"Rack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a fresh chew of long, green tobacco, and rosined his bow. He glided off into "Hop light ladies, your cake's all dough," and then I heard the watch dog's honest bark. I heard the guinea's merry "pot-rack." I heard a cock crow. I heard the din of happy voices in the "big house" and the sizz and songs of boiling kettles in the kitchen. It was an old time quilting—the May-day of the glorious ginger cake and cider era of the American Republic; and the needle ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... moment, both the thieves drew knives and made at me together, and I, springing backwards, seized from the wooden rack of weapons the first which my hand reached. It was a musket. Instinctively, for there was no time to reason, I cocked, presented in a sort of charge-bayonet attitude, the only one possible, and pulled trigger. The old weapon went off with a deafening report, sending ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... thorough-bred Englishman,' by some 'a genuine John Bull;' but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. He was in the commission of the peace, and could write his name almost legibly; but his greatest qualifications were, that he was more severe with poachers, was a better shot, a harder rider, had better horses, kept better dogs, could eat more solid food, drink ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the flat landscape glide past, while she thought a little wistfully of the morning she had made this same trip dressed in one of Mrs. Gay's gowns. On her knees Mrs. Gay's canary, extinguished beneath the black silk cover to his cage, uttered from time to time a feeble pipe of inquiry, and on the rack above her head Mrs. Gay's tea basket rattled loudly in a sudden lurch of the train. Since the hour in which she had left the overseer's cottage and moved into the "big house" at Jordan's Journey, the appealing little lady had been the dominant influence in her life—an ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... noble mind Most truly loved her; one whose fond Clear-sighted vision looked beyond The bounds of her infirmity, And saw the woman, perfectly Modeled, and wrought out pure and true And lovable. She quailed, and drew Her hands away, but closer still I caught them. "Rack me as you will!" She cried out sharply—"Call me 'blind'— Love ever is—I am resigned! Blind is your friend; as blind as he Am I—but blindest of the three— Yea, blind as death—you will not see My love for you ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... revolving chair and laughed, too, in so alarming a manner as to lead her to fear he would fall over backwards. But Mr. Cuthbert, who did not appear to perceive the humour in this conversation, extracted some keys and several pasteboard slips from a rack in the corner. Suddenly Mr. Shorter jerked himself upright again, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... martial. The highest rewards were promised her if she would disclose the names and plans of her associates. The inducements proving of no avail, torture was employed to wring from her the secret, in which so many of the best families of Colombia were interested, but even on the rack she persisted in making no disclosure. The accomplished young lady, hardly eighteen years of age, was condemned to be shot. She calmly and serenely heard her sentence, and prepared to meet her fate. She confessed to a Catholic priest, partook of the sacrament, and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... was a bright sunny day and the air very clear, and as they rode Ralph said: "Quite clear is the sky, and yet one cloud there is in the offing; but this is strange about it, though I have been watching it this half hour, and looking to see the rack come up from that quarter, yet it changes not at all. I never saw ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... uninspired man certainly finds persons a conveniency in household matters, the divine man does not respect them: he sees them as a rack of clouds, or a fleet of ripples which the wind drives over the surface of the water. But this is flat rebellion. Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million of ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the number subjected to this torture was really very small,—probably not nearly as large in proportion as the number of criminals and political prisoners who, in some countries of Europe, at about the same time, were subjected to the equally cruel torments of the rack and the wheel. These criminals and other prisoners were so tortured because they were regarded as the enemies of society. The motives which actuated the Iroquois were precisely the same. As has been before remarked, the mode in which their enemies carried ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... I view above, Not laurel-crown'd, but clad in rusty black; Not spurring Pegasus through Tempe's grove, But pacing Grub-street on a jaded hack; What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack, Ye mar to make again! for sure, ere long, Condemn'd to tread the bard's time-sanction'd track, Ye all shall join the bailiff-haunted throng, And reproduce, in rags, the rags ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... circumstances when pity to some, to one, was wicked injustice to others: as if there were times when it is right and needful to lop off, at once and forever, a rotten branch rather than let the whole tree go to rack and ruin. I would do it! I should think myself justified ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... they sat in council; At length the Mayor broke silence: "For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, I wish I were a mile hence! It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— I'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 I've scratched it so, and all in vain. Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!" Just as he said this, what should hap At the chamber door but a gentle tap? "Bless us," cried the ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... in something like a larger hall of a private house, with perhaps a parlor and coffee-room on one side, and the office, and smoking-room, and stairway on the other. You may leave your coat and hat on the rack in the hall, and stand your umbrella there also, with full assurance that you will find them there when you want them, if it be the next morning or the next week. Instead of that petty tyrant the hotel clerk, a young woman sits in the office with her sewing or other needlework, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... huge armies, the throwing down of fortified cities, the hauling of women and children into captivity, and the beheading of traitors — this is also work which is done by officials. The objects of the rack and of military weapons are essentially the same. There is no intrinsic difference between the punishment of flogging and cutting off heads in war. For the lesser infractions of law, which are easily dealt with, only a small amount of force need be employed: hence the use of military weapons and ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... that flag for you," he said to Hamilton, "if I have to put every man, woman and child in this town on the rack. It lies, I think, between Miss Roussillon and the priest, although both insistently deny it. I've thought it over in every way, and I can't see how they can both be ignorant of where it is, or at ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... door of the lifeboat opened, the captain of the Muldoon was waiting outside the lifeboat rack. He didn't know exactly what he had expected to see, but it somehow seemed fitting that a lean, bearded man in a badly worn uniform and a haggard look about ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett
... subject that annoys them, they call our attention to some pigeon on the roof, giving food to its little one, or some coachman down in the street who is abusing his horse. Sometimes they even maliciously propose one of those alarming questions that put the minds of parents on the rack; all this to divert attention from the distressing topic. I fear that in the face of duty we are big children, and, when that is the theme, seek subterfuges to ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... and numberless other ways did the British officers seem to rack their inventions to insult, terrify, and vex the poor prisoners. The meanest, upstart officers among them would insult and abuse our colonels and ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... cabbages, collards, green corn, fat meat, cornbread, 'taters and sometimes chicken. Yes Ma'am, chicken dinners was sorter special. Us didn't have 'em too often. De cookin' was all done at de big house in a open fireplace what had a rack crost it dat could be pulled out to take de pots off de fire. 'Fore dey started cookin', a fire was made up ready and waitin'; den de pots of victuals was hung on de rack and swung in de fireplace to bile. Baking was done in skillets. Us cotched rabbits three and four at a time ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... race, or white or black, When bound as thou wert, to the rack, So seldom stooped to grieving; No other race, when free again, Forgot the past and proved them men So ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to the door, she brushed against the rack wherein hung my weapons. Among them was a small dagger. Her quick eye caught its gleam, and I saw her press closer to the wall, and with her right hand strive stealthily to detach the blade from its fastening. She did not understand the trick. Her hand dropped to her side, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... refrigerator which is provided with movable racks, H, within cooling chambers which are arranged beneath an ice chamber, B, constructed with inclined walls, a a a, a drip pan, D, and an ice-supporting rack, c, substantially as and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... a child! You might as well talk to the wind! I'm in despair! I'll give up! Humph! clothes-pins, indeed! Pretty playthings to give a child! Every thing goes to rack and ruin! There!" ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... short of weapons, no doubt," said Paul; "but we must take off the sword-bayonets from the muskets, and give them to two of the men. I will be first on board, and knock down Dupuis. Let the men rush to the main-mast and secure the arms from the rack the moment that they reach the deck, while you, Dick, seize the helm. I will tell off four men to loose the sails and to cut the cable directly that we get on board. This will leave us ten men to do the fighting. If all goes well we shall find the better part of the French ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... a clumsy furniture-wagon attempted to pass at the moment when they stopped to show tickets, and in doing so the driver locked his wheel with that of the close-carriage coming over. The friends noticed that there were trunks on the rack of this carriage, and that though the day was so hot and sultry, the windows were closed. As the wheels locked, one of the windows was dashed down with some petulance, and a head appeared through it, while a ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... plain and practically without furniture, except for a bare table suspended from the upper beams and a few chairs securely resting in chocks. The deck was bare, but had been thoroughly scrubbed, the water not entirely dried, and forward there was a rack of small arms, the polished steel shining in the gray light of the transom overhead. The Dutch character of the bark was very apparent here, in the excessively heavy deck beams, and the general gloom of the interior, finished off in dark wood and ornamented ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... said as he laid his gun back in its rack. "I'll get into my hip-boots and get them before the water-rats steal what we've earned. They are skilled enough to get a decoy now and then. The marsh is alive with them ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... was not to be balked. He pointed to the coat-rack on the wall in front of them both. "There is Henry de Spain's coat. He hung it there just before he went down to the inn. Under it, if you look, you'll find his belt of cartridges. Don't take my word—look ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... been resorted to; but now, in accordance with the repeated solicitations of the Pope, King Edward gave orders that the imprisoned Templars should be subjected to the rack in order that they might be forced to give evidence of their guilt. Even then there seems to have been reluctance to resort to this cruel and shameful treatment, and a series of delays occurred, so that nothing was done till the beginning ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... vaguely about, indifferent to the fact that a crowd of impatient travellers of more concrete intentions were being delayed by her indecision. Meanwhile, among these disturbers of travel the man with a large bag passed rapidly along, found a place, put the bag in the rack, seated himself, and took out his newspaper. There is something in a man's management of a large travelling-bag in a railway train that leads the most unwilling to grudgingly yield him ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... you think best," said Caddy, giving him a threatening glance; whereupon, Master Kinch looked as much as to say, "If you were to put me on the rack you couldn't get a word ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... by train, and although on drawing near the city from the south a sight is obtained of towers and spires, it is by no means a happy point of view; and the visitor is probably engaged in getting his bag out of the rack and collecting his papers and umbrella, when he might be obtaining a first impression, though a poor one, of Oxford. Should he be more fortunate, and approach by motor car, again he loses much. A vision, perhaps, for a moment, as he tops some rising ground, and then, before he has had ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... Paris! What was St. Helena to the bitterness of such existence? The visions of past glory might illumine even that dark-imprisonment; but to be conscious that his supernatural energies might die away without creating their miracles: can the wheel or the rack rival the torture of such a suspicion? Lo! Byron bending o'er his shattered lyre, with inspiration in his very rage. And the pert taunt could sting even this child of light! To doubt of the truth of the creed in which you have been nurtured is not so terrific as to doubt respecting the intellectual ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... in Dalness house. The whole events of the scandalous week piled up on me: I no sooner wandered one thought away in the mists of the nether mind than a new one, definite and harassing, grew in its place, so that I was turning from side to side in a torture-rack of reflection when I should be lost in the slumber my travel and weariness so well had earned me. Something of an eeriness at our position in that genteel but lonely house lay heavy on me too: it had no memories of friendship in any room for me; it was haunted, if haunted at all, with the ghosts ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... singular but melancholy sweetness: "have you earned the right to ask me these questions? The clays of torture and persecution are over; and a man may live as he pleases, and talk as it suits him, without fear of the stake and the rack. Since I can defy persecution, pardon me if I do not succumb ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desert! My wilds do not hold him; Pale thirst doth not rack, Nor the sand-storm enfold him. The death-gale pass'd by And his breath failed to smother, Yet ne'er shall he wake To the voice of his mother Alas! for the white man! o'er deserts a ranger, No more shall we welcome the ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... bone appear to be broken or driven in. He had good hope that she was only stunned, and would revive presently. Unable to do more for her, a thought struck him. On the floor of the cabin, thrown by the shock from the rack, lay her writing case. He opened it, and taking a piece of paper wrote ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... first one to whom Bill revealed the news. When he reached home for supper Jeff took his "plug" hat and smoothed it before hanging it upon the hall-rack. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... came home, the rack had driven down the harbor and left clear sky; it was near nightfall; they'd been searching the shore all day,—to no purpose. But that rainbow,—I always took it for a sign. Father was worn out, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... rack with its ivies and moss, Just fifty-odd panels or so; A wheat-field, a scythe and a boy his own boss; He ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... in the side-rooms. He entered first the one nearest him, which was on the right side of the ship. This room was about ten feet long, extending from the middle of the ship to the side, and about six feet wide. A telescope was the first thing which attracted his attention. It lay in a rack near the doorway. He took it down, but it fell apart at once, being completely corroded. In the middle of the room there was a compass, which hung from the ceiling. But the iron pivot had rusted, and the plate had fallen down. Some ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... with the Bacchant arms. A vine her forehead girds; the nimble deer Clothes with his skin her sides; her shoulder bears A slender spear. Thus maddening, Procne seeks The woods in ire terrific, crowded round By all her followers: rack'd by inward pangs, The furious rant of Bacchus veils her woes. The lonely stable seen at length, she howls Aloud,—"Evoe, ho!"—and bursts the door; Drags thence her sister;—her thence dragg'd, invests I In Bacchanalian robes; her face inshrouds In ivy foliage; and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... of breath, to pour himself some spirits. "Joke?" he muttered. "Where the devil is it? I see no wit in that." And he picked up a fresh pipe from the rack on the table and moistened the clay with his ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... possible the other hours of pouring out his heart to her, taking her into it all. He told her the story of how it happened, the long, hard story which only covered days, but seemed to extend through years. He told of those hours of the day and night on the rack of uncertainty, of trying with the force of mind and soul to banish that thing which had not claimed him then, but stood there beside him, not retreating,—waiting. He told her of that lecture hour Monday morning when he literally divided himself into two parts, one part ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... judge. "Because the accused may be put on the rack and constrained to speak the truth, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... hand for rick-rack work, Em, I see," she murmured in a faint whisper. "Do you remember how surprised Aunt Su was when you ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... in reply to this wonderful oration? He opened his great mouth and spoke. What is this? A falsetto note, a piping instead of the musical thunder we have heard. He poses strangely, his gestures shoot up and out like the arms of a dislocated clothes rack. He rises on his toes with a quick springlike movement, as if he were a puppet loosened by a spring from a box. He sways from side to side to give emphasis to his words. His mouth opens to huge proportions in moments of excitement. His black hair ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... nephew," said Mr. Bloomfield, with the voice of one on the rack. "I regard you with the most sacred affection; and I thank God I am an Englishman—and all that. But not—not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... small room, dimly lighted and very disorderly. Scraps of paper were strewn around the floor. Dust had settled on the ink-rollers of the foot-press. A single case of type stood on a rack and the form of a bill-of-fare—partly "pied"—was on a marble slab which formed the top of a small table. On an upturned soap-box was a pile of unprinted menu cards. Josie noted a few cans of ink, a bottle of benzine, and a few printing tools ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... woven several pieces in one loom, with a separate shuttle for each piece. The shuttle is carried through the shed or warp by a rack and pinion, instead of being thrown through as in broad goods; otherwise the weaving ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... no place sarve you, indeed, but undher our bed, you vagabone?" said his mother, roused to a sense of his delinquency; "to come in like a merodin' villain as you are, and hide under the bed, and frighten the lives out of us, and rack and ruin my place!" ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... atmospheric pressure. In its upward stroke the piston was free to move; but in its downward stroke it was connected with a ratchet, and the partial vacuum formed after the explosion beneath the piston, together with its own weight in falling, operated through a rack, and caused rotation of the flywheel. This engine (which, in an improved form, uses only about 20 cubic feet of gas) is still largely employed, some 1,600 having been constructed. The great objection to it was the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... animated appearance. Peasants, sailors, traders, and fishermen, in every variety of costume, are gathered in groups, enjoying a social gossip, or interchanging their various products and wares, and strawberries from Amak and fish from the Skager-Rack mingle their odors. In the second story of a dingy and dilapidated house, fronting one of these unsavory canals, a confused pile of dirty, shambling old tenements in the rear, and a curious medley of fish and fishermen, sloops and schooners, mud-scows and skiffs in front, lives ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... he replied, curtly. "One's childish impressions don't go for much. And it is in a miserable state—roof out of repair—fences falling down—drainage imperfect. It has been allowed to go to rack and ruin while we ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... You better b'leeve dat w'en Mr. Dog got a chance to make hisse'f skase he tuck it, en w'at der wuz lef' un him went skaddlin' thoo de woods like hit wuz shot outen a muskit. En Brer Coon, he sorter lick his cloze inter shape en rack off, en Brer Possum, he lay dar like he wuz dead, twel bimeby he raise up sorter keerful like, en w'en he fine de coas' cle'r he scramble up en scamper off ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... that it can befall a wise man to be oppressed with grief, that is to say, with misery? for, as all perturbation is misery, grief is the rack itself. Lust is attended with heat, exulting joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not so ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... prepared for their reception. Inexpressible was the rage of Mendoza, when he heard of their elopement. He raved like one deprived of reason—swore he would put all the servants of the family to the rack—and, in consequence of the intelligence he obtained by threats and promises, set on foot a very strict inquiry, in order to apprehend the fugitives and Orlando, who had by some means or ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... which they were about to assume precluded the idea of love and marriage. Until then they had dwelt in the calm air of religious meditations, unmoved except by that pious fervor which in other ages taught men to brave the tortures of the rack and to smile amid the flames. But a blonde girl, with great eyes and a voice like the soft notes of a vesper hymn, had come in between them and their ascetic dreams of heaven. The ties that had bound the young men together snapped silently ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... niver mind!" said Pat, with his one eye fixed on his punch. "She's a nice, good, easy creature, anyway. I don't have to be sending a boy down through the rack to be cleaning her, as they say you do with the one you're going to start to-morrow—pray God she don't kill any ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... and, a few days afterwards, was surrounded with many objects of comfort. My tent had been floored; at one end rose an excellent chimney; strips of planks, skillfully balanced on two logs, supplied a spring bed; I had secured a split bottom chair, and my saddle and bridle were disposed upon a rough rack, near a black valise containing my small stock of apparel, and the pine table and desk ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... ever when the happy laugh is dumb, All the joy gone, and all the sorrow come, When loss, despair, and soul-distracting pain, Wring the sad heart and rack the throbbing brain, The only hope—the only comfort heard— Comes in the music of a woman's word. Like beacon-bell on some wild island shore, Silverly ringing through the tempest's roar, Whose sound borne shipward through the ocean gloom Tells of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Wives" been produced under ordinary conditions, one would have had to rack one's brains to account for its feebleness. Not only is the genial Lord of Humour degraded in it into a buffoon, but the amusement of it is chiefly in situation; it is almost as much a farce as a comedy. For these and other reasons I believe in the truth of the tradition that Elizabeth was so pleased ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... therefore the 'Universal Prayer' may possibly be unfamiliar to some readers. If so, it will do them no harm to read over again a few of its verses. Perhaps, after that experience, they will admit that the little cripple of Twickenham, distorted as were his instincts after he had been stretched on the rack of this rough world, and grievous as were his offences against the laws of decency and morality, had yet in him a noble strain of eloquence significant of deep religious sentiment. A phrase in the first stanza may shock us as bordering too closely on the epigrammatic; ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... monstrous, black, Uncharitable hours, Where the soul shapes its own abhorred rack Of ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... life was extinct, but no longer, yet it seemed an eternity before I perceived him groping his way over the threshold; an eternity in which every act of my life passed before me, and every word and every expression with which he had beguiled me came to rack my soul and made the horror of this mad ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... the garden during the heavy hail storm. He had seen the big frozen chunks of rain coming down, and he remembered what his father had said about it spoiling garden and farm crops. So Hal, when no one was looking, got a big umbrella from the rack and went out to hold it over his corn. Mr. Porter happened to see him ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... temptation's bribe Is slowly handed back, One eye upon the heaven renounced And one upon the rack. ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... den, he shucked off his jacket, kicked off his shoes and shuffled into Moroccan slippers. He went over to his current reading rack and scowled at the paperbacks there. His culture status books were upstairs where they could be seen. He pulled out a western, tossed it over to the cocktail table that sat next to his chair, and then went ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... rod from the rack, and, dipping it in the solution, handed it to me. I cautiously applied it to the tip of my tongue and was immediately aware of a peculiar tingling sensation accompanied by ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... island is derived from St Margaret, the daughter of King Bela IV. (13th century), who built here a convent, the ruins of which are still in existence. To the west of Buda extends the hill (1463 ft.) of Svab-Hegy (Schwabenberg), with extensive view and numerous villas; it is ascended by a rack-and-pinion railway. A favourite spot is the Zugliget (Auwinkel), a wooded dale on the northern slope of the hill. To the north of O-Buda, about 4 m. from the Margaret island, on the right bank of the Danube, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Passed before me, vague and cloud-like; I beheld our nation scattered, All forgetful of my counsels, Weakened, warring with each other: Saw the remnants of our people Sweeping westward, wild and woful, Like the cloud-rack of a tempest, Like ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... original decision was confirmed every time. As a result, the city government not only stood still, with its hands tied, but everything it was created to protect and care for went a steady gait toward rack and ruin. There was no way to levy a tax, so the minor officials had to resign or starve; therefore they resigned. There being no city money, the enormous legal expenses on both sides had to be defrayed by private subscription. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a glazed window, with a green curtain to be drawn at pleasure, and at his tail a thick wooden pillar with a brazen shield, whence by turning of a pipe he is watered, and serves too for a cupboard to keep his comb and rubbing clothes. Each rack was iron, and each manger shining copper, and each nag covered with a scarlet mantle, and above him his bridle and saddle hung, ready to gallop forth in a minute; and not less than two hundred horses, whereof twelve score of foreign breed. And ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... fruit I have seen in Yankee farm-houses. Attached to the rafters by stout pieces of timber, were two hickory poles, placed horizontally, and about four feet apart, the lower one rather more than eight feet from the floor. This was the whipping-rack, and hanging to it were several stout whips with short hickory handles, and long triple lashes. I took one down for closer inspection, and found burned into the wood, in large letters, the words 'Moral Suasion.' I questioned the appropriateness ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ordinary and extraordinary. What a dismal change from pleasant suppers at the Mule, where he sat in triumph with expert operators and great wits! He is at the lees of life, poor rogue; and those fingers which once transcribed improper romances are now agonisingly stretched upon the rack. We have no sure knowledge, but we may have a shrewd guess of the conclusion. Tabary, the admirer, would go the same way as ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were all interested, of course. Who was to eat those pies? The more pies the merrier! The engineers had constructed a rack to hold them, so that they might be easily counted without confusion. The soldiers had appointed a committee to do the counting with a representative from the cooks to be sure that everything went right. Even the officers and chaplain took an ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... his real trouble and bewilderment began. A carload of new furniture and "fixin's" was sidetracked at the junction, and McNutt was ordered to get it unloaded and carted to the farm without delay. There were four hay-rack loads of the "truck," altogether, and when it was all dumped into the big empty barn at the Wegg farm the poor agent had no idea ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... the finest equipage to be had. Lincoln's supporters took delight in showing their contempt of Douglas's elegance by affecting a Republican simplicity, often carrying their candidate through the streets on a high and unadorned hay-rack drawn by farm horses. The scenes in the towns on the occasion of the debates were perhaps never equalled at any other of the hustings of this country. No distance seemed too great for the people to go; no vehicle too slow or fatiguing. At Charleston ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Korner; Stein; Silvio Pellico and Karl Sand cheek by jowl; Pestal, Comte, Cromwell, Garibaldi, Marx, Mazzini, Bem, Kossuth, Lassalle, and many another writer and fighter. A fine engraving of Napoleon as First Consul was hung over the mantel-piece, a pipe-rack intervening between it and a fac-simile of the warrant for the execution ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... bad all this week, but I've had a great deal of sewing to do, and for two days Dinky-Dunk stayed in and helped me fix up the shack. I made more book-shelves out of more old biscuit-boxes and my lord made a gun-rack for our fire-arms. Percival Benson rode over once, through the storm, and it took us half an hour to thaw him out. But he brought some books, and says he has four cases, altogether, and that we're welcome to all we wish. He stayed ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... at all can think of any alleviating circumstances in his case to make him a fit object of mercy. Or to take an instance from the higher tragedy, what else but a mere assassin is Glenalvon? Do we think of anything but of the crime which he commits, and the rack which he deserves? That is all which we really think about him. Whereas in corresponding characters in Shakspeare, so little do the actions comparatively affect us, that while the impulses, the inner mind in ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... adjusted and set at certain angles so that the toast could be left in front of the fire for a few moments until it was quite ready to be taken off and put on a plate standing conveniently on the trivet until the dish or rack of toast was complete. (Some scarce trivets are illustrated in "Chats on Old ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... Henry was registering in the round-house, he saw a letter in the rack for him, and carried it home to ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... heavy strain upon the spectator. For be a fellow creature never so displeasing in nature and in habit, never so cankered by vanity and self-love, it cannot be otherwise than hideous to see him upon the rack. And that de Courcy Smyth was very actually upon the rack—a rack well deserved, may be, and of his own constructing, but which wrenched his every joint to the agony of dislocation nevertheless—there could be no manner of doubt. Coming as conclusion to the long day, to ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... was continually tortured with the belief that his success in life had not equalled his merits. As AEnone entered, he was bending over a shield, and earnestly engaged in burnishing its brazen mouldings. At his side leaned a short sword, awaiting similar attention, and in a rack beside him were a number of weapons of different varieties and sizes, which had already submitted to his restorative skill, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her,—lost, perhaps, forever, to Waife,—in a foreign land and under such guardianship? Grave question, which Jasper Losely, who exercised so little foresight in the paramount question, namely, what some day or other would become of himself? was not likely to rack his brains by conjecturing! ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that all my fortunes are at sea; Neither have I money nor commodity To raise a present sum; therefore go forth, Try what my credit can in Venice do; That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost, To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia. Go presently inquire, and so will I, Where money is; and I no question make To have it of my ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... everything is—and how convenient!" exclaimed Selma. "I haven't felt this way since the first time I went to the circus." She pointed to a rack from which were suspended thin silk dressing gowns of various rather gay patterns. "What ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... Jesuitical rack, no cup of hemlock, no thumb-screw, no torture of any kind for David. Still, here was a duty to be done, an awful responsibility to be discharged in sorrow and with prayer; and grave good men they were. Blameless was this lad in all ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Dindings. The yacht has a complete permanent roof of painted canvas, and under this is an armament of boarding pikes. Round the little foremast four cutlasses and a quantity of ball cartridges are displayed. Six rifles are in a rack below, and the policemen and body-guard are armed ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... brought round and placed on the rack behind the wagon. It was a large black trunk, securely bound with brass bands, and showed marks of service, as if it had been considerably used. Two small strips of paper pasted on the side bore the custom-house marks of Havre and Liverpool. On one ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... laughing at me and my nation more than a man could bear, situated as I was. They acquitted me through his means. We shook hands, and he hoped all would go right with me, he said; but nothing ever went right with me after. I took little note ever after of worldly matters: all belonging to me went to rack and ruin. The hand of God was upon me: I could not help myself, nor settle mind or body to any thing. I heard them say sometimes I was a little touched in my head: however that might be I cannot say. But at the last I found it was as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... the magazine and fetch a flannel bag that seemed to be full of sand up on deck ready for the crew of the gun to push into the mouth of the gun, where it was rammed down with a long rod, before a big shot was taken out of the rack close by, and rammed down the gun in turn, which ...
— The Powder Monkey • George Manville Fenn
... then distraught?" said the Queen. "Indeed we doubted not of it; her whole demeanour bears it out. I found her moping in a corner of yonder grotto; and every word she spoke—which indeed I dragged from her as by the rack—she instantly recalled and forswore. But how came she hither? Why had you her ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Christal in great plenty. Salt-Petre they can make. Brimstone some say, is here, but the King will not have it discovered. Steel they can make of their Iron. Ebony in great abundance, with choice of tall and large Timber. Cardamums, Jaggory, Rack, Oyl, black Lead, Turmeric, Salt, Rice, Bettel-Nuts, Musk, Wax, Pepper, Which last grows here very well, and might be in great plenty, if it had a Vend. And the peculiar Commodity of the Island, Cinnamon. Wild Cattel, and wild ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... this fine dust so thick that it is not possible to tell the color of a table top. Cloissonne vases, or rather images of the famous blue ware stand under the old lady's portrait, and everything is going to rack and ruin. Meantime we wandered around, planning how it could be made over into use when the revolution comes. Get rid of the idea that China has had a revolution and is a republic; that point is just where we have been deceived in the United States. China is at present the rotten ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... the result of asking me for an opinion. I have written it very hurriedly: if I had paused I might make an essay of it. (Commercial Pig!) Never mind, sweetheart, that Essay might be a sauce-pan some day—or at any rate a cheap toast-rack. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... was still her ruling passion. And though strange misgivings annoyed and perplexed her, though her respect for Dennis daily increased, and at times a sudden pity and softness made her little hands hesitate before giving an additional wrench to the rack of uncertainty upon which she kept him; still, she would not for the world have abandoned her purpose, and such compunctions were as yet but the little back eddies ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... a fresh loaf of French bread. Gash the loaf at the ends and pull apart into halves; then cut the halves and pull apart into quarters. Repeat until the pieces are about the thickness of breadsticks. Put on a rack in a dripping-pan, and dry out the moisture in a slow oven; then brown delicately. Keep in a dry place (a tin box is suitable) and reheat in the ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill
... that was bought at the fair she kicked with her hind legs, and threw down the milk-pail, at the same time knocking Dolly off her stool into the dirt. For this offence the cow was sentenced to have her head fastened to the rack, and ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... hers. Catherine was nineteen years old. At that age a girl is a fanatic and would let her throat be cut before betraying a thought of one she loves. As for Gothard, merely to inhale the perfume which the countess used in her hair and among her clothes he would have born the rack ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... candle burned below the hat-rack in the narrow hall, and showed further stains on the oilcloth. From a room on the left hand came the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... this fashion awhile the repentant old lady would rack her brain for some new device by which this bright creature, who had come like a sunbeam into her house, might be persuaded never to leave it again. It was not altogether the selfishness of affection that actuated this honorable woman. It was hard to believe ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... himself, with that preternatural skill of his to probe the conscience of man to its innermost secret, could have exceeded the heart-searching rigor with which, in the earlier part of the discourse, Massillon had put to the rack the quivering consciences of his hearers. The terrors of the Lord, the shadows of the world to come, were thus already on all hearts. So much as this. Bourdaloue, too, with his incomparable dialectic, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... bigger than dinner-plates. There were holes in the centre of these slabs for the stalk to go through, and the one slab stood two feet from the floor, the other a foot higher. The lower slab was fitted with a walnut tobacco-jar and a pipe-rack, while on the upper slab were exquisite little recesses for cigars, cigarettes, matches, and ashes. These held respectively three cigars, two cigarettes, and four wax vestas. The smoking-table was an ornament to any room; and the first night I had it I raised my eyes ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... seized from the rack the light articles that evidently belonged to his victim, and ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... that," I said, "but my butter-dish was doing itself proud. It had sneaked up to a magnificent toast-rack with stabling accommodation for about eight pieces, given by somebody with a title. And you ought to have seen the fish-slices. The fish-slices wore gorgeous. I expect William will spend a great part of his married life in slicing fish. It will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... welfare of the village communities, or conciliating the affections of the cultivators, whom they never saw or wished to see; and they let out the village, or other subdivision of their estates, to second parties quite as little interested, who again let them out to others, so that the system of rack-renting went on over the whole area of the immense possession. This was a system 'more honoured in the breach than in the observance'; for, as the great landholders became involved in the ruin of their cultivators, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman |
