody 'tall to show ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... for some time he continued: "The door jamb is built in vertically; that is sure. A string, or piece of thread will make a plumb-bob; here it is: now let us see; according to the plumb line the boat is at an angle of 33 degrees, as nearly as our imperfect device indicates. There, now this line A shows the top of the boat and B the base of the conning tower. A line C, from the top of the water to the ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... it? That willing lad of yours has plumb knocked the answer out of my noodle. Maybe you're thinking of some one else, Buck." Dingwell looked up at him with an innocent, ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... that its sublimity is an inversion of the sublimity of almost all other grand scenery. It is not so much the heights that are prodigious as the abysses. At certain points in the course of the Colorado of the West you can drop a plumb line six thousand feet before it will reach the bosom of the current; and you can only gain the water level by turning backward for scores of miles and winding laboriously down some subsidiary canon, itself ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... I was riding the flat by Antelope Springs and I sees a lump on the dry mud inside the rush belt. I knowed I never seen that before, so I rides up, thinking it might be some of our stock, an' seen it was a horse lying plumb flat. The wind was blowing like—from him to me, so I rides up close and seen it was the Pacer, dead as a mackerel. Still, he didn't look swelled or cut, and there wa'n't no smell, an' I didn't know ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... be darned if the changeablest one ain't the kind to hold a feller longest. But it's h—l. I was married onct. Not any more for mine! A pal I had used to say thet whiskey riled him, thet rattlesnake pisen het up his blood some, but it took a woman to make him plumb bad. D—n if it ain't so. When there's a woman around ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... Tabitha," he pleaded, "you've drubbed him enough. Shake me if you ain't through yet. You'll have him plumb addled! Really, we were just in for some fun. We never dreamed the kids would scare so easy. That's only vegetable dye on Rosslyn's head. He thought we had scalped him, but we ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... trouble together, an' be happy together, an' grow old bein' happy together—if they're swoppin' all that for these here new, down-to-date ideas of such things, they're makin' a damned poor bargain, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. There is such a thing, sir, as educatin' a man or woman plumb out ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... balanced his brief pleasure of an hour with his little boy by an added gentleness to his wife—perhaps a bunch of violets, bought at the florist's on Maple Street where Lily got her flower pots or her bulbs. He was very lonely, and increasingly bothered about Jacky. ... "Lily will let him go plumb to hell. But I put him on the toboggan! ... I'm responsible for his existence," he used to think. And sometimes he repeated the words he had spoken that night when he had felt the first stir ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Some town. My outfit was in Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was raisin' hell round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a kid I used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl down there, who said she'd just come down to ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... from various vegetable glands hardened in the air produce gums, resins, and various kinds of saccharine, saponaceous, and wax-like substances, as the gum of cherry or plumb-trees, gum tragacanth from the astragalus tragacantha, camphor from the laurus camphora, elemi from amyris elemifera, aneme from hymenoea courbaril, turpentine from pistacia terebinthus, balsam of Mecca from the buds of amyris opobalsamum, branches of which are placed ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... trade. I never denied that, though I do say I never did believe in her way o' makin' button-holes; and I must say, if 'twas the dearest friend I hed, that I thought Huldy tryin' to fit Mis' Kit-tridge's plumb-colored silk was a clear piece o' presumption; the silk was jist spiled, so 'twarn't fit to come into the meetin'-house. I must say, Huldy's a gal that's always too ventersome about takin' 'spon-sibilities she ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... brig's that?' But none of these tricks will answer with t'other, who misses the whipping off the end of a gasket, as soon as any first luff of us all. And so I'll just go about the business in earnest; get the carpenter up with his plumb-bob, and set every thing as straight up-and-down as the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when Keller touched him ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... office and informed me he was, plumb weary of the life of a bon vivant and was anxious to get to sea again. So I made him master of a new steamer we acquired recently, and he's gone out to Vladivostok ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... to play something," a man they called Day interpreted. "Hen's loco on music. If you can sing and play both, Hen'll set and listen till plumb daylight and never ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... I'm fed up with her. But I'm like that: I just can't tell her so. I'm not brave enough to tell her to go plumb to hell. That's the way I am, see? When I like a woman, I get plain silly; and if she doesn't start something, I've not got the courage to do anything myself." He sighed. "There's Camilla at the ranch for instance.... Now, she's not much on looks, I know, ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... has there," said Dick, "and I had rather not have given Conkey Jem a taste of blue plumb, had there been any other mode of silencing the snitching scoundrel, which there was not. As to the Major, he's a gallant enemy, and shall have fair play as long as Dick Turpin stands by. Come, sir," added he, to ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rings got the blue ribbon. Sam said it took a good eye and a steady arm and a good seat to manage the thing, and he enjoyed watchin' 'em. 'But,' says he, 'why they call the thing a t'u'nament is more'n I could make out. I stayed there a plumb hour, and I couldn't hear nor see anything that sounded or looked ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length of my coat: but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs would not ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... on the stoop and keep me company," continued Mrs. Clover; "I'm plumb tired of sitting round all alone. Moon'll be up before long; it's a purty ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... glow. War? Who could think of War? . . . Nicky-Nan at any rate let the thought of it slip into the sea of his private trouble. It was as though he had hauled up some other man's "sinker" and, discovering his mistake, let it drop back plumb. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... his breath as he threw open the lid. There they lay, the half-forgotten symbols of his old life. Worn mallets, chisels, the head of a broken hod with the plaster still caked into it, a short broad shovel for mixing mortar, a trowel, a spirit level, a plumb, all wrapped loosely in a worn leather apron. He took the mallets in his hand and turned them about with the quick little jerks that came so naturally to him. Strength for the work had come into his arms. All the old ambitions which he thought had been stifled with his early manhood sprang ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... the boss puts on a kind of eatin' jacket, a sawed-off coat that makes a growed man look plumb foolish, and she comes out in silk and satin that shows considerable hide. Have you met this ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... "It's ours—yours! And every stick of the furniture more than half paid for already! I didn't tell you how well we're doing at the store. Say, golly, I sure did have a time training Lena to play the game, like she didn't know us. She thought I was plumb nutty, at first!" ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... with their edges not quite plumb with the outside edge of the wall, and being frozen into place, left an uncovered space about five feet six inches square. Returning to the old berg, the party took down the shooting-box from the top of the cave, and filling it with the remaining boughs, and a part of the seal-skins, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... To make Plumb-Porridge:—Take a leg and shin of beef to ten gallons of water, boil it very tender, and when the broth is strong, strain it out, wipe the pot, and put in the broth again; slice six penny-loaves thin, cutting off the top and bottom; put some of the liquor to it, cover it up, and let it ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... specify in what quarter lie the grounds of darkest dread, respecting the America of our hopes, I should have to point to this particular. I should demand the invariable application to individuality, this day and any day, of that old, ever-true plumb-rule of persons, eras, nations. Our triumphant modern civilizee, with his all-schooling and his wondrous appliances, will still show himself but an amputation while this deficiency remains. Beyond, (assuming a more hopeful tone,) the vertebration of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Blewitt, and Mr. Dawkins, Exquires. My i, how we genlmn in the kitchin did enjy it. Mr. Blewittes man eat so much grous (when it was brot out of the parlor), that I reely thought he would be sik; Mr. Dawkinses genlmn (who was only abowt 13 years of age) grew so il with M'Arony and plumb-puddn, as to be obleeged to take sefral of Mr. D's. pils, which 1/2 kild him. But this is all promiscuous: I an't talkin of the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cat's a plumb fool," declared Cap'n Amazon. "They'll desert ship as soon as wink. Treacherous critters, the hull tribe. Why, when I was up country in Cuba once, I stopped at a man's hacienda and he had a tame wildcat—had had it from a kitten. Brought it up ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... the chance to question Luke, and he declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it." We could only exchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... over wide areas, there is a conspiracy on foot. If you do not produce enough aeroplanes, it is the work of spies; if there is trouble in Ireland, it is German or Bolshevik "gold." And if you go stark, staring mad looking for plots, you see all strikes, the Plumb plan, Irish rebellion, Mohammedan unrest, the restoration of King Constantine, the League of Nations, Mexican disorder, the movement to reduce armaments, Sunday movies, short skirts, evasion of the liquor laws, Negro self-assertion, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... corners, and nailed together with large nails. Having laid the sills upon the foundation, the next thing in order is to put up the studding. Use 4 by 4 studs for corners and door posts, or spike two 2 by 4 studs together, stand them up, set them plumb, and with stay laths secure them in position. Set up the intermediate studs, which are 2 by 4 inches, and 16 inches between centres, toe or nail them diagonally to the sill. Then put in the floor joists for first floor, each joist to be placed alongside each stud, and nailed to it ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... whose name I'se plumb forget, wuz pore white trash an' he wuz meaner dan de meanest nigger. Anyhow I wuz too little ter do much wuck so I played a heap an' I had ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... with pendulous and protuberant abdomens as the result of feebleness of the hypogastric muscles, to accumulation of fat under the skin and in the omentum, and to dilation of the stomach and intestines. In the "wall exercise," the patient stands erect against an absolutely straight and plumb wall, lifts his hands (carrying a weight) straight over the head, and causes them to describe a semicircle forward. Zantz particularly insists upon arm and leg exercise for the obese, especially the former, since with the same amount of effort a larger amount ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's head am plumb white, an' she tek' note li'l' black Mose's face am de color ob wood-ash, so she jes retch' one arm round dat li'l' black boy, an' she jes snuggle' him up, an' ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... she must count the number of heads, and explained to her the advantage of the plumb-line in determining the action of the figure. Mildred was much interested; she wondered if she would be able to put the instruction she was receiving into practice, and was disappointed when the model got down from the table and put ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... least width, so that all the intermediate crests and pinnacles which topped the perpendicular wall stood within our vision like the teeth of a saw, clear and sharp-cut against the blue sky. There is the same plumb-line uprightness in these mighty precipices as in those of the opposite side; but their front is much more broken by bold promontories, and their tabular tops, instead of lying horizontal, slope up at an angle of forty-five degrees or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... anything. We'll have a pack of hounds, too, and we can drive pig in the woods, and if we want big game there are the Mangwe flats at our feet. I tell you I'll make such a country-house as nobody ever dreamed of. A man will come plumb out of stark savagery into lawns and rose-gardens." Lawson flung himself into his chair again and smiled dreamily ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... brung him out here in de shade so I could watch him and 'tend to him whilst I wuks. Jasper stepped on a old plank what had two rusty nails in it, and both of 'em went up in his foot a fur ways. I done driv dem nails plumb up to dey haids in de north side of a tree and put jimpson weed poultices on Jasper's foot, but it's ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... sounding rod, sounding line; lead. bathymetry. [instrument to measure depth] sonar, side-looking sonar; bathometer^. V. be deep &c adj.; render deep &c adj.; deepen. plunge &c 310; sound, fathom, plumb, cast the lead, heave the lead, take soundings, make soundings; dig &c (excavate) 252. Adj. deep, deep seated; profound, sunk, buried; submerged &c 310; subaqueous, submarine, subterranean, subterraneous, subterrene^; underground. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... works, when once the wheels are loosed, How nimbly, with what swift activity. I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep, There are so many things to think upon, So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh, To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth. Yet in that thought I do rebuke myself, Too little given to probe the inner heart, But rather wont, with the luxurious eye, To catch from life it's outer loveliness, Such things as do but store the joyous memory With food for solace rather than for thought, Like light-lined ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... "If you was to get a leg over a bronc', and the bronc' should find it out—Say, I've got a li'l' blue horse out on my place in the Antelopes that'd plumb give his ears to have you try it; he shore would. You take my advice, and don't you go huntin' a job night-ridin' in the greasewood ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... nor Gothic, nor Saxon, and exhibits a strange mixture of Pagan and Christian ornaments, not very unfrequent in Italian churches. The Leaning Tower should be contemplated from the portico of the church to heighten its effect: when the perpendicular column cuts it to the eye like a plumb line, the obliquity appears ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... Madame George Sand must be gratified this time! Your article this morning upon her autobiography really did hit the bull's-eye, plumb! What fire! what enthusiasm! what ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... are you plumb bugs? Why—" Vic gulped and stuttered. "Say, where do you get that stuff? You better tie a can to it, sis; it don't get over with me. I'm for screen fame, and I'm going to get it too. Why, by the time I'm twenty, I'll betcha I can pull down a salary ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... hopeful as the spring, And up my fluttering heart is borne aloft As high and gladsome as the lark at sunrise, And then as though some fowler's shaft had pierced it It comes plumb down in such a dead, dead fall.' —FROM Philip ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... "Pardon me, I'd plumb forgotten that you bruised your shin!" Judd slowed up. Fifteen minutes later an exhausted looking party ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... bird, talkin'. An old gobbler is tellin' his hens that day is comin'. It's a plumb waste on his part, because they know it theirselves, but he must jest let 'em know what a smart bird he is. An' it's that pride uv his that will be his ruin. Git up, Paul; we must have him an' one ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... work, if there is no help at hand to hold the overhead line, it is common practice to fasten the plumb line to a nail or other suitable projection. On coming down to the lower floor it is often found that the bob has been secured either too high or too low. When fastening the line give it plenty of slack and when the lower floor is reached make a double loop in the line, as shown in the sketch. Tightening ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Rabbinical and Talmudic tendencies; he must acquaint himself with the heretical leanings of a certain era, and the shadow cast upon the page by apocryphal tradition. In philosophy he is still worse off, because he must plumb the depths of metaphysical jargon and master the criticism ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... said, "did you ever hear about that prospector that found a thousand pounds of gold in one chunk? He was lost on the desert, plumb out of water and forty miles from nowhere. He couldn't take the chunk along with him and if he left it there the sand would cover it up. Now what was that poor ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plumb-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the bleachers, and heard the pound of feet and the crash, but it was the spirit of my team that thrilled me. Next to that the work of my new find absorbed me. I gloated over his easy, deceiving swing. I rose out of my seat when he threw that straight fast ball, swift as a bullet, true as a plumb line. And when those hard-hitting, sure bunting Bisons chopped in vain at the wonderful drop, I choked back a wild yell. For Rube meant the world ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... woodwork. At the same time the forehead should meet the upper portion of the door, when it may be assumed that a perfect standing posture has been taken. The poise will seem at first to be a little forward of a straight line, but to disprove this it will be found that a plumb line dropped from the ear will fall through shoulder, hip and ankle. The head will be poised as if to carry a burden steadily on the crown and the weight of the body will rest on the ball of ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... was always your great fault—trying to plumb shallows and to take high dives into water ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... This phenomenon was so unexpected and startling, that for a moment I thought our faces would be touched by the skirts of the glorious auroral drapery. It did not follow the spheric curve of the firmament, but hung plumb from the zenith, falling, apparently, millions of leagues through the air, its folds gathered together among the stars and its embroidery of flame sweeping the earth and shedding a pale, unearthly radiance over the wastes of snow. A moment afterwards and it was again ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... gave me his horse, Baldy, which sometimes bucked but never went over backwards, and he got on the now rearisen Ben Butler. To my discomfiture Ben started quietly beside us, while Sylvane remarked, "Why, there's nothing the matter with this horse; he's a plumb gentle horse." Then Ben fell slightly behind and I heard Sylvane again, "That's all right! Come along! Here, you! Go on, you! Hi, hi, fellows, help me out! he's lying on me!" Sure enough, he was; and when we dragged Sylvane from under him the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the seed that is dropt in those furrows of fear, Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear. Down it drops plumb, Where no spring times come; And here there needeth no harrowing gear: Wheat nor poppy nor any leaf Will cover this naked ground ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... curiosity Waldemar watched Average Jones place the ladder against the outside of the pole, mount, nail up the sign, drop a plumb-line, improvised from a key and a length of string, to the ground, set a careful knot in the string ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... stooping shoulders. Head up, shoulders back!" Now I confess I was walking, and thinking as I walked, with shoulders bent and head forward. At once I straightened up and looked about to see who was speaking. It was the voice of a pine tree, growing hard by the path, tall and straight as a plumb line. "Thank you," I ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... something beneficial for the cavalry, in which he felt much the same special interest that I did in the artillery. So a sort of alliance, offensive and defensive, was formed, which included as its most active and influential member Senator Plumb of Kansas, to obtain the necessary funds and build a suitable post and establish at Fort Riley a school of cavalry and light artillery. The result finally attained, when I was in command of the army, is well known, and is an honor ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... my other letter I was afraid that you would think me plumb bold about the little Bo-Peep, and was a heap sorrier than you can think. If you only knew the hardships these poor men endure. They go two together and sometimes it is months before they see another soul, and rarely ever a woman. I wouldn't act so free in town, but these men see people ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... baby, she's got to have those shots. They say kids shrink down into nothing. Weigh less than two pounds when they're born, and never grow up to be any bigger than midgets. You ask me, the whole thing's plumb loco, ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... sickness just so he could hide at home safe." There were tears of another sort in Miss Schmitt's eyes now. Kessler thought he detected a brightness in his wife's eyes. "No," Miss Schmitt said, "Bob was afraid of life. Just plumb scared." She refused to let the tears flow. "Oh, but I'm being a terrible hostess! I have so few visitors now. How about some ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... light; You might mistake it for a ship, Only it stands too plumb upright, And like the others does not slip Behind the sea's unsteady brink; Though, if a cloud-shade chance to dip Upon it a moment, 'twill suddenly sink, Levelled and lost in the darkened main, Till the sun builds it suddenly up again, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... vigor. "Usedn't you to keep me awake praying for her—hollerin' at God to forgive her? Didn't you, or did you?" No answer. "And you think this is her!" The ridiculousness of the fantasy smote him. "Say, you must 'a' went plumb nutty! Bendin' over that tub must 'a' gave you a rush ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the principal are plantains, of which they have fifteen different sorts or varieties; breadfruit; two sorts of fruit found at Otaheite, and known there under the names of jambu and geevee; the latter a kind of plumb; and vast numbers of shaddocks, which, however, are found as often in a natural state, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... iron-stained trachyte and coarse porphyroid gray trachyte; very rarely a dark vitreous trachyte. Chimborazo is very likely not a solid mountain: trachytic volcanoes are supposed to be full of cavities. Bouguer found it made the plumb-line ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... required, the vaults were thrown, and the whole building was left to settle down. Owing to the enormous amount of mortar used this settling must have been very considerable, and explains why hardly a plumb wall exists in Constantinople, and why so many vaults show a pronounced sinking in at the crown or have fallen in and have been rebuilt. After the walls had set the marble facings, mosaic, and colour were applied and could be ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... I come, Before this same old Time shall strike me numb, To carry it out."—"Strange, this is!" said the other; "What mind shall plumb ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... him warmly on the back). My dear chap, you've just hit the nail plumb on the right head. That's what I've said all along. The whole country's being simply ruined with all these blessed Councils. Every man will have to be his own Council before long, if they go on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... unspeakably decrepit and fallen from a former high estate. The old house presented to Maria's fancy something in itself degraded and loathsome. It seemed to partake actually of the character of its inmates—to be stained and swollen and out of plumb with unmentionable sins of degeneration. It was a very poisonous fungus of a house, with blotches of paint here and there, with its front portico supported drunkenly on swaying pillars, with its roof hollowed about the chimney, with great stains here and there upon the walls, which seemed like ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a woman, really—not all her thoughts." And had Major Durward, honest fellow, realized the volcanic force of passion hidden behind the tense inscrutability of his wife's lovely face, he would have been utterly confounded. We do not plumb the deepest depths even of those who are closest ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... trace the ledge up and down the gulch and to estimate the probable extent of that pay streak. Then he gave it up in self-defense. "I've got to watch my dodgers," he admonished himself, "or I'll go plumb loco and imagine I'm a millionaire. I'll pan what I can get at and let it go at that. And I've got to count what gold shows up in the sack—and no more. Good Lord! I can't afford to make a fool of myself at this stage of the game! ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... those almighty tools that do every thing of themselves, without the help of a workman. When the atoms, says he, descend in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make high and low in infinity), they do not fall plumb down, but decline a little from the perpendicular, either obliquely or in a curve; and this declination, says he, from the direct line is the cause of our liberty of will. But, I say, this declination of atoms in their descent was itself either necessary or voluntary. If it ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... dusty, and I was plumb crazy for water. Somehow I managed to work my way out to a big clear space on the side of the hill. The brush and weeds were up to your neck. At the foot of the hill was a piece of marshy land where there had once been a spring. It had long since dried ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... we have travelled so fast," answered the raven. "In your world you cannot pull up the plumb-line you call gravitation, and let the world spin round under your feet! But here is my wife's house! She is very good to let me live with her, and ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... this morning, eh? Wish it well for me. If I've got to be civilized I'm going to be plumb ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... right to home!" laughed the cow-boy. "You just light down and we'll trail over to Chola Charley's and prospect a tub of frijoles. The dinner-bell when you are broke is plumb correct. Got any more of that ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... tell me who was the most excellent of these, of the kings and their steeds, who followed the son of Atreus to Troy. The steeds of the descendant of Pheres were indeed by far the most excellent, which Eumelus drove, swift as birds, like in hair, like in age, and level in [height of] back by the plumb-line.[134] These, bearing with them the terror of Mars, both mares, silver-bowed Apollo fed in Pieria.[135] Of the heroes Telamonian Ajax was by far the best, whilst Achilles continued wrathful, for he was by far the bravest; ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... mouthful from one of the "hanks" to test the quality. "But I'll tell ye what's a fact. When I come home tonight, after a meetin' of that there Committee of Safety I was tellin' you about, I found that I had plumb disremembered to fetch along the bacon, meal, an' taters that my wife done told me to bring, an' so I thought I would jest run over an' see if I couldn't borry some of you to last me ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been Peter Birt 'stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this hyar ledge plumb till the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... striking a blow. Afterwards, continuing to follow the same army to certain other strongholds, his evil fortune would have it that he should be killed while attempting to measure certain heights at a difficult point; for when he had put his head out beyond the wall in order to let a plumb-line down, a priest who was with the enemy (who feared the genius of Cecca more than the might of the whole camp) discharged a catapult at him and fixed a great dart in his head, insomuch that the poor fellow died on the spot. The fate ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... that is, as architects build, by plumb line and level. Trinculo picks up the word line and makes ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester |
