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Sheaf   Listen
noun
Sheaf  n.  (pl. sheaves)  
1.
A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw. "The reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands."
2.
Any collection of things bound together; a bundle; specifically, a bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer, usually twenty-four. "The sheaf of arrows shook and rattled in the case."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sheaf" Quotes from Famous Books



... poem: "The ode is too long, its evolution is defective, it contains verbiage, it preaches. But passages of it—the most famous having characteristically been interpolated after its delivery—are equal to anything of the kind. The temptation to quote from it is hard to withstand. It is the cap-sheaf of Lowell's achievement." In this ode "he reaches, if he does not throughout maintain, his own 'clear-ethered height' and his verse has the elevation of ecstasy and the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... shall give up everything for life to my creditors, and throw myself as a beggar on Asiatic charity, and wander far without one parra in my pocket, with the mare from the stable of Solomon in one hand, and a sheaf of the corn of Beni-Israel in the other. I shall meet death, or that which I believe to be written, which no mortal can efface. On September 7, Dr. Meryon and his family embarked at Leghorn for Cyprus, but on nearing Candia their merchant brig, which was taking out ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... The present sheaf of young folk's stories were written during the latter part of that battle for recognition, and my gathering of them inside book covers is pursuant of his own intention at the time of his ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... seeking for one that promised interest. The first patient was a man who would come in on his way to the city. Then followed the names of three women, then the name of a boy. He was coming with his mother, a lady of an anxious mind. The Doctor had a sheaf of letters from her. And so the morning's task was over. He turned a page ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... for an instant to the beating of his own heart. He pressed the spring, and with swimming eyes looked at what the shelves revealed. "Dorothy," he called, and his voice was brittle as thin glass, "take a pencil and make a list as I dictate: One package of government bonds; a sheaf of bills, marked $2,000; two small boxes, wrapped and sealed; three large envelopes, sealed; two vouchers pinned together. Have you got that? I'll take possession for the present. Make a copy of that list for me." He snapped fast the inner door, and turned as he thrust ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... the preachings of the apostles. When the final hymn was given out he stood by his brother, facing most of the crowd, and for the first time they recognized in him a nameless something that declared and asserted itself—something that vaguely hinted of the sheaf of the boy Joseph, that arose and stood upright, and to which their sheaves ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... thou, weep thou, youthful maiden, When thou weepest, weep thou sorely; 360 If thou weepest not yet freely, Thou shalt weep when thou returnest, When to mother's house thou comest, And thou find'st thy aged mother Suffocated in the cowshed, In her dying lap a straw-sheaf. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... a large sheaf bouquet in two colors, red and orange—certainly, and a Gallic wave of the hand indicated a marble slab where flowers were ranged in funnel-shaped green vases. Looking over them, the gentleman lapsed into a French so perfect that the florist suggested Monsieur was of that nation, also his ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... a background to the throne and at each side stood a noble sheaf of wheat. Thickly scattered over the whole affair were gourds or mock-oranges, which had been hollowed out and held lighted tapers, while across the top was "welcome" in large letters made of ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... president of the Junior class, had held a conference with Mr. Edmonds, the most influential member, some said, next to the president, Cameron Jordan, a cousin of the old and respected physician. The result of this conference was that Bill McCormack held in his fat, red hands a sheaf of papers which allotted the streets to the four classes and took the decision quite away ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... was back with a sheaf of papers. Bastin just glanced at them separately, noting the several times of their issue, then with a "Good boy, Charley! Keep the change," he unfolded ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... that week he had the run of things; had met his professors, one of whom had preached that sermon two summers before, and now, on being told who the lad was, welcomed him as a sheaf out of that sowing; had been assigned to his classes; had gone down town to the little packed and crowded book-store and bought the needful student's supplies—so making the first draught on his money; been ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... The ruddy faces of the children, their bright hair, even their voices, were subdued. Fanny, apparently, hadn't moved; the light at her shoulder was reflected in the cut steel buckles of her slippers; she had slight but graceful ankles. He recognized this, drawing a sheaf of reports from his brief- case; but, after a perfunctory glance, he dropped them ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... he would refer to a sheaf of papers he carried around with him, fastened together with a little arrangement that allowed of their being rapidly turned over from time to time. Doubtless this was his plan of campaign. Hugh would have given something for the privilege ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler

... Poke," grunted the ugly little creature, putting his moss-coloured hair behind his great yellow ears. "But do not be afraid, Narragansetts, the Little Man loves you, and is come to make you a gift. What do you think these are?"—showing them a bow and a sheaf of arrows. The Narragansetts all declared they could not tell, and begged the Little Man to tell them the names, and shew them the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... farewell injunctions followed this seeker of new trails into the car, and the passengers glanced up to find that she was a bright, happy-looking girl in her teens. She carried a sheaf of roses on one arm, and some new magazines under the other. One noticed first the alertness of the face under the stylish hat with its bronze quills, and then the girlish simplicity of dress and manner which showed at a glance that she was ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... bud and the blown flower Youth talked with joy and grief an hour, With footless joy and wingless grief And twin-born faith and disbelief Who share the seasons to devour; And long ere these made up their sheaf Felt the winds round him shake and shower The rose-red and the blood-red leaf, Delight whose germ grew never grain, And passion dyed in ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... people and sons of Rome, By uproar sever'd, as a flight of fowl Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts, O, let me teach you how to knit again This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf, These broken limbs again into one body: Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself, And she whom mighty kingdoms court'sy to, Like a forlorn and desperate castaway, Do shameful execution on herself. But if my frosty signs and chaps of age, Grave witnesses ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... not our friends across the sea imagine that we have no royal marriages here in this western wilderness. Whenever two hearts come together pledged to make each other happy, binding all their hopes and fears and anticipations in one sheaf, calling on God to bless and angels to witness, though no organ may sound the wedding-march, and no bells may chime, and no Dean of Westminster travel a thousand miles to pronounce the ceremony,—that is ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... of many books and stories as well as the preacher of many sermons, it is natural that Christmas should have engaged a large part of my attention. Out of the abundance of material which I have accumulated in the course of a long ministry and a longer life I have gathered here a sheaf of things I have written about Christmas; personal adventures, stories suggested by the old yet ever-new theme; meditations, words of advice which I am old enough to be entitled to give; and last but not least good ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... He told how some people from his village had settled there. They had joined the Commune, and had had twenty-five acres per man granted them. The land was so good, he said, that the rye sown on it grew as high as a horse, and so thick that five cuts of a sickle made a sheaf. One peasant, he said, had brought nothing with him but his bare hands, and now he had six horses and two cows of ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy

... guiles and look for gifts again, My trifles come as treasures from my mind; It is a precious jewel to be plain; Sometimes in shell the orient'st pearls we find: Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain! ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... stolen from his person with the obvious intention of impeding the inquiry into the murder. Next, in another inner pocket was Quadling's own wallet, with his own visiting-cards, several letters addressed to him by name; above all, a thick sheaf of bank-notes of all nationalities—English, French, Italian, and amounting in total value ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths

... attached at the highest point) and fill the boiler full, as it is absolutely necessary that all the space in the boiler should be filled with cold water. Then screw the safety valve back in its place. You will then get back in the firebox with your tools and have someone place a small sheaf of wheat or oat straw under the firebox or under waist of boiler if open firebox, and set fire to it. The expansive force of the water caused by the heat from the burning straw will produce pressure desired. You should know, however, that your safety is in perfect order. When the water ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard

... roots, and cattle, far more than enough to sustain in life and comfort all the inhabitants of the island. That wealth must not leave us another year, not until every grain of it is fought for in every stage, from the tying of the sheaf to the loading of the ship; and the effort necessary to that simple act of self-preservation will at one and the same blow prostrate British dominion and landlordism together." In reference to this piece of writing, and many others ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... rumpled the curls around her forehead; the front of her light blue dress—she wore light blue in a manner which might have been called daring had it implied the slightest thought—was caught up to hold her lapful of flowers; a sheaf of roses rested on her shoulder, and some feathery vines trailed almost to the ground, while in her left hand, their stems taller than her own head, were two stately sunflowers, which were ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... see, from the crest of the brushwood, a continuous spray of starters, who shoot up like microscopic projectiles and mount in a spreading cluster. In the end, it is like the bouquet at the finish of a pyrotechnic display, the sheaf of rockets fired simultaneously. The comparison is correct down to the dazzling light itself. Flaming in the sun like so many gleaming points, the little Spiders are the sparks of that living firework. What a glorious send- off! What an entrance ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... level. His master of the works led him into needless expense, and as progress was so slow the Abbot became dispirited. He, however, got another master of the works and started afresh, assigning to the building fund one sheaf of wheat from every acre. This arrangement lasted during the whole of his rule and for many years afterwards, but progress was still slow. Gifts of gold and silver, considerable sums of money collected by a wandering preacher, who pretended ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... her. She was looking about the comfortable hotel apartment, all in a pretty disorder now, with Magsie's various possessions scattered about. There were pictures of actors on the mantel, heavily autographed, and flowers thrust carelessly into vases. There was a great sheaf of Killarney roses; the envelope that had held a card still dangled from their stems. Carol would have given a great deal to know whose card had been torn from it, and whose name was ringing just now in Magsie's brain. She even cared enough to tentatively ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... perfect cereal, wheat, as patterns of perfection from that farther evolved planet—fascinated, became the leit-motif of his thoughts for weeks. Earth had earned a special dispensation, it was said, and bright messengers came with a swarm and a sheaf, each milleniums advanced beyond any species of ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... what they were doing with that railway car they would have seemed to suspect me of meaning that it was my property and that they had stolen it. Or perhaps they would have seemed merely to resent my idle curiosity. If so, why not? When I walk abroad with a sheaf of manuscript in my hand, mechanics do not stop me to ask 'What's that? What's it about? Who's going to publish it?' Nor is this because, times having changed so, they are afraid of seeming to condescend. They always did mind their own business. And now that their own business ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... his eyes fastened themselves upon a sheaf of proofs.... Watch out for libel ... look for hunches ... scribble suggestion for changes ... peer for items of information that might be expanded humorously or pathetically into Human Interest yarns.... These were functions he discharged ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... my sheaf of war-won verse, And some is bad, and some is worse. And if at times I curse a bit, You needn't read that part of it; For through it all like horror runs The red resentment of the guns. And you yourself would mutter when You took the things that ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... way of vegetation which you mightn't see at home any day in Europe. But what painter would ever venture to paint the tropics without the palm trees? He might just as well try to paint the desert without the camels, or to represent St. Sebastian without a sheaf of arrows sticking unperceived in the calm centre of his unruffled bosom, to mark and emphasise his ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... brings me a sheaf of correspondence in which I am asked to give my opinion as to our prospects of victory in the near future. I have one formula for reply. I refer my correspondents to a recurrent paragraph in The Times under the heading "News in Brief." It ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various

... the centre, from Dr. and Mrs. Hodgins; pillow, with "Father," from Mrs. E. Harris; crown from the scholars of Ryerson school; pillow, with "Grandpapa," from the grandchildren of the deceased: wreath from Mr. C. H. Greene; cross, also scythe, with sheaf, from Mr. and Mrs. George Harris, London; crown and cross from Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Potts; anchor from W. E. and F. E. Hodgins; sheaf from George S. Hodgins; lilies and other choice flowers inside the casket from Dr. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... Monmouth, the Wye Valley! Ah, me! I shall never overtake my correspondence while there are so many glories to describe. See, I have bought some darling little guidebooks which tell you just what to say in a letter. What between judicious extracts and a sheaf of picture postcards scribbled at each place I'll try and keep my ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... ceiling, there was not an object but had its own special history. In one corner was an Afghan matchlock, and a bundle of spears from the southern seas; in another a carved Indian paddle, a Kaffir assegai, and an American blowpipe, with its little sheaf of poisoned arrows. Here was a hookah, richly mounted, and with all due accessories, just as it was presented to the major twenty years before by a Mahommedan chieftain, and there was a high Mexican saddle on which he ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... attire, came quickly stepping in from the flower-beds outside. He was in his fullest vigour, his hair more inclined to stand erect than to lie smooth, his dark eyes full of animation. It was a noticeably vivid and alert personality, and as he tossed on to a working-table a heavy sheaf of long-stemmed plants, wet from a recent shower and bent over them in sharp scrutiny, I knew I was in the presence of Asa Gray, the first of American botanists. He had come as a boy from a remote ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... on the earth; and the yearly sacrifice of those two animals and of the growing Corn for the good of mankind runs parallel with the drama of the sky, as it affects not only the said constellations but also Virgo (the Earth-mother who bears the sheaf of corn in ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... are only pleasant dreams Unless, to realise our hopes, Proprietors of ponds and streams Re-stock them, like the early Popes. Then, though we still run short of keels And corn be leaner in the sheaf, We shall at least have endless eels, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... into a sheaf of fire. Up past the lintel streamed the burning swirl. Mute and annihilated, his charred body dropped ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... which the general public is apt to believe to be founded on the most abstruse speculations. The physicist set up a little chemical screen for the "Beta rays" to hit, and he so arranged his tube that only a narrow sheaf of the rays poured on to the screen. He then drew this sheaf of rays out of its course with a magnet, and he accurately measured the shift of the luminous spot on the screen where the rays impinged ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... no drifted heap, But sheaf-like, neatly bound Thy tresses seem, in braids, or stream ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... the Battle of the Boyne. But after his death the family grew poor; the arms fell into disuse and were forgotten so completely that one descendant thought they might have been a hart rampant, while another declared they were a sheaf ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... weighty matter. See, they know you"; and, indeed, many a man in that gallant array waved his hand to me merrily, as they filed past under their banners—the Douglas's bloody heart, the Crescent moon of Harden, the Napier's sheaf of spears, the blazons of Lindsays and Leslies, Homes, and Hepburns, and Stuarts. It was a sight to put life into the dying breast of a Scot in a strange country, and all were strong men and young, ruddy and brown of cheek, high of heart and heavy of hand. And most beckoned to ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... gone on; I'd been kept in, and it was nearly dark. It was blowing hard, and when I got to the first rock here I thought it was going to blow me over. So I went down on my hands and knees and was just going to crawl, when old Hirzel Mollet came down the other side with a great sheaf of wheat on his back. He was taking it to the Seigneur for his tithes. And then in a moment he gave a shout and I saw he ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... cradle to the grave, without letting fall, as he passes, the germs of strength, fertility, and beauty, than can a reckless wind or a vagrant bird, which, where it passes, leaves behind it the oak, the corn-sheaf, or the flower,—ah, if that be so, how tenfold the good must be, if the man find the gentler and purer duplicate of his own being in that mysterious, undefinable union which Shakspeares and day-labourers equally agree to call love; which Newton never recognizes, and which Descartes ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... judgment was masculine. He has been heard to say, that the two most pleasurable moments of his life were—first, when he read Mackenzie's story of La Roche, and secondly, when Robert took him apart, at the breakfast or dinner hour, during harvest, and read to him, while seated on a barley sheaf, his MS. copy of the far-famed Cotter's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... the seraphim, along the trellises of light, over the milky ways where the comet is like a sheaf of grain, Rabbit guided his companions. Francis had entrusted them to him, and had given him to them as guide because he knew Rabbit's prudence. And had he not on many occasions given his master proofs of this quality of discretion which is the ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... corner was a shot-gun; tennis rackets in another; on a chair were snow-shoes and on the desk a sheaf of roses. ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis

... catches our attention. We notice his curly locks, his garments embroidered with gay flowers, and the graceful way in which he rides his horse. By his side is his servant, the Yeoman, "clad in cote and hood of grene," with a sheaf of arrows at his belt. We may even note his cropped head and his horn suspended from green belt. We next catch sight of a Nun's gracefully pleated wimple, shapely nose, small mouth, "eyes greye as glas," well-made cloak, coral beads, and brooch of gold. She is attended by a second ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... of wheat-ears and poppies. How busy is the scene around her! The shining scythe cuts down the bearded barley and the quivering oat; the reaper bends over the golden wheat, and fills the plenteous sheaf. ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... as he dusted the remains of soot and plaster off his brown cloak. "I should have remembered my experience with your great-aunt, but I knew how much you wanted that paint-box," and he slipped into Marianne's stocking a japanned box with a whole sheaf ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... bent forward, opened the book and gathered the first sheaf of leaves into his fingers. Then, involuntarily, he paused, as the bold characters of the printed words shot up black and clear ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... rank. At the side of most of them rested an ornamented gun, while pouches and horns were suspended from the branches around. Each warrior was encircled with a belt of hide, in which glittered the usual implements of the chase and war. Some of the inferior ones carried only a stout ash bow, a sheaf of feathered arrows, and a weighty club of bone, adorned with quills ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... column headed "A Cornish Poet" says: "A new sheaf of verse of quiet remarkable interest.... They all proclaim Mr Moore to be a real poet ... his true vocation is to interpret the souls of the people he obviously knows and loves so well. He knows their humour and their half articulate pathos so well—and apparently ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various

... this fine conclusion, he led me down a little sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an old black door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken his, while I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet, like a true peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the rattan cane. And thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to have that weapon nicely sheathed ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... in which he was engaged was supported in two ways; first, by the suspension of episcopal authority during the course of the visitation, and secondly by the vast powers committed to the visitors. In one of the saddle-bags strapped on to Mr. Morris's horse was a sheaf of papers, containing eighty-six articles of enquiry, and twenty-five injunctions, as well as certificates from the King endowing Ralph with what was practically papal jurisdiction. He was authorised to release from their ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... thousand florins, as well as that, since the latter was the limit for which, at any one time, the bank could make itself responsible, roulette at that table must close for the night. Accordingly, I caught up my pile of gold, stuffed it into my pocket, and, grasping my sheaf of bank-notes, moved to the table in an adjoining salon where a second game of roulette was in progress. The crowd followed me in a body, and cleared a place for me at the table; after which, I proceeded to stake as before—that is to say, at random and without ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... he marched away like a king with thoughts of state in mind. I thought his beard was grayer than it had been, but oh, sahib, he strode as an arrow goes, swift and straight, and splendid. Lonely as an arrow that has left the sheaf! ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... Persians fled before the Greeks. So he went all day, until the evening, till he saw the Thriasian plain, and the sacred city of Eleusis, where the Earth-mother's temple stands. For there she met Triptolemus, when all the land lay waste, Demeter the kind Earth-mother, and in her hands a sheaf of corn. And she taught him to plow the fallows, and to yoke the lazy kine; and she taught him to sow the seed-fields, and to reap the golden grain; and sent him forth to teach all nations, and give corn to laboring men. So at Eleusis all ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... ceremonial of the Passover was the presentation in the Temple of a barley sheaf, the first of the harvest, waved before the Lord in dedication to Him, and in sign of thankful confidence that all the fields would be reaped and their blessing gathered. There may be some allusion to that ceremony, which coincided in time with the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... arming himself for the adventure. On his head he placed a cap of steel. Underneath his Lincoln green he wore a coat of chain metal. Then with sword and buckler girded at his side he made a goodly show. But he also took with him his stout yew bow and a sheaf ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... had occupied, but Rhetta knew of one in reserve behind the display of wheat and oats in sheaf on the table. This she brought, seating herself near the door, making a triangle from which Morgan had no escape save through ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... was still, and the rocks seemed to shake. Then suddenly it boiled up, hissing as if a thousand steam-pipes had burst, something unspeakable seemed preparing, yet nothing happened. Some lava lumps were thrown out, to fall back or stick to the rocks, where they slowly died out. All at once a sheaf of fire shot up, tall and glowing, an explosion of incredible fury followed; the sheaf dispersed and fell down in marvellous fireworks and thousands of sparks. Slowly, in a fiery stream the lava flowed back to the bottom. Then another explosion and another, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture of Marjorie Jones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of American Beauty roses. Maurice, sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys and waved them a hearty greeting as the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... exuberant and tangled curls. Verty—for this is Verty the son, or adopted son of the old Indian woman, living in the pine hills to the west—Verty carries in one hand a strange weapon, nothing less than a long cedar bow, and a sheaf of arrows; in the other, which also holds his rein, the antlers of a stag, huge and branching in all directions; around him circle two noble deer-hounds. Verty strongly resembles an amiable wild cat; and when he sees Redbud, smiles more ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... announced that slaves with the magic "things" were without the palisade, and called upon Mungongo to go to the gate to fetch them as strangers were forbidden even to look upon the King-God. Birnier, by the light of a torch, opened the mail, sent a wad of letters and a sheaf of telegraph slips on to the floor, and snatched a long green envelope scrawled in ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... thy ways, thou bundle of straw: I'll give thee this gift; thou shalt be a clown while thou liv'st. As lusty as they are, they run on the score with George's wife for their posset; and God knows who shall pay goodman Yeoman for his wheat sheaf. They ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... the poor we must pity. The war cuts off from them entirely the food which, in the best of times, they acquire with great labor and difficulty. The forage for the army horses and mules, and we have an immense number, consists almost wholly of wheat in the sheaf—wheat that has been selling for ten dollars per bushel in Confederate money. I have seen hundreds of acres of wheat in the sheaf disappear in an hour. Rails have been burned without stint, and numberless fields of growing corn left unprotected. However much suffering this destruction of property ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... that Christmas morning, and shone upon the oat-sheaf, and upon all the chirping birds that flew around the pole; and from the wall issued a faint twittering. The swelling thoughts had at last found vent, and the low sound was a hymn of joy, as the bird flew ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... Those who were left of the rear guard cut down great masses of the pagans as a reaper cuts down ripening corn at the harvest time, but one by one the weary reapers fell ere the harvest could be gathered in. Yet beside each dead Frank was a sheaf of pagan dead to show how well he had reaped ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the following nouns: town, country, case, pin, needle, harp, pen, sex, rush, arch, marsh, monarch, blemish, distich, princess, gas, bias, stigma, wo, grotto, folio, punctilio, ally, duty, toy, money, entry, valley, volley, half, dwarf, strife, knife, roof, muff, staff, chief, sheaf, mouse, penny, ox, foot, erratum, axis, thesis, criterion, bolus, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... farm-yard, shouting, "Harvest Home," and singing songs in their way. When they reach the farm-yard, they set up an exulting shout, and ale is distributed to them by their master. About nine o'clock, a supper is prepared for them in their master's house. A wheat-sheaf is brought, and placed in the middle of the room, decorated with ribands and flowers, and corn is hung in various parts of the room. The supper mostly consists of some good old English dish, (of which there is plenty,) and the jolly farmer presides ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various

... had been taught by Telimena how to curtsy gracefully). On her head she wore a wreath, as a betrothed maiden; for the rest, her costume was the same that she had worn that morning in the chapel, when she brought in her spring sheaf for the Virgin Mary. She had reaped once more, for the guests, a fresh sheaf of greenery, and with one hand she distributed flowers and grasses from it; with the other she adjusted on her head her glittering sickle. The leaders, kissing her hands, took the posies; Zosia curtsied once ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... into a large shallow vat or tank, and if it could lie in the vat overnight it was a benefit. Then the pomace was put in a press. This was simple in construction. At the bottom was a platform grooved in channels; a sheaf of clean straw was spread on the platform, and with wooden shovels the pomace was spread thick over it. Then a layer of straw was laid at right angles with the first, and more pomace, and so on till the form was about three feet high; the top board ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... old writers say. But when, with his bosom lightened by utterance of his trouble, and his courage a little restored by food and rest, the Bishop came back to him with a cheerful countenance from his prayers, the King took heart again. Kennedy produced to him the old image of the sheaf of arrows which, bound together, were not to be broken, but one by one could easily be snapt asunder, and advised him to make proclamation of a free pardon to all who would throw down their arms and make submission, and ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... stack, the mares were turned out for a short rest, also in order to allow the Indians a chance to throw out the waste straw and to heap the loose grain on the winnowing ground. So they did again and again, until the last sheaf had been ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... this bust Hilary rested his forehead on his hand. In front of him were three open books and a pile of manuscript, and pushed to one side a little sheaf of pieces of green-white paper, press-cuttings of his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... no longer unfamiliar in the ear of any well-read man or woman. But at the hour of her death she had published but one book, and that book had found but two reviewers in Europe. One of these, M. Andre Theuriet, the well-known poet and novelist, gave the "Sheaf gleaned in French Fields" adequate praise in the "Revue des Deux Mondes;" but the other, the writer of the present notice, has a melancholy satisfaction in having been a little earlier still in sounding the only note of welcome which reached the dying poetess from England. It ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... checked the mighty march of Xerxes?—when Themistocles, off the coast of Greece, shattered the Persian's Armada?—when Caesar, finding his army hard pressed, seized spear and buckler, fought while he reorganized his men, and snatched victory from defeat?—when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of Austrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed to freedom?—when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in which he was personally engaged?—when Wellington fought in many climes without ever being conquered?—when ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... his hostess to the green-striped sofa, and seated himself beside her with a sigh of appreciation for the warmth and soft light of the pleasant room, and the presence of woman. "Your harp!" he exclaimed. "I should have brought a sheaf of Spanish songs such as the ladies sing to the guitar in New Orleans!—My dear sir, your fair wife and my Theodosia must one day sing together, walk hand in hand together, in that richer, sweeter land! They shall ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... stripped a bank-note from a thin sheaf of its fellows; how he tossed it toward Barbee. It fell to the floor; a little draft set it drifting; Blenham set ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... thrown at him. From some mysterious source a rumor went out that the special rates were in jeopardy; and the very men with whom he had talked began to write him importunate letters begging him to deny the rumor. With a sheaf of these letters in his pocket, each one inculpating both parties to the illegal "deals," Blount grew gayly exultant. The natural inference was that Gantry and "the powers" had been finally forced to yield—that he had won his victory. But if he had not yet won it, chance, or something better, had ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... slept and snored upon the stone ledges which lined the side of the tunnel, their bags and packets stacked around them. Small children lay asleep like cut corn, heads hanging and nodding in all directions, or propped against each other in such an intricate combination that if one should move the whole sheaf of tired heads ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... He strolled into the House and back into his own committee room, read through the orders of the day and spoke to the Government Whip. It was, as Horlock had assured him, a dead afternoon. There were a sheaf of questions being asked, none of which were of the slightest interest to any one. With a little smile of anticipation upon his lips, he hurried to the telephone. In a few moments he was speaking to ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... only her bruised pride, her bleeding heart, her relentless incorruptible conscience; and over the conclusion, she shed no tears, made no moan, allowed no margin for pity. Early on that Spring morning, she had received a glowing sheaf of La France and Duchess de Brabant roses, accompanied by a brief note announcing Mr. Dunbar's return, and requesting an interview at noon. The tone of her reply was markedly cordial, and after offering congratulations upon his birthday, she begged ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... on the paper condemning the administration of the Defence of the Realm Act, and in support of it produced a sheaf of cases, in which he said the Government had abused its powers. Among other acts of vile oppression they had ravished from her home, on September 1st, while her father was away shooting partridges, and had subsequently interned without trial, a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... eminent Poet, made a Present of them to Apollo, who received them very graciously, and resolved to make the Author a suitable Return for the Trouble he had been at in collecting them. In order to this, he set before him a Sack of Wheat, as it had been just threshed out of the Sheaf. He then bid him pick out the Chaff from among the Corn, and lay it aside by it self. The Critick applied himself to the Task with great Industry and Pleasure, and after having made the due Separation, was presented by Apollo with the Chaff for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... found himself incapable of even the most petty routine work. He sat to his desk at eight o'clock and began the perusal of a sheaf of letters, comprising a certain correspondence, which Collins brought him. The first three he read carefully; the following two rather hurriedly; of the next one he seized only the salient and essential points; the seventh and eighth he skimmed; the remainder ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... were assaulted by a concerted howl, proceeding from behind a bed of canes on the other side of the river. "Alerta! los Chunchos!" cried the sentinel. The three words produced a startling effect: the porters sprang up like frightened deer; Mr. Marcoy grasped a sheaf of pencils and a box of water-colors with a warlike air, and the colonel's lips were crisped into a singular smile, indicative of lively emotions. Hardly were the travelers clothed and armed when the reeds parted with a rattling noise, and three nude Indians, sepia-colored and crowned with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... downcast eyes rose timidly to crown him, the silver trumpets pealed as shatteringly as ever over a blood-fray, and the company cried aloud to the witnessing sky, "Evviva Ippolita bella!" They could have done no more for a sheaf ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... for man and his fickle rejoicings! For whom or for what will our squibs be spluttering a few years hence? Far-seeing indeed would he be who could answer the question. Fashions change and bring us the unexpected. The time-serving rocket spreads its sheaf of sparks for the public enemy of yesterday, who has become the idol of to-day. Tomorrow it will go up for ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... land the children In the golden fields remain Till their busy little hands have gleaned A generous sheaf of grain. ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... your Worship,' said he, taking a small sheaf of papers from the hands of his underling, 'too late to be included on ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... take a look at that knave," the bowman remarked, drawing a fresh arrow from his sheaf. "By the twang of string! I'll swear I drilled him clean ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... Nottingham!" mused the detective. And he pulled a sheaf of telegram forms out of his pocket, and leisurely began to write a message which before he signed his name to it had run into ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... dreadful? In India—a long way off, I'm glad to say—there is a kind of crab that eats the juicy stalks of grass, rice, and other plants. He snips off the stalks with his sharp pincers, and, when he has made a big enough sheaf, sidles off home with it to his burrow in the ground, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... come, in fact, to consider matter as a being separate from sensations, superior to our sensations, distinct from the properties which enable us to know it, and binding together these properties, as it were, in a sheaf. Here again is a conception at the base of visualisation and muscularisation; it consists in referring to the visual and other sensations, raised for the occasion to the dignity of external and permanent causes, the other sensations which are considered as the effects ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... all the different branches of the animal kingdom, from the protozoa up to man, have come along with what we call the higher branches, the mammals; the suckers have kept pace with the main stalk, so that we have the image of a sheaf of branches starting from a common origin and all of equal length. Man has brought on his relations along ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... from a sheaf of drawing which lay on the table before him and which represented the new survey of San Francisco. A boy with a bundle of papers under his arm entered unannounced, tossed a copy of "The California Star" toward him and departed. Hyde picked it up ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... were required of each family, and occasional sacrifices for certain sins or ceremonial impurities. In reaping their fields, they were required to leave unreaped, for the poor, the corners; not to glean their fields, olive-yards, or vineyards; and, if a sheaf was left, by mistake, they were not to return for it, but leave it for the poor. When a man sent away a servant, he was thus charged: "Furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press." When a poor man came to borrow money, they ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... skeleton of a lady's sunshade, Here at my feet in the hard rock's chink, Merely a naked sheaf of wires! - Twenty years have gone with their livers and diers Since it was silked in its white ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... the young children was when he made fuses. Morel fetched a sheaf of long sound wheat-straws from the attic. These he cleaned with his hand, till each one gleamed like a stalk of gold, after which he cut the straws into lengths of about six inches, leaving, if he could, a notch at ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... made us familiar. But, in close and intimate connection with these selfsame agricultural economical proceedings, it is the same body of manorial tenants who perform irrational and rude customs, who carry the last sheaf of corn represented in human or animal form, who sacrifice animals to their earth deities, who carry fire round fields and crops, who, in a scarcely disguised ritual, still worship deities which ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... But that's not the reason why it won't ever grow into an oak. Look here! A sheaf of winter grasses, rightly arranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as a bronze vase of the Ming dynasty. I ask you just one question, How many people do you ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... bloom or dense with leaf Far-shadowing, deep as depth of dawn or night: And all were parcel of the garnered sheaf His strenuous spirit bound and ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... utility of his invention. Every telegraphic station is such a memorial. Every message sent from one of these stations to another may be counted among the honors paid to his name. Every telegraphic wire strung from post to post, as it hums in the wind, murmurs his eulogy. Every sheaf of wires laid down in the deep sea, occupying the bottom of soundless abysses to which human sight has never penetrated, and carrying the electric pulse, charged with the burden of human thought, from continent to continent, from the Old World to the New, is a testimonial to his greatness.... The ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... visits had been such a joy, and although behind his tenderness vaguely she had sensed some change, some new excitement in his mind, in her own absorption in their boy she had attributed it to that. But early one evening he came in with a sheaf of roses in his arms, and when she had exclaimed at them and breathed deep of their dewy fragrance, Joe bent over and kissed her, ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... referred to was a curious explosion of a quantity of shells which seemed to go up in the form of an immense sheaf of wheat. Thousands of small objects filled the air, flying off in ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... love-scene that she won her recalls, over and over again. Above the great sheaf of hot-house daisies I sent up to the footlights she bowed and bowed and bowed again and smiled, and the jewels flashed on her white shoulders and the yellow braids shook at her deep, triumphant breaths, as she beamed out over us all, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... the hazel eyes which had met his so blankly sprang suddenly alive—recognition, knowledge, fear, entreaty, flashed across them in one moment's breathless space—then they grew blank again and Mary Coombe fell senseless beside her sheaf ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... had unloosed a secret fear in his mind, which he had often banished, but which had been returning with great force. As a band holds together the sheaf of corn, so he alone kept King James's army. Apart from him there was no cohesion, and apart from him there was no commander. With his death, not only would the forces disperse, but the cause of King James would be ended. If he were out of the way, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... "slantindicular?" And then the cutting of pencils, and crumbling of bread, and searching for mislaid scraps of India-rubber, and mixing of water-colours, and adjusting of palettes on the prettiest thumb in Christendom, or the planting a sheaf of brushes in the dearest little hand that ever trembled when it met the tenderly timid touch of an amateur drawing-master's fingers;—all these little offices, so commonplace and wearisome when a hard-worked and poorly-paid professor performs them for thirty or forty ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... the room. It was Myra, his secretary, bearing a sheaf of messages in one hand, a sheaf of correspondence for him to sign in the other. She said, "You ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin

... of the Universal Theatre enlisted Paul as an actor, and he assumed the double role of an unappreciated author and a sighing lover. In the first capacity he had in his desk ten short stories, a couple of novels, three dramas and a sheaf of doubtful verses. These failed to appeal to editor, manager or publisher, and their author found himself reduced to his last five-pound note. Then the foolish, ardent lad must needs fall in love. Who his divinity was, what she was, and why she ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... his dramatic glory, and like a ripe philosopher he finished his most thoughtful plays, "Timon of Athens," "A Winter's Tale," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Pericles," "Cymbeline," "Henry the Eighth," and his cap sheaf in the grain field of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... of the Christian religion, including not alone the faith and morals of individuals, but the 'organismus' likewise of the Church, as a body spiritual, yet outward and historical; and this again not as an aggregate or sum total, like a corn-sheaf, but ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... received the first mail in nearly three months and our share amounted to 105 letters besides a great quantity of magazines. Wu had ridden to Teng-yueh for us and, as well as the greatly desired mail, had a basket of delicious vegetables and a sheaf of Reuter's cablegrams which were kindly sent by Messrs. Palmer and Abertsen, gentlemen in the employ of the Chinese Customs, who had cared for our mail. Mr. Abertsen also sent a note telling us of a good hunting ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... most amorous moods, was sung by the monks. Ovid, either adapted or in his natural state, was a great favourite. In an appendix we have scheduled the chief classics found in English monastic catalogues to indicate roughly the extent to which they were collected and used. A glance at Becker's sheaf of catalogues will show us that Aristotle, Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Persius, Plato, Pliny the elder, Porphyry, Sallust, Statius, Terence, and especially Cicero, Ovid, Seneca, and Virgil are well represented. But it ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage



Words linked to "Sheaf" :   parcel, pack, faggot, bale, bundle, fagot



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